Children's perceptions on professional wrestling

Abstract

Professional wrestling has become the latest fad among children and adolescents. There is a concern among the public and school personnel, including teachers, school psychologists, and counselors, that it influences children’s behavior in an aggressive manner. It is also thought that children perceive wrestling as reality instead of perceiving it as fantasy. With the majority of children and adolescents watching professional wrestling, it is important to understand how children actually perceive professional wrestling and if it promotes aggressive behavior. The present study first identified the lack of research that has been conducted on professional wrestling, and demonstrated that the majority of information on the impact of professional wrestling on children has come from articles or other forms of popular literature such as Newsweek. In these articles, professionals make negative statements about professional wrestling without research to back these statements up. Secondly, a sample of elementary students were surveyed to assess their perceptions on televised professional wrestling and its impact on them. These results of the study show that there are differences in perceptions between males and females and frequent viewers versus non-viewers or light viewers. Children’s perceptions also differ from professionals in the field of psychology. Implications of the results are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented. The impact of this research on school psychologists and school counselors is also discussed.