Immediate reactions to TV‐violence by Finnish pre‐school children of different personality types

Children were filmed while watching violent films and their facial expressions were rated from the videotape. After having seen the violent films and after a control film they were filmed while playing in groups of three. The children represented four personality types, aggressive, constructive, submissive, and anxious. While viewing, the aggressive children looked less concentrated than the others, the constructive children showing most tenseness and fear. In the play behaviour, personality accounted for more differences than type of film seen. The submissives and constructives showed an increase in aggressive play after the violent film. Facial expressions while viewing predicted later behaviour only to a small extent. There were no differences between the sexes in the total scores, but within the sexes there were differences between the personality types.