Horror movies for years have been the forerunner in violence. They are the essence of violence in the media on a grand scale. Whether violence has an adverse impact on us psychologically or not, it must be assumed that it has some impact on us somehow. Art Silverblatt (1995) argues that media violence cannot be said to have a direct impact on viewer actions but that such messages (from violence) reinforces that the world is a violent and generally unsafe place, an effective solution to problems, that violence is safe, glamorous, gratifying and often has no apparent consequences. In a study done by Howard Berenbaum (1993) the relationship between the ability to identify one's emotions and the kinds of emotion-arousing experiences that people prefer. He determined that subjects having a difficulty identifying their emotions were more likely that those without such difficulty, to prefer negatively valenced movies relative to positively valenced movies. This study showed that one's emotions are a contributing factor in the type of outlets we choose to spend our time when not working, but rather relaxing or doing what we assume relaxing. Some people enjoy watching violent movies don't feel that just because they watch them it will cause them to be violent also. A study dealing with this topic was done by Gelkopf, Kreitler and Sigal (1993). They explored the therapeutic affects of humor on hospitalized schizophrenics. They found that the group viewing humorous movies only resulted in a reduction of perceived verbal hostility, anxiety and depression. The results from this study seem to show that positive, more mