Science Fair Projects on Gender and Violence

This is the continuation of Jeff's project that he entered into the Online Science Projects Contest.

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

Science Fair Projects on Gender and Violence.

Materials Used

Electronic blood pressure and heart rate monitor
Watch with a second hand for measuring respiratory rate
Clips from the following 3 movies: “Jaws”, “Swordfish”, and “Psycho” TV with DVD player
Pencil and paper to record data
Graph paper and markers
Locus of Control survey

Experiment

1. Practice using an electronic blood pressure monitor until proficient with it.

2. Pick sections from 3 movies that show 3 minutes of violence.

3. Recruit 9 healthy adult males and 9 healthy adult females who are not on any medication, because many medicines can affect a person’s stress response and vital signs.

4. Ask each person to fill out a locus of control survey, as this may be a confounding variable. Locus of control measures how much control a person feels they have over their life.

5. Record each person’s age and gender. Also, record how often they watch media violence as this may be a confounding variable in the study.

6. Record each person’s resting blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate.

7. When showing the 3 movie clips, people should watch the movie clips in different order. This will help determine if they really become desensitized to violence during the experiment, instead of reacting more or less to one particular movie that is always shown last.

8. Show the movie clip.

9. At the end of the clip, measure blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate. Repeat this every few minutes until the vital signs return to their resting measurements. Vital signs will return to normal in about 20 minutes.

10. To make sure you are measuring a stress response to violence, record if each person felt fear during the clip and how violent they thought the movie was on a scale of 1 to 10. Also, record if they have seen the clip before, as this can be a confounding variable.

11. Repeat steps 7 to 9 for each of the 3 movie clips.

At the end of the study, I acquired the following data: the age of the subject, gender, locus of control score, how often they watched violence, their feeling of fear with each clip, how violent they thought the clip was, and whether they had seen the clip before. I also compiled serial blood pressures, heart rates, and respiratory rates.

In terms of the control variables, each person is their own experimental control. Before each clip, the person should be in a relaxed state for several minutes to then measure their resting blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate.

Systolic blood pressure (the top measure in the blood pressure reading) will be used as this is more affected by fear or anxiety. The bottom number, or diastolic blood pressure, is more an indication of underlying hypertension and not fear. These vital signs represent the subject’s baseline vital signs at the control point.

In addition, all subjects were exposed to the same controlled experimental conditions while watching the same three film clips. All subjects also had their vital signs equally measured throughout the experiment. The experimental variable tested was exposure to violent media. Feelings of fear and vital signs were the measurements used to determine if there were changes in response to violence. The results were then separated by gender because this is the subgroup I am interested in based on my hypothesis.

Given that human experiments can be complex and difficult to completely control, three possible confounding variables were also recognized. These variables were locus of control, how much violence the subject watched in their daily life, and whether they had see the violent clip before. These confounding variables were identified because research has shown that a high locus of control and familiarity with the violent event can reduce the subject’s response and may interfere with the results.