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Social Aggression

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Article Critique

The article that I chose was about a study designed to examine the relationship between watching social aggression on television and the use of social aggression in everyday life. Social aggression is a type of non-physical aggression by which people use verbal or non-verbal actions to damage another’s self-esteem or social status. Martins and Wilson formed a study that involved 500 students from two different schools located in the same county, kindergarten through fifth grade. The schools in the study were chosen based on their economic backgrounds because it was established in the article through other studies’ findings that students from low income families watched more television than higher income families. The students participating in this study were given parental consent and partook in a survey that was conducted with one interviewer per two students. The students in the study were asked questions from two categories; the amount of television that the child watched in a week and the amount of social aggression that they used in a week. Half of the students were asked about the amount of TV watched first then the amount of social aggression used, and the other half were asked how much social aggression was used then the amount of TV watched. This was done in order to eliminate or lessen extraneous variables. The end results of the study were deemed varied. There were four hypotheses stated, half of which were supported as being correct and the other half seemingly incorrect based on the results of the study. Hypothesis number one predicted that the more exposure children had to social aggression, the more socially aggressive they would become. That hypothesis was concluded to be correct based on the results. Hypothesis number two predicted that the positive correlation between televised social aggression and the student’s actual aggression would be stronger for girls than for boys. This was also concluded to be correct by support from means of a simple slope analysis performed on the survey. Hypotheses three and four, on the other hand, were shown to be not supported. Specifically, hypothesis number three stated that students that wishfully identified with socially aggressive characters on TV would be more socially aggressive than students that did not wishfully identify with these characters. However, the results showed there to be no significant predictors of social aggression in girls or in boys in relation to wishful identification. The fourth hypothesis predicted that children who perceived television as “real” would be more socially aggressive than children who perceived it as fictional. The results of the study failed to provide a correlation or support for this hypothesis to be considered true. All in all, it seems that the study accomplished what it was intended to accomplish. The main aim of this study was hypothesis number one. This hypothesis was supported and showed that there is a positive correlation between the amount of socially aggressive television that we allow our children to watch and the likelihood that they will in turn be socially aggressive. The authors of the study attempted to identify and eliminate or lessen the possibilities of extraneous variables many times over throughout the survey and in doing so made for a more accurate overall survey. Although I feel that this was an important strength to the study, there were a few things that I feel could have been done differently to give more valid results. Although it was a good idea to use students from two different schools, I felt that instead of using students from two schools in the same county, or even from the same state, they could have broadened their study by doing the survey in two different geographic locations. By utilizing students from the same county, I feel that they are narrowing the scope of the mindset of participants in the study. Individuals from one region of the United States typically have more similar tastes in television choices and are more likely to have similar views on what is considered social aggression and the amount that is socially acceptable. If students from two different regions were chosen, this may help to generalize the results of the study across the entire population. I think another interesting aspect that was overlooked in this study was the possibility of varying incomes having various effects on social aggression. I would like to see this study done again with students from various economic backgrounds to determine if economic status is actually an extraneous variable. I think that by eliminating this variable, we are losing the possibility that even though low income families reportedly watch more TV, and therefore have more chances to be objected to social aggression, there is a possibility that higher-income families may watch and relate to social aggression more. Another point that I would like to present is something that the authors also pointed out in their own critique of the survey. The authors report that when asked at the end of the survey if the student related to some of the characters on the television shows which were in the survey, not all of the students were able to distinguish who all of these characters were. That tells me that the students were asked questions about television shows that they were not familiar with. If the survey had included more of the television shows that the students actually watched and related to, then I feel that the results could have shown even more positive correlation. Another key point that I feel was a weakness for this study is that although the authors did a good job by attempting to keep the study population equivalent with ratio of boys to girls, they state in the article that at one point teachers were asked to fill out a questionnaire on each of the children. The population of teachers participating in this step of the study was reportedly 97% female. It is not specified as to what type of information these teachers were providing or what these questionnaires contributed to the overall study, but it is reported that boys seemed to have no correlation in regard to watching social aggression on TV and acting out social aggression. I would have liked to have known what the teachers were required to fill out because if it was involving report of students’ aggressive behaviors, the results could have substantially affected the results of the study based on bias that may exist from different views between men and women as to what constitutes social aggression and gender biased views as to how different genders act out social aggression. It is also difficult to determine if the television programs chosen for the survey were gender neutral in their targeted audience. Although it was good that the authors included more than just one program in the survey, it is not known what type of audience each of the very limited number of programs was aimed toward. I feel that it’s possible that if the programs were targeted more toward females, or had more female social aggression demonstrated in the program, then males would have less likelihood of identifying with the program, and thus having less affect from what was viewed in the program. One way to prevent such variables would be to include more television shows instead of just a few, and to be sure that there are an equal number of instances in which both genders demonstrate acting out social aggression. Maybe if the above mentioned variables would have been accounted for, the results of boys having no correlation between social aggression on television and their own acts of social aggression may have been different. With the old saying “hind sight is 20/20” in mind, one could easily pick out problems in some of the best research surveys out there. Although this study did have multiple identifiable flaws in design and execution, the authors did ultimately establish support for what they originally set out to prove. This study enlightened many people about the potentially devastating effects that social aggression in television may have on our children. Social aggression is very popular on many different programs on television, and in those programs it is not always punished nor is it always condemned. It is as if social aggression is sometimes without negative consequences and portrayed as being the “cool” thing to do. It would be very interesting to see this study done again with attention to the various issues that I have highlighted in this analysis.

References
Martins, N., Wilson, B. (2012). Social aggression on television and its relationship to children’s aggression in the classroom. Human Communication Research. (38), 1, 48-71.

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