Violence in the media as a common phenomenon today - Essay Example

?Running head: Psychology Psychology W09 Violence in the media is a common phenomenon today. People are exposed to violence innumerous ways through the media. Some of the ways include television, movies and video games. Children and adolescents are brought up with a mindset that perceives the world as extremely dangerous and violence being a common aspect of everyday life. Richmond and Wilson (2008) concluded that constant contact with violence in the media leads to “cognitive distortions.” The distortions in turn lead to the likelihood of young people developing aggressive behavior (p 351). Earles, Johnson, Liverpool, Alexander and McGhee (2002) also concluded that the way young people are taught also influences the way that they behave. This is because young people learn by observing their environment. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) theory testing offers a way to investigate the problem. It presents the mean difference between several treatments (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2010, p. 394). The study was conducted on young children on a playing ground to monitor their behavior subsequent to watching a violent program. They were divided into three groups with each exposed to certain intensities of violent movies. The first ones were exposed to very little violence, the second to mild violence and the third to hostile violence. The independent variable in the study was television. The dependent variable was the behavior of the children. The null hypothesis and statistical hypothesis that were formulated for the research were as follows: HO: µ 1 = µ 2 = µ 3 This hypothesis reveals that there is no change in behavior as a result of exposure to violent programming. H1: µ 1 ≠ µ 2 ≠ µ 3 This hypothesis reveals that there are various changes in behavior in the sample which result from violent programming. Calculating the effect magnitude for ANOVA can be reached at by working out the r2 because it provides the percentage of variance. Gravetter and Wallnau (2010) declared, “r2 calculates to what extent the results of the study are accounted for by the dissimilarity in the treatments” (p. 417). Estimations of the interval provide confidence for the reader. However, this affects the accuracy value because a larger interval increases the probability that the details would be inaccurate. A subsequent hoc test would be used after rejection of the null hypothesis for studies with more than one treatment. This usually helps in establishing which treatments are considerably dissimilar. For the investigative study, k=3 stands for the condition count and N=15 are the achievements count. The df-total is 14, df,-between is 2, and df-within is 12. With df=2, 12 and 0.05 for alpha, 3.88 is the critical value. Given that the distribution of the F-ration is not close to 1.00, the conclusion is that violent programs have a considerable effect on children’s actions. The null hypothesis is therefore rejected. W10 Correlation is frequently misunderstood as causation. Broadcasted stories feature such news repeatedly. Researchers conclude that an independent variable shifts a dependent variable in a certain manner and they assume that they have discovered a new cause for an occurrence. The news is considered something to avoid because the information on all the world’s negative events can lead to depression. However, this may also be a false cause. Individuals who are extremely cautious and depend on such information discover that they have to shift their habits often. They change their behavior as soon as a new report is released. Due to this, there can be contradictory stories that are spread in the media. When a research is concluded and it is found out that a thing leads to the other, and then another one is carried out to contradict this, they may lead to misunderstanding in causation-association. Causation is defined as a factor directly leading to the other. In order to substantiate this, researchers have to consistently go through numerous variables. They may occasionally fail to identify a variable and this leads to inaccurate data. Correlation is used to justify that several things have an association. It does not necessarily mean that a factor leads to another. In a family unit for instance, a person may deduce that a father-son relationship is causation. However, the sister and brother form a correlation. This is because in heredity, relatives from similar ancestors have the same genes. It is however erroneous to conclude that when there is a similarity in genes in two unique people a parent to child association is also present. Recently, with the fame of mobile phones, there has been a lot of debate surrounding them. Most people think that the cell phone is so sophisticated that they do not concern themselves with the associated health risks. Nonetheless, there are those individuals who pay attention to what specialists say and as such, they do not use mobile phones. Several researches have concluded that the use of these devices causes brain cancer. These few researches have led to the notion that mobile phones do in fact lead to the disease. The argument was first established in a study called Interphone. Patients who were affected with glioma, a certain kind of brain cancer were questioned on their preceding cell phone habits (Mukherjee, 2011). The outcome of the research found that patients who had moderately used the gadgets had minor rates of the disease as compared to those who used the gadgets rarely. However, this finding does not substantiate the assertion. It was also found out that the individuals who used the mobile phones extensively had high rates of the disease. The findings of the study do not strongly support the assertions that the use of mobile phones leads to cancer. This in not only justified by the contradictory results of the study but the research was also based on the memory of the patients. When their authentic cell phone usage data was investigated, numerous inconsistencies were discovered. Several other researches of this type were carried out. Experiments were carried out on animals as well in order to affirm or dismiss the cancer theory (Moulder and Erdreich, 1999). There have never been definite findings from these studies. Nonetheless, the World Health Organization (WHO) listed the mobile phone as one of the causal factors of cancer. It was listed together with coffee and pickles (Mukherjee, 2011). There may be an association between the use of cell phones and cancer. Conversely, this is not clear proof that the use of mobile phones leads to cancer. It can either be the chemical in the components that make up the cell phones or certain kinds of mobile phones that cause the disease. It could additionally be that the people who have cancer have a high likelihood of using cell phones. These possibilities prove that the association between mobile phones and cancer is due to correlation. This may give false results during research. The conclusion reached does not therefore fully guarantee that cancer is caused by the use of mobile phones. W 11 Wolwer and workmates (2005) researched on the effectiveness of a program used for training named Tackling Affect Recognition (TAR) in the enhancement of schizophrenic patients’ capacity to identify facial affects (a widespread impairment related to schizophrenia). The researchers used three experimental groups. The first one was receiving TAR. The second one was administered Cognitive Remediation Training (CRT). The last group did not receive any training, but had TAU, or treatment as usual. The outcome was that TAR increased the facial affect identification considerably, but there were no changes found with CRT or TAU during the research. The examiners realized that practical remediation training plans such as TAR are a suitable alternative for improvement in facial affect identification as compared to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) treatments. The data employed in the study was essential in answering primary questions. One was whether TAR had better results in improving facial affection identification as compared to CRT and TAU. The results showed a noteworthy dissimilarity in effectiveness. In this method, the statistics are an excellent demonstration of the conclusions of the study. They are a precise measure of the effectiveness of TAR. On the other hand, similar information led researchers to affirm that TAR is an appropriate alternative for facial identification treatment than “customary cognitive treatment program” (Wolwer et al., 2005, p. 295).Regrettably, this statement makes a conclusion about TAR compared to all CBT treatment programs. In the real sense, the statistics only judge TAR against CBT programs of CRT only. W 12 Correlation explains and determines the association between two variables (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2009). Two areas that many individuals have tried to associate are the diagnosis of autism and infancy vaccines. Given that the warning signs of autism are likely to become visible at just about the same time as childhood vaccines, there have been attempts to associate the two. However, researchers have consistently stated that there is no proven association between the two. A recent longitudinal research has established that the augmentation in autism diagnoses are more likely connected to the age of the parents (Shelton, Tancredi, & Hertz‐Picciotto, 2010). Parents postpone childbearing until they are in their 30s or 40s. This is a significant gap from the traditional child bearing age of early 20s. This tendency has extended throughout the world since young people are seeking knowledge, professions and personal time (Mathews & Hamilton, 2009). Although the timing of childhood vaccines and the commencement of autism warning signs are similar, their relation is coincidental and not a correlation. Read More