Different Aggression Levels Between Males And Females example essay topic

Abstract EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT LEVELS OF T. V VIOLENCE ON AGGRESSION: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of different levels of television violence on grade school children. Since some studies show that younger children are more prone to aggression than older children. This study is designed to show how violence plays a role in aggression. The intention is to show that violence causes different aggression levels between males and females. The second purpose of this study is to show if there are any significant differences between males and females and aggression induced by violence.

The information on gender difference and aggression is controversial. All the children were mixed in this experiment combined the male and females children in mixed groups. Each group randomly received 10 males and 10 females. One of the groups was the control group which viewed the non-violent video and the second group was the experimental group, which viewed a violent video. Girls and boys who had about the same level of aggression were chosen for the experiment. Two televisions shows that contained different levels of violence were used in this study.

Two volunteer teachers were present while the children viewed the videos. Measurement of aggression will be gathered from each student using a picture aggression test. Aggression levels were rated on a scale of 1 though 11, 11 being the highest level of aggression. The statistical results from group A, the boys who viewed Power Rangers, showed the mean of their level of aggression was 8.4. The variance, the precise measure of variability, of this group (1.64) was a significant difference. Group B for girls, who viewed Sesame Street, their mean was 1.6 and their variance was 0.16, also another significant difference.

When comparing the numbers between the boys and girls in group A, the boys did appear to have a higher aggression level, than the girls in the same group, when they viewed the Power Ranger. In group B, the aggression level was higher for the girls than for boys in the same group, when they viewed Sesame Street. EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT LEVELS OF T. V VIOLENCE ON AGGRESSION: POTENTIAL GENDER DIFFERENCES Violence in the United States has risen to alarmingly high levels. Whether one considers assassination, group violence, or individual acts of violence, the decade of the 1960's was more violent than the several decades preceding it and ranks among the most violent in our history.

The United Sates is the clear leader among modern, stable democratic nations in its rates of homicides, assault, rape, and robbery, and it is among the highest in incidents of group violence and assassinations. This high level of violence is dangerous to our society. It is disfiguring out society-making fortresses of portions of our cities and dividing our people into armed camps. It is jeopardizing to some of our most precious institutions; among them our schools and universities-poisoning the spirit of trust and cooperation that is essential to their proper functioning. In the past years until now, violence among children has increased dramatically. Cases have been reported where grade school students take guns and other weapons to school and use them against their teachers and classmates.

Things of that sort are very much a reality for schools around the country. Is the reason for these acts of violence that children are becoming more aggressive at younger ages? Does, the media have to do something with the increase in violence of young children, the fact that the media has more violence in it than any other point in history? It could be a combination of things, including work, single parents, peer pressures, etc. The true concern is that the media entertains children with violent shows, which are aimed at them. Some networks agreed to place advisories warning before and the prime-time television programs which they determined as violent (Molitor & Hirsch, 1994).

The problem here is that the networks decide what violence is and what is not. The purpose of this study is to establish a guideline as to what is enough violence for a child to watch without increasing their aggression. The hypothesis at stake is that males will be more significantly aggressive that females and the females that are exposed to different levels of television violence will show different levels of aggression. Most people look at television as an entertaining and education iona l way of spending time. Some believe though there is currently too much violence in television and that it is influencing our young into becoming aggressive in nature and tolerant to violence. Children's viewing of violent TV shows, their identification with aggressive same-sex TV characters, and their perceptions that TV violence is realistic, are all linked to later aggression as young adults for both males and females.

These findings hold true for any child from any family, regardless of the child's education or occupation, their parents' aggressiveness, or the mother and father's parenting style. The age in which television violence starts to affect children is when they are 3 years old. Just as soon as they reach their mid-teens they will have seen thousands of violent incidents and deaths in cartoons and with real people according to research. However, these finding are restricting since if these studies had chosen two different age groups, the results would have told us more about the effect of television, videotape and video game reduced exposure across different age groups. To begin our experiment, we must first define what aggression is. Aggression is the first attack, or act of hostility; the first act of injury, or first act leading to a war or a controversy; unprovoked attack; assault; as, a war of aggression.

"Aggressions of power" action. It is intended to harm someone. It can be verbal attack-insults, threats, sarcasm, or attribution nasty motives to them-or a physical punishment or restriction (Scott, 1975). What about thoughts and fantasies in which we humiliate or brutally assault our enemies? Is that aggression?

