Running head: RESEARCH PAPER TEMPLATE 1
RESEARCH PAPER TEMPLATE 2
Research Paper Template
Firstname Lastname
Argosy University Online
Research Paper Template
Introduction
Methods
Participants
Instruments

Procedure
Ethical Issues
References
Early Methods Section
2
Early Methods Section
Research Methods | PSY302
A01
Dr. Yvonne Bustamante
Argosy University
Tony Williams

27 May 2015
Good work Tony, Please find your feedback attached. Please
open this attachment for very detailed feedback on how you can
revise and improve subsequent assignments. Kind regards,
Yvonne B.
Assignment 2 Grading Criteria
Maximum Points
1) Explanation and justification of research question.
12/12
2) Presentation of hypothesis and null hypothesis.
11/16
3) Analysis of participants exclusion/inclusion factors.
16/16
4) Explanation of sampling technique and characterization of
population that sample generalized.
12/12
5) Identification of study's variables.
7/12
6) Operational definitions for each variable are defined.
6/16
7) Development of methods to measure each variable, and the
reliability and validity of these measures are evaluated.
11/16
8) Description of technique(s) used for data collection.
12/12
9) Description of the research design being used.

12/12
10) Identification of the research procedure.
12/12
11) Prediction of POTENTIAL ethical issues; POTENTIAL
ethical issues are evaluated in terms of how they would be
addressed.
20/20
Organization:
· Introduction
· Thesis
· Transitions
· Conclusion
12/12
Usage and Mechanics:
· Grammar
· Spelling
· Sentence Structure
12/12
APA Elements:
· Attribution
· Paraphrasing
· Quotations
16/16
Style:
· Audience
· Word Choice
4/4
Total:
175/200

Introduction
Aggression among the children and the adult is the primary
cause of wrong and unethical activity. Children are getting
violent and the peers are victimized by the aggressive behaviour
among the peer group. Most of the ill will causes are somehow
linked with or related with the level of aggression and therefore
it becomes important that the factors impacting the aggression
in adult and children are studied and examined, so as to address
the related issues. Aggressiveness can be classified in short
term or long term run. Short behaviour can also be referred as
mimicry and the long term aggressiveness is linked with the
problem of the brain and can be dangerous for both short and
long term (Nauert, 2008).
Explanation and justification of research question
The topic of research is media’s influence on aggression. The
statement of the problem is to research the impact of media on
aggression. Along with other factors contributing to the
aggression the contribution of media is significantly higher than
the others and therefore the influence and preference of media
is outlined in the research paper to critically analyze the
effective involvement of media in developing aggression.
Media’s influence on aggression, the media influences the
violence or aggression of adolescents and young adults due to
ignorance of the measures that should be taken to avoid the
same.
Many people have also put their views on the topic of research
and their views are quite helpful. They have not only showed us
how media affects or develops aggressiveness among
individuals but also helped us in knowing the hazards of

aggressiveness.
Dilwadin (2004) commented on various factors that predict the
aggression and explains the role of media in evaluating the
aggression out. The peer factors and the violent behavior in the
family are the factors that are predicting the aggression. High
blood pressure and other psychological factors are some other
factors that may predict the aggression.
Berkowitz & Macaulay (1971) showed a jump in the number of
violent crimes, after several murder cases. Suicides commonly
mentioned in the media have a greater probability of being
followed by other suicides. Nathason (2003) said that parents
can go a long way toward monitoring their children’s access to
violent media, which may in turn reduce the impact of violence.
Anderson et al (2003: p4), explain that the effects of violent
media have much been consecutively demonstrated. On the
other hand, other scholars (Freedman, 2002; Olson, 2004: p28)
explain that media violence research field has been
mismanaged, and that they show weak and inconsistent results.
There is a relationship between the media violence and the
violent behaviour which had been researched since 40 years and
laid down certain factors that put the people at risk for
aggression.
Presentation of hypothesis and null hypothesis
The hypothesis is an exposure to the misinformation that leads
to distortions of human memory. The media is responsible for
delivering certain misinformation or untrue information by
hiding certain events that are experienced genuinely and even
the details of individuals and places.
Null Hypothesis: The memory of the humans is not affected by
certain events that are experienced, as the details of the
individual, places and things are misinformed.
Media as whole which includes internet, television, etc are all
responsible for spreading aggressiveness among the children.
Children watch violent scenes in television and try t imitate
them. They believe that whatever they see is true, they are
unaware of the fact that there are certain things that are shown

