The effects of viewing episodes of violence on the level of felt hostility among African American college students

The primary purpose of this study was to assess the effect of viewing episodes of video violence on the level of felt hostility among African-American college students at an historically black college. A secondary purpose was to assess whether differences existed among this population with regards to levels of extrapunitive and intrapunitive hostility. One hundred and thirty students divided into four groups participated in this study. The instrument used to measure hostility levels of the students was the Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire (Caine, Foulds, and Hope, 1967). The Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire examines the following five various forms of hostility: the urge to act out hostility (AH); criticism of others (CO); projected delusional (paranoid) hostility (PH); self-criticism (SC); and guilt (G). A video tape consisting of twenty minutes of violence from two movies was used as the treatment. The Solomon Four-group Design, a very powerful experimental statistical procedure, was utilized to control for all threats of external validity. Two groups were treatment groups and two groups were control groups. A total of 48 students were in the control group, while 82 students made up the treatment group. Results showed a pretest treatment effect among those who were in the pretest groups. There was also a treatment effect in which those who saw the violent video registered a decrease in hostility levels. Results also indicated that males on average have significantly higher hostility levels than females within this student population