Science Fair Projects on Stress and Violence

science fair projects on stress and violence

This is the conclusion of Jeffrey's project. He entered in the Kids Online Science Fair Contest.

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

Conclusion

My hypothesis was only partly true. Men and women did respond differently to media violence in several ways. On a psychological level, women reported more fear than men. However, when experiencing fear, both groups responded in the same physical way. Respiratory rate, heart rate, and systolic blood pressure all responded as part of the stress response for both groups. However, in agreement with my hypothesis, far more women responded with each physical response than men in the study.

In addition, my hypothesis about desensitization was also only partly true. When watching violence in their own lives, men who watched frequent violence experienced less fear and change in heart rate during the experiment compared to men who only watched some violence. Thus, men appeared somewhat desensitized to violence exposure in their lives. However, women who watched frequent violence experienced more fear and heart rate changes compared to women who only watched some violence. Therefore, men became desensitized to violence exposure while women did not.

This was confirmed in the experiment itself in two other ways. Firstly, men who were familiar with the films physically responded less than men who had never seen the films, indicating that they became physically desensitized to violence that was familiar. Women however, were not desensitized and physically responded more strongly to a film if they had previously seen it. Secondly, men seemed to physically relax with successive exposure to violence, because heart rate and systolic blood pressure fell below their resting levels during the course of watching the 3 films. Women however, became more reactive rather than desensitized to the violence during the study.

To improve on the experimental design and yield stronger results, future studies should look at larger numbers of subjects and longer exposure times to violent media. In addition, personal knowledge of statistics would help me to better analyze my data. Variations on the experiment could be useful to find out if these gender differences hold true for teenagers and children. Additionally, other media could be tested, such as violent news coverage, video games, and rap music.

Tip: Why explore Super Science Fair Projects on what other factors contribute to stress in your life?