What about violent dreams? Such thoughts and dreams suggest anger, of course, but are not aggression as defined earlier. While aggression is usually a result of anger (is feeling mad in response to frustration or injury), it may be "cold" and calculated, for example, the bomber pilot, the judge who sentences a criminal, the unfaithful spouse, the merchant who overprices a product, or the unemotional gang attack. To clarify aggression, some writers have classified it according to its purpose: instrumental aggression (to get some reward, not to get revenge), hostile aggression (to hurt someone to get revenge), and annoyance aggression (to stop an irritant). When our aggression becomes so extreme that we lose self-control, it is said that we are in a rage (Berkowitz, 1993). Aggression must be distinguished from assertiveness, which is tactfully and rationally standing up for your won rights; indeed, assertiveness is designed not to hurt others.

There can be internal and external reasons for aggression. An internal cause of aggression can be testosterone. External cause of aggression can be ones physical environment, individual characteristics and it can even be caused by some drugs. Psychologists have learned by experiments that by the age of three, boys wrestle, hit, kick, tussle, push, and pull far more than girls do (Boyatzis& Maitllo, 1995). Aggression is clearly an antisocial behavior to most women, and many mothers of boys sense that psychologists blame them for their son's behavior. But research now shows that mothers are equally intolerant of aggression in sons and daughters and they use the same verbal reprimands and punishment for both.

This is part of a bigger picture that suggests that mothers are relatively sex-blind when it comes to raising their children (Fox, 1977). Should we conclude, then, that boys are born violent? Genes may explain the sex difference in rates of aggression, but the distinct pattern that characterizes men's aggression is acquired from a culture that rationalizes and even glorifies male violence. Boys are not simply more aggressive than girls; they are aggressive in a different way.

They fight to take possession of toys and territory, to compete and win socially, to be recognized as though guys. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of different levels of television violence on grade school children. Since some studies show that younger children are more prone to aggression than older children (Surbeck & Endsley, 1979; Ridley-Johnson, Surdy, & O'Laughlin. 1991). Some studies indicate that there were no true significant differences in aggression for females (Bartholow & Anderson, 2002).

The results expected are different in gender and their levels of aggression with in different levels of T.V. violence. Methods Participants The participants in this study were forty 1st grade students gathered from the University of Texas-Pan American University daycare. All the students were chosen at random. The Pan-Am daycare was chosen because the environment factor would not be a problem in this experiment, as it might be if we had chosen different schools in the Rio Grande Valley. A total of forty (20 males and 20 females) students were chosen at random from the Pan-Am daycare. All the subjects were between the ages of five and a half to six and a half.

At the end of the study, each student was given a $10 gift certificate from Peter Piper Pizza for participating in the study. The students were not told of the compensation until after the study was performed. The Pan-Am daycare was given a donation of $200 for their participation in the study. The daycare was informed of the donation prior to accepting participation in the study.

The only participation that the day care had was provide the research staff a room and allowed access to the students. All the children that participated in this experiment were asked to get a permission slip signed by their parents or guardians and had it returned to the daycare. All this before they could participate in the study. Design The subjects were assigned randomly to one of two groups, one which viewed "Sesame Street" and the other viewed "The Power Rangers".

In order to determine if sex had any effect on aggression within each group, male and female results were noted separately. The subjects took an aggression test to measure their present aggression; this was done by showing them two types of pictures: One a cartoon of Bugs Bunny hitting Daffy Duck on the head with a belly club, the second picture of another cartoon, Winnie the Pooh playing with Tiger. The boys and girls that selected Bugs Bunny were measured to be more aggressive (because of the violent act in the picture). The ones that selected the Winnie the Pooh were measured to be less aggressive (because of the nonviolent act in the picture). Apparatus The groups of subjects were placed in a room that was well lit and with adequate room temperature and had minimum distractions other than tables and chairs. The televisions shows were purchases in DVD format at a local video store.

The television show used for the control group, no violence group, was "Sesame Street Episode 3855". The television show used for the experimental group, the violent group, was "Power Rangers Episode 537", which included an average of two hundred and eleven acts of violence per hour (Boyatzis & Maitllo, 1995). Both videos were thirty minutes in length. Both television shows were viewed using a 64" flat screen plasma color stereo televisions. The volume levels on the televisions were both set at 60 decibels (dB). A fair size room was used for showing the videos.

The room had a one-way mirror, so the children could be under total observation all the time. Another fair size room was used for the first and second aggression test. Room temperatures were set at 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Measurements Measurement of aggression will be gathered from each student using a picture aggression test. Four volunteer graduate students will administer the testing. There will be two tests administered.

