Editorial: Modeling and Fantasy Rehearsal: From Self-Injury to Self-Efficacy

Trendy depictions of nonsuicidal self-injury in the media appear to promote real-life self-injury, according to an analysis by Lee and colleagues1, published in this issue. The researchers studied rates of emergency visits to all hospitals in Korea for self-injury, before and after video broadcasts disseminated a song called "Barcode." The song compared parallel cuts on the forearm to the barcodes used at checkout counters; an appealing protagonist glamorized self-injury. The timing of increases in rates of self-injury supported the hypothesis that the song engendered imitation -- that social contagion can be fostered by the mass media. In response to this finding, editorial comment places this article in the context of vast amounts of other research on the role of modeling (a.k.a. imitation learning) and fantasy rehearsal (a.k.a. imaginal practice) as general principles of human learning and behavior. Numerous scientists have documented the role of imitation learning, both before and after seminal studies by Albert Bandura. Research strongly contradicts the "catharsis hypothesis" and supports social learning theory's predictions that symbolically enacting aggressive actions does not "get anger out" or "release aggression," but provides practice that promotes behaviors in the same response class. A large set of studies supports the conclusion that media violence tends to increase real-life aggression. Fantasy rehearsal has been used to produce results similar to real-life practice for skills in sports, surgery, dance, musical performance, anxiety reduction, anger control, social skills, and cognitive restructuring. Nonetheless, the idea that media models and technology-assisted fantasy rehearsal have real-life effects has been forcefully disputed, and thus research such as the present study on "Barcode" must continue. But this editorial declares that the time has come when the available evidence demands energetically and systematically finding, creating, and harnessing positive models and positive fantasy rehearsal methods in the service of healthy psychological functioning. It declares that such a time arrived long ago.