Developing a New Major

Measuring State and Trait Aggression: A Short, Cautionary Tale.Preview By: Farrar, Kirstie; Krcmar, Marina. Media Psychology, 2006, Vol. 8 Issue 2, p127-138

article walks thru the process of developing new way to measure effects of media exposure - applies what we know about human personality and looks at previous attempts to measure

effects sizes small to moderate when looking at exposure to media violence causing increases in aggressive behavior, past experiments have used lots of different kinds of measures - sometimes we measure behavioral aggressions but some also measured hostility, hostile feelings, aggressive thoughts, mood

violent prime = prime is the media you show them during the experiment, high and low prime = show a clip with a lot of violence, show a clip with very little or no violence, “priming refers to the process by which a mental cue or association can serve to trigger related thoughts and behaviors”…assumes our memory is a netowrk , related concepts cantrigger each other and maybe trigger related behaviors, when one idea is “primed” it connects with other things in the network and it affects how you eveluate concepts and ideas…2 ideas - accessibility of related ideas (depends on how closely ideas are related) and spread of activation (shows what ideas are connected). priming is strong effect but short lived, the more ideas are activated the more ingrained they become, more likely to be activated before other related ideas

aggression based on things we learn from those around us or see in media (social learning) - “each exposure to violent stimuli can be considered another learning trial…and more accessible…..this is why they think we should measure aggression as a state (temporry) effect rather than a stable trait measure…and why aggression is an important short term effect to study (because it has some effect on long term aggressiveness

need to understand the difference state and trait measures

trait is stable, long term

state is temporary effect that can change with new stimuli or go back to the trait condition

they assume that in an experiment - one shot exposure to media - you’re going to change state condition, not trait (our trait condition is affected by our long term exposure to media)

projects that used exposure to media and then measured trait aggression won’t see the effect

trait aggression might be a measure used to separate people into groups - like the enjoying frightening films measure - we need some way to explain individual differences and their basic aggressiveness might be something interesting to look at

hard to measure aggressive behavior - the more valid measures aren’t ethical (punch someone and see if they punch ya back more often after watching violent tv show)

pencial&paper measures (like enjoying frightening films) measure likelihood to behave aggressively (stable trait characteristic)

defintions are important - aggression is different from hostility - measuring hostility doesn’t tell ya everything about aggressive trait or behavior

they created a new measure for state aggression and did see higher state aggression in the high prime condition - items on p. 133 - changes from general (my friends to this person, people to this person, will to would)

Parasocial Interaction: A Review of the Literature and a Model for Future Research.Preview By: Giles, David C.. Media Psychology, 2002, Vol. 4 Issue 3, p279-305

user responds to media figures as in a real-world typical social relationship

showed up in comments in studies using uses & grats theory - companionship and personal identity reasons for using media relate to parasocial interaction

notice it’s interaction with the figure, not identifying with the figure, parasocial interaction is alternative companionship, compensation for loneliness

one study found lower education related to higher parasocial interaction in older people

this paper also talks about how they developed a scale to measure a difficult to define concept - several iterations, used with several types of media - different items, different number of items

some interesting findings - people evaluate tv figures the same way they do people they meet in real life, standard demographic variables don’t seem to be related to parasocial interaction scores

German studies found 3 factors in their parasocial data - companionship (feel like part of their group), person to program interaction (if person was on another program I”d watch it too), empathic interaction (feeling bad for the person if htey make a mistake)

the audience-personal interaction scale (api) - also multidimensional - 4 factors - identification with a favorite character, interest in a favorite character, interaction with a group of favorite characters (these guys are like me and my friends), favorite character’s problem solving abilities

interesting psych related questions - is parasocial interaction similar to ordinary real-world social relationships? similar question asked about online interaction when you don’t personally f2f know the other person (except communication online is 2 way and communication with the media figure is one way tey talk to you but can’t hear you talk back) - some research has suggested that parasocial isn’t a substitute for f2f relationships except with people who don’t find f2f satisfying

studies have found dthat social attraction (could be a friend) more improtant than physical attraction when developing parasocial relationship, person needs to be similar to us (we like peopel who are like us = homophily)

liked the German study that compared ratings for friends, neighbors and tv figures - tv figures sometimes scored higher htan neighbors but friends scored highest

parasocial interaction may come from human need to form social attachments - no matter how remote the connection

media equation - we react to things in media using cues that are related to human characteristics

i’m not interested in the development section (age changes)

types of relationships - user response (behavior and cognitive) to a media/literature/fantasy figure as if s/he was a personal acquaintance, could just like the character (affinity) without forming a parasocial relationship - it might be a complementary relationship, relationship with people we want to be like/want to emulate

to get parasocial interaction character might need to address user directly - like news readers, comedians who break the fourth wall, while other studies show that’s not necessary especially if the character is int he media over time

parasocial interaction enhanced if user can make judgements abou tthe character using what they know about real world people - perceived realism, authentic — but we also form psi with fantasy characters like homer simpson so the whole authenticity angle may need some owrk

need to take into account how the character is shown across media - news readers usually on their news show, but movie stars show up on talk shows and commercials and other movies, and you can watch the movie over and over which deepens the PSI (usually don’t watch news over and over but it’s on every night)

interesting table on p. 295 of social-parasocial interactions - level/type of psi varies with the type of characterlooking at formal and informal constrants  and formal and informal potential relationships. PSI all take place at a distance, are formal constraints, and formal possible relationship. 3 levels of PSI - parasocial but chance of f2f contact (newsreader), parasocial but have a chance to meet the actor behind a tv character, parasocial with no chance of ever meeting like with a cartoon character

on p. 297 a flow chart of the stages of the development of a parasocial relationship - says psi is an extension of normal f2f activity, that parasocial relationshps develop over time, and the role of other people you talk to and people you watch tv with

applications of the model section talks about difficulties in measuring - need panel studies, ethnographic studies to look at co-viewing influences and development of relationshps over time

some notes from the original horton and wohl article

media gives illusion of face to face relationships, illusion of intimacy, sometimes actor seems to react to the audience’s reactions (of course it’s just the reactions that the writers thought hte audience might have, but if the show is good then the audience will be having those reactions)

in parasocial interaction can withdraw from the relationship at any time with out the media figure knowing - they won’t know if you change the channel or stop watching all together

character is seen as a friend, counsellor, comforter, and model, the person comes to believe that he ‘knows’ the persona more intimately and profoundly than others do; that he ‘understands’ his character and appreciates his values

media puts in cues to show/tell the audience how to respond to strengthen the relationship, media builds in ways that the audience appears to be connected - man on the street cameras, co-hosts as a stand-in for the audience

bring up the discussion of whether facebook friends are real friends - some people say no - that you need the real world face to face interaction to be real friends, it’s a way to connect with old real-world friends