A test prior to viewing the video and a second test administered after the viewing of each video. Both picture exams had basically the identical images, with the second test using a slightly different picture. Each administrated picture exam was recorded on video and reviewed by a second person who agreed or disagreed with the graduate student's findings on the student's aggression. If disagreement was found, a third person viewed the recorded video and decided between both choices.

Procedures Permission to use the students was obtained from both the parents and the University of Texas-Pan American and the Psychology department board for each student prior to the study being performed. The consent form explained the study and the purpose of it. The consent from stated that the children or parents / guardians could withdraw at any time without any penalty. As part of the experiment, the teachers told the children that they were going to watch a televison show. Parents of the children had been informed of the true purpose of the university study. Once at the university, the students were broken up into their respective groups.

The students were then taken into the testing rooms were they were each administered the pre-aggression exam. The subjects were first asked to take an aggression test to test their level of aggression prior to watching the videos. The subjects were shown the video that corresponded to the group that they were placed in. The children viewed the video in a group, but were asked not to talk to each others while the video was playing. The teachers observed the children to ensure this was carried out.

The subjects were observed during the video viewing for safety and to make sure that all subjects experienced the same thing, apart from the video. The same person directed the subjects to the room where they were to watch the video. Then the subjects were asked to make themselves comfortable and the video was started for them. The lights were left on and the person who directed them left the room and closed the door.

After the video was over the same person turned off the television and escorted the child where the second aggression test was conducted. The aggression scale was from 1 to 11. A larger number indicated more aggression present. The two-factor analysis of variance was used to test the data for statistical differences. After the experiments were conducted, the children were given a tour of the University.

While the children were picked up from the daycare by their parents, they were each given a $10 gift certificate to Peter Piper Pizza. Results of the experiments were mailed to both the Pan-Am daycare and parents of the children. Also, both the daycare and parents were told which group each student belonged to. Need to fix the information from this point on. Results The statistical results from group A, the boys who viewed Power Rangers, showed the mean of their level of aggression. (8.4).

Group A girls who also viewed Power Rangers, the mean was 6.8 and their variance was 0.823 a significant difference. The same procedure was done in group B for boys who viewed Sesame Street. Their mean was 4.5 and their variance was 0.2544 with again significance. The hypothesis, which was that males will be more significantly aggressive than the females that are exposed the same television show, with the same level of violence in each television exposed too, and that different levels of television violence will show different levels of aggression. This hypothesis is not accepted by your research staff at this time, the following reason is why the hypothesis is not accepted by this research nor is nether rejected by this experiment. The aggression level of Group A was higher for the boys and lower for the girls which are not equivalent with your hypothesis.

Will the results for Group B defer in the finds in that the girls showed more aggression than boys in a show that is designed for no-violence. This led us to believe that there must have been an external variable that is conflicting with the results for group B, or could be that it is a result of a carryover effect. This assessment can only be evaluated adequately by running the experiment two more time to show if the correlation in results is the same or if the results in this experiment for Group B were a result of external variables. Put graph here that is going to be done by SPSS program.

Discussion The first group that viewed Sesame Street was a combination of male and female children. During the experiment of group 'A' it was observed that was of interest was that the female girls that were viewing Sesame Street seem to be more attentive to the Movie then the male boys. The male boys seem more distracted then their female counterparts because they looked around the room more and got up from the seats asked questions that were not relevant to Sesame Street to the researcher that was in the classroom observing. In addition when group B was sent in to view Sesame Street the same observation occurred were the male children seem bored and least interested in Sesame Street. Once the first part of the experiment was completed group A was then shown the Power Rangers.

The complete opposite occurred were the males boys seem more attracted to the Power Rangers then the female girls. One interesting observation was that the boys wanted to imitate what they were seeing then the girls did. The majority of the girls seem less interested in the Power Rangers then the boys. After group A was completed then came group B who was shown the Power Rangers and the same reaction was gain from the boys in group B that was observe from group. After the experiment was completed the subjects were measured in the same fashion of the pictures of the level of aggression that was measured previously. Then they were all let out in the play ground and observed on their actions with each other.

Most of the boys seem to imitate the Power Rangers fighting style of kicking and pushing each other. The girls seem to be less aggressive and played with each other taking turns in the swings and climbing the Monkey bars. I believe there is a weakness in the design in respect to the measures, at least from what has been reported in this experiment, that there is no clear definition of what it means to observe an aggressive behavior: touching, about to touch with the intention to hit, actual hitting or about to hit, yelling or about to yell? Thus, what observers see as an aggressive behavior, might be different than the perception of such behaviors as perceived by the researcher and as perceived by their parents.

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