The Effect of Conflict and Violent Television on Stress Levels

The purpose of the current study was to determine whether or not the combination of violent television and a social interaction depicting a conflict has an effect of one’s levels of stress. We want to answer the research question “Does the combination of violent television and a conflict interaction cause an increase in stress levels? This study will involve at least 40 participants. Participants will be told they will watch a short video, and do short task. They will be divided into four groups. The first group is the conflict clip with a conflict interaction (CC). This group will watch a 3 minute Captain America movie trailer while both researchers engage in a brief conflict interaction (arguing with each other). The next group is the conflict clip with a neutral interaction (CN). This group will watch the movie trailer while the researchers engage in a neutral interaction. The next group is a neutral 3 minute news clip with an conflict interaction (NC). This group will watch a neutral weather clip while the researchers engage in a conflict interaction. The last group is the neutral news clip with a neutral interaction (NN). This group will watch the neutral news clip while the researchers engage in a neutral interaction. After the interaction and the video clip ends, the participants will be asked to complete the Perceived Stress Scale. Once they complete the PSS, researchers will have participants watch another video (a video of puppies) and debrief the participants. We hypothesize that there will be a main effect among violent television condition and among the conflict interaction condition with the violent television/conflict interaction groups being the most stressed