The Influence of Media Violence on Children’s Aggressive Behavior in Selected Primary Schools in Westlands Constituency, Nairobi County, Kenya

Media violence and the influence it has on the aggressive behavior of children has been a topic that has raised concern over a long period of time. Despite the numerous studies conducted, there still exists disagreements on the influence of media violence on aggressive behavior. The purpose of this study was to establish the influence that media violence has on children’s aggressive behavior in Westlands Constituency. This study adopted a correlational research design aimed at investigating the association between media violence and aggressive behavior and used survey questionnaires to gather data from the participants. The aggression scale was used to assess the behavioral aspect of this study. The study was guided by the theories of General Aggression Model (GAM) and the Social Learning Theory. The sample size used was 383 children, selected from a population estimated at 83000 children in primary schools in Westlands Constituency and their parents. The study used both probability and non-probability sampling procedures. Data analysis was carried out using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 26. Descriptive statistics were employed to assess for frequencies while Chisquare tests, Pearson’s correlation and t-tests were used to make inferences. Results were presented using tables, bar charts and pie charts. The association between frequency of exposure and aggressive behavior was established to be significant (r = .301). Media content was also found to have a statistically significant relationship with their aggressive behaviors (p =.000). The amount of time spent engaging with violent media was found to have a weak but significant positive relationship with aggression levels of children (r= .146). No significant differences were established between the aggressive behaviors of male and female children (p =.206).