Movies and Conduct

New York: Macmillan & Company (1933).Motion pictures are not un­der­stood by the present gen­er­ation of adults. They are new; they make an enor­mous ap­peal to chil­dren; and they present ideas and sit­ua­tions which par­ents may not like. Con­se­quent­ly when par­ents think of the wel­fare of their chil­dren who are ex­posed to these compelling sit­ua­tions, they won­der about the ef­fect of the pic­tures up­on the ide­als and be­hav­ior of the chil­dren. Do the pic­tures re­al­ly in­flu­ence chil­dren in any di­rec­tion? Are their con­duct, ide­als, and at­ti­tudes af­fect­ed by the movies? Are the scenes which are ob­jec­tion­able to adults un­der­stood by chil­dren, or at least by very young chil­dren? Do chil­dren even­tu­al­ly be­come so­phis­ti­cat­ed and grow su­pe­ri­or to pic­tures? Are the emo­tions of chil­dren harm­ful­ly ex­cit­ed? In short, just what ef­fect do mo­tion pic­tures have up­on chil­dren of dif­fer­ent ages?
Each in­di­vid­ual has his an­swer to these ques­tions. He knows of this or that in­ci­dent in his own expe­ri­ence, and up­on these he bases his con­clu­sions. Con­se­quent­ly opin­ions dif­fer wide­ly. No one in this coun­try up to the present time has known in any gen­er­al and im­per­son­al man­ner just what ef­fect mo­tion pic­tures have up­on chil­dren. Mean­while chil­dren clam­or to at­tend the movies as of­ten as they are al­lowed to go. Mov­ing pic­tures make a pro­found ap­peal to chil­dren of all ages. In such a sit­ua­tion it is ob­vi­ous that a com­pre­hen­sive study of the in­flu­ence of mo­tion pic­tures up­on chil­dren and youth is ap­pro­pri­ate.