Science Fair Projects on Effects of Violence

This is the continuation of the project which was been submitted to our Online Experiments Contest.

To see the previous part of Jeffrey's project, read about science fair projects on gender and violence.

Science Fair Projects on Effects of Violence

Data and Analysis

In reviewing the data, I determined that the groups of men and women were similar in age and measure of locus of control. Specifically, the mean age for men was 45 compared to 43 for women. The locus of control score was 109.4 for men compared to 108.2 for women. This made these groups similar enough to safely be compared on the basis of gender. The groups did differ however, on how much violence they viewed in their daily lives.

For example, 78% or men watched violence some of the time, while 22% of men watched violence frequently. This compared to 56% of women who watched violence some of the time, while 22% watched violence frequently. The remaining 11% of women never watched violence. Because the two groups differed on the frequency of violence viewed, it may be a confounding variable and needed to be evaluated later in the study.

The first question I needed to address, was if the subjects thought that they were actually witnessing violence. This is important to make sure we are actually measuring a response to watching violence. Women scored a mean of 7.7 out of 10 on the violence intensity scale compared to men, who scored somewhat lower with a mean of 6.4. This would indicate that women viewed the clips as somewhat more violent than men did.

Once I determined that the subjects believed the clips were violent, I then addressed the question of whether the subjects felt fear from viewing these clips. This is important because fear is required to initiate the stress response. Results showed that 93% of women felt some degree of fear from the films compared to only 44% or men. Given that fear is the emotion driving the physical stress response, gender differences would probably come to predict that that women also would have a stronger physical stress response to the movies than men.

Next, I determined which physical vital sign (systolic blood pressure, heart rate, or respiratory rate) was the best indicator of a person’s response to violence. The data revealed that the most sensitive indicator of the stress response to violence was an increase in respiratory rate, followed by heart rate, and then systolic blood pressure. Both genders reacted with this same pattern whether they had seen the movie before or not. However, many more women responded with changes in all vital signs compared to men, showing that women were much more physically reactive to the films.

There are three possible confounding variables in this study that may affect desensitization to violence that needed to be addressed. Firstly, the issue of locus of control was evaluated. When the LOC score was plotted against the heart rate measurement, there was no correlation. This would indicate that locus of control was not a confounding variable in the experiment (graph in log book).

Secondly, given that men and women watch violence to different degrees in their lives, this could also be a confounding variable in the study. I then compared the degree of physical response to the films as compared to how often a person watched violence in their daily life. What the data revealed was that while men’s heart rate increased slightly (0.5-0.9), women’s heart rate increased more in response to the films the more they watched violence in their own lives (1.9-4.7).

Thirdly, the experimental results could also be confounded by whether the subject had seen the clip before, and this variable also needed to be assessed. The same pattern appeared when comparing the physical change in heart rate to whether a person had seen the movie before. Specifically, while the percentage of men who physically reacted to the films declined if the were familiar with the movie (57% to 30%), the percentage of women reacting to the clip increased if they already seen the film (75% to 91%). This would indicate that women may be more and more physically reactive by witnessing frequent or familiar media violence.

Lastly, I evaluated whether subjects actually became desensitized to violence as they watched successive movies during the experiment. The results again revealed differences between men and women. For example, with each successive movie, men’s systolic blood pressure and heart rate declined below baseline, indicating that they actually became relaxed while viewing more and more violence.

In terms of respiration, men experienced an increase in respiratory rate, which then declined with successive violence. In contrast, women showed a different pattern. Women’s systolic blood pressure declined with successive violence, but still remained above their baseline systolic blood pressure. As for heart rate and respiratory rate, women showed a persistently elevated change from baseline, revealing physical evidence that women may become affected with successive exposure to violence.

Read the conclusion of this science fair project at science fair projects on stress and violence.

What interesting Super Science Fair Projects can you create that is relevant to your life?