Running Head: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING AND AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

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. In addition, this literature review will identify the lack of research that has been conducted on professional wrestling and demonstrate 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. They are drawing from research that has been conducted on television violence, not professional wrestling. This literature review will analyze the differences between television violence and professional wrestling and 3 discuss the limitations of the current research on this issue. Finally it will provide suggestions for further research on the psychological impact of professional wrestling.