An Experimental Field Study

VioLit summary: OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study by Loye et al. was to examine television's positive and negative effects on adults. METHODOLOGY: A quasi-experimental design was employed for this study. The study used 725 husband-and-wife couples who were found through cable television announcements. The research used a combination of matching and randomization to place the couples in five groups. Each group was controlled for income, age, liberal or conservative affiliation, and attitudes about violence versus nonviolence and competition versus cooperation. Because of cable access problems, the study was forced to reorganize previously randomized groups. Thus, the authors noted that the statistics cannot be generalized beyond their sample. Each group watched one of five types of programming: 51 watched prosocial "helpful" material, 45 watched violent "hurtful" material, 19 watched "neutral" or light entertainment content, 25 watched a mixed content of prosocial and violent material, and 43 watched "natural" content or whatever material they chose. Psychiatrists, psychologists, parents, and other groups assessed the material to be hurtful or helpful. Each husband watched the programs at home, and each wife observed and recorded his daily behavior. The men were between the ages of 20 and 70. The men watched television for seven consecutive nights between 7 pm to 11 pm. They were assigned to view approximately 20 hours of television. The research assessed various responses of the "whole person." The study assessed mood with a variant of the Nowlis mood checklist. It assessed ideation with a new measure designed by researcher Loye for this study. It assessed fantasy with the Barron Ink Blots, a series of 25 cards of ink blots which identify people as high or low in fantasizing abilities. The study divided imagery into "plus imagery" ("happy folk dancers" was the example given) and "minus imagery" ("two warriors fighting" was the example given). Attitudes were assessed with a measure designed by researchers Gorney and Steele for this study. This attitude instrument contained Likert scales measuring six attitudes constellations: cooperation versus competition , violence-accepting versus violence-abhorring, racial equality versus inequality, sexual equality versus inequality, personal rights versus property rights, and psychosocial attainment versus material aggrandizement. The research measured values with the Rokeach Value Survey. This instrument measured change on 18 "means" values and 18 "ends" values. Personality was measured with the Comrey Personality Scale. The study assessed demographic and media use with questionnaire designed for this study. Behavior was measured with the spouse observer method using sociology's participant-observer approach and psychology's critical incident measurement techniques. Wives recorded their husband's daily "helpful" and "hurtful" behavior. Each television viewer in the study had to watch 14 to 23 programs out of a total of 149 programs. Before and after watching the participant completed either a mood checklist or a ideation report. The study examined changes in the mood reports on Monday evening and Sunday's last mood report. These changes were analyzed using analysis of covariance. FINDINGS/DISCUSSION: The study hypothesized that television drama has "measurable psychosocial effects" (p.206), both positive and negative, and the effects are related to the content of the drama. The study found differences among the groups of viewers. The mood changes in the violence group showed an increase in aggressive moods. In the prosocial group, there was a decrease in aggressive moods. Using analysis of covariance, these changes were found to be statistically significant. The other groups had insignificant declines in aggressive moods. Significant declines were found in anxiety for the neutral and mixed groups. The prosocial and violent groups had no significant changes in anxiety. Overall positive moods declined. Contrary to other studies, it was found that for prosocial viewers aggressive moods declined as emotional arousal increased. It was argued that popular belief states that violence emotionally arouses viewers and thus entertains them. However this study found the opposite effects using ideation results for prosocial and violence groups. The prosocial group had marginally higher entertainment (p AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS: The authors noted that the fantasy measurement was used before and after the week of viewing while the behavior measure was used daily. They recommended that further research is needed because of this inconsistency. They suggested that several of their findings invite replication. The study posited that these findings are important to government and industry policy. It was argued that they need to recognize and utilize measurements of a "whole person" response to television. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado) Media Violence Effects Television Viewing Television Violence Prosocial Television Program-Film Content Adult Male Adult Female Adult Aggression Aggression Causes Male Aggression Female Aggression 10-99