in the television which is not real, it’s imaginary. Comment by
Yvonne Bustamante: This is a good start with your hypothesis
on media and its influence on aggression in people. However, it
needs to be tweaked some to make it more specific so it can be
measured and tested. For example, “Adults who are exposed to
violent media will display more violent behaviour while
completing a task than adults who complete the same task, but
are not exposed to violent media.”
Analysis of participant’s exclusion/inclusion factors
For my research study, I would like to use 120 participants. Out
of these participants there should be an even distribution of the
number of males and females that is 60 members from each
gender. I have decided to involve both the gender as the study
cannot be completed by females only and the same goes with
males also. All the participants of my study belong to the age
group of 18-55 years. I have decided to split them into three
different groups and they are 18-30, 31-44 and 45-55 with each
group consisting of 40 participants. Ethnicity and even race
should be evenly divided among the groups. Yes I would like to
exclude those individuals who are below 18 years or above 55
years.
Nauert, (2008) commented that the influence of media on
aggression is mostly seen and depicted in children. However
there are various factors that could lead to aggression in adults.
According to the research the aggression linked with media is
far more spread to the children rather than the adults.
It is correct that the affect of media is greatly seen on teenagers
as per Nauert but we are conducting a research on mostly people
of the age group 18-55 because they are grown up and sensible
enough to participate in the survey. Everyone below 18 or
above 55 is ineligible to participate. The survey is mostly
focused on the grown up.
Explanation of sampling technique and characterization of
population that sample generalized
Secondary data for the purpose of the literature review will be
collected from books, journals, e-sources, and articles. The

researcher intends to collect primary data by analysing the
behaviour of people and the impact of their behaviour on social
life and social impacts. The researcher will conduct a literature
review using secondary data and will analyse influence of media
on the aggressive behaviour of the people.
Data is collected for this research mainly through the use of
secondary data and secondary sources. Research conducted in
relation to the topic is studies, and the conclusion is based on
the pre-estimated result and analysis. Surveys are also done and
the results of various surveys estimates that media has the
preferential role in determining the level of aggression in
people. The sample generalizes the population as it is evident
that risk factors are related to various categories of population
and can be attributed to various individual and other risk
factors.
Various examples have been seen where individuals basically
children have acted in a more vigorous manner after watching a
violent scene. One such example is.
Josephson assigned 396 kids to watch either a violent or a
nonviolent film before they played a game of floor hockey in
school to create an example of violent behaviour in young
children. The outcome was that they were aggressive while
playing hockey (Josephson, 1987: p53). This example shows
that exposing violent material to young people increases their
chances of behaving violently afterwards.
Identification of study's variables
In the study of media’s affect on aggressiveness we come across
many variables like Gender, Age, Race, Ethnicity, Information,
Misinformation, Discussion, Event and Survey. It is very
important to properly understand the variables associated with
our study as it has a very important part to play in our survey.
Comment by Yvonne Bustamante: In this question you
need to identify both your independent variable and your
dependent variable. The independent variable is the one you
manipulate or in survey research the one that influences the
dependent variable (media). The dependent variable is the one

you measure (a measure of violent behaviour in participants).
Operational definitions for each variable are defined
Comment by Yvonne Bustamante: Okay, good definitions,
the however are only definitions and not operational definitions.
An operational definition identifies one or more specific,
observable events or conditions such that any other researcher
can independently measure and/or test for them.
Example: A researcher measuring happiness and depression in
college students decides to use a ten-question happiness scale to
measure positive outlook in her subjects. In other words, her
operational definition of happiness in this case is a given
subject’s score on the test.
Gender: It relates to the sex of a person.
Age: It is considered as the total number of the years passed
since birth after deducting the birth year and even the current
year.
Race: It is a communal concept that is used for the
classification of humans according to their cultural, ethnic,
genetic, religious, anatomical, geographical, historical,
linguistic and even communal affiliation.
Ethnicity: It means classifying a person as an European
American, Native American, African American or other.
Information: It resembles all the details or the facts of a subject
helping us to understand it more properly.
Misinformation: The information that is intentionally untrue and
is deliberately spread to hinder one’s study
Discussion: It is a conversation carried out amount a person(s)
on a certain topic(s) either for sharing ones ideas or for
reaching a certain decision.
Event: It is an incident or something that happens in a certain
place in a certain interval of time
Survey: “A Method of collecting information or facts as stated

