Experiment Assignment – PSYC-101-502 2025FA General Psychology

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PSYC 101 – Experiment Assignment (50 pts)

 Students will carefully observe acts of aggression and prosocial behavior on television, report their observations, and analyze their data to draw conclusions.

Watch 20 minutes of each of the three types of programs (do not code behavior in commercials). Record every aggressive act and prosocial act. Some categories will have several acts. Your chart and discussion will focus on comparing the following three types of programs you will watch: 1) children’s cartoons (such as from the cartoon channel, Nick Jr); 2) children’s Teaching program can be found on cable stations like SPROUT such as Barney, Arthur, Clifford the big red dog, Berenstain Bears, or Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood; or Nick Jr programs (Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues); and 3) an adult program. Look for a program you think might have lots of aggression (NO Reality show, sports events, wrestling, comedy stand-up routines, music videos, talk shows). You can record/TIVO shows to watch at a later time; you can also find many of  these shows online to watch when it is convenient for you!!

After watching your shows:

Answer the 5 questions below. This homework must be done on a word processor and uploaded to Canvas by the due date and time!

Don’t forget to attach your data chart to the written experiment assignment before you upload it to canvas! The Data chart MUST BE exactly as it is in this assignment. Do not modify it!

1. List the 3 programs you observed and the date and the time. Indicate which program is the cartoon, children’s teaching program and adult program (3 pts)
2. Using the data in your chart, multiply the total number of aggressive acts by 3 for each type of program to arrive at an hourly rate of aggressive acts. Do the same for prosocial behavior.Make a table containing the hourly numbers for each program and paper clip it at the end of your written project along with the data chart or include it here for #2.—you are including a table AND your data chart.  You will lose points for including only 1. (9 pts)
3. Discuss the levels of aggression and of prosocial behavior for the three types of programs by comparing and contrasting what you observed.  Were there differences in the levels and the type of program?  What impact could that have on the target audience for that type of program? (at least 120 words; Include word count). Use specific numbers. (10 pts)
4. What did you learn from this project about aggression and prosocial behaviors.  How are these behaviors more often displayed?  Do you believe the amount of aggression and/or prosocial behaviors you observed more or less than what is often displayed in everyday interactions? Does this have an impact on the model of behavior that has been displayed? (at least 120 words; Include word count). (10 pts)
5. What did you learn about doing research – the process of doing this project? You answer should include a description about what was learned including what things interfered with collecting the data, how hard it was to collect the data, what interfered with concentration, things about the data chart that helped or hurt data collection. What impact would bias have on this experiment? (at least 120 words; Include word count).  (10 pts)
6. Which research method did you use to complete this Experiment assignment? Explain how you know which research method you used. (5 pts)

Grammar/spelling/word counts (3 pts)