by people. This type of collection of data is called self-report
data that implies that the people have completed the survey
themselves” (Alleydog.com, 2014).
Development of methods to measure each variable, and the
reliability and validity of these measures are evaluated.
Comment by Yvonne Bustamante: What are the study
materials? What will you use to measure relapse rate or the
effectiveness of the treatments? A questionnaire? This should
be a discussion of what type of measure you will use, for
example, surveys, assessments, tests. Then you would want to
discuss how reliable the measure is (does it given consistent
results over time) and how valid it is (does it measure what it
reports to measure).
Gender: Measuring gender is quite a nominal process; we have
two options either male or female. One must note that the
person getting involved in the survey is giving the correct
information.
Age: It is calculated on the scale of time. We have to totally
depend upon the participant that he or she is giving us his or her
correct age. It entirely depends upon trust.
Race: Even the information about a participant’s race totally
depends upon the genuineness of information that is given by
the participants. Everything depends upon trust.
Ethnicity: Well it is generally used to categorize the
participants into various categories like Latino or Hispanic or
Not Latino or Not Hispanic. Trust is an important factor
Misinformation: measured in a nominal point with received and
non received categories. This is trustworth0y as it known
whether the contestants received or have not received
misinformation. It is valid as it is answerable to the question on
participant’s getting misinformation or not.
Description of technique(s) used for data collection.
Well the technique that is used for collecting data is by making
the participants watch a video clip and after that asking
numerous questions to them and their answers are noted down

by using a paper and a pencil.
Some previous techniques used by other people to collect data
or observe the aggressive behaviour of children are as follows.
Josephson assigned 396 kids to watch either a violent or a
nonviolent film before they played a game of floor hockey in
school to create an example of violent behavior in young
children. The outcome was that they were aggressive while
playing hockey (Josephson, 1987: p53). This example shows
that exposing violent material to young people increases their
chances of behaving violently afterwards.
Similar effects of aggressiveness are observed among older
adolescents and young adults. Violent clips make them more
aggressive compared to the nonviolent clips (Jones, 1995: p69).
An experiment testing the aggressiveness of younger adults
where each participant was allowed to blast their opponent with
noise recorded the same results, that the violent ones selected a
greater volume and duration than the nonviolent (Jones, 1995).
Description of the research design being used
The type of research design that is being used is correlation
research. This type of design helps in the relationship between
two and more variable like receiving misinformation and its
side effect on the memory of the eyewitness and the testimony.
A quantitative technique will be utilized in my study.
Identification of the research procedure
All the contestants who will be participating in the study will be
first asked to watch a video on crime that will be of two
minutes. After that they will have to go through a number of
stages. The first stage is one in which the participants have to
solve crossword puzzles, Sudoku, mazes and word search. They
will be given 8 minutes in the first stage. Narrative is the
second part. In this part the participants they are supposed to
read the narrative and they are given only 3 minutes for that.
The narrative version portrays true data and details and also a
variant version which contains the misleading data. Next they
are given 20 questions, 5 of which are from the misleading data.
All the participants are instructed to discuss the questions

among themselves and come up with a single response. Next is
the turn of the demographic questions where four questions
related to the race, age, gender and ethnicity is asked. The
participants are given 5 minutes to answer this section. After
that the participants are given another question including a free
recalling prompt. Next 2 more recalling questions are given for
the participant’s of both the groups. In total 10 minutes is given
for this section. The participants are instructed to continue with
their filler activities if they are left with time. Comment by
Yvonne Bustamante: Good this would match the hypothesis I
suggested above.
Prediction of POTENTIAL ethical issues; POTENTIAL ethical
issues are evaluated in terms of how they would be addressed
This research is carried out by a limited population of children
and adults. Another issue is that as the research is conducted
based on the secondary review and is preceded by collecting
data from financial research already studied on this topic. All
the respondents will be made aware of the purpose of the
research and will be free to take part in the process at their will
only. They will be free to leave the process at any time they
desire, and their identity will not be revealed without their
permission. All ethical sanctions as per university norms will be
obtainedby collecting secondary data and analysing the survey.
Conclusion
Aggressiveness is very common among today’s teenagers and
the main cause for it seems to be media. With the introduction
of portable media devices it has become very difficult for the
parents to keep a watch on their children all the time. Well this
is a very common thing and it should be avoided. Parents
monitoring is very essential. Even schools and policy makers
should work as a team along with the parents to keep a control
on the children’s aggressive behaviour. Steps should be taken to
prevent them from watching violent scenes and acting
aggressively.

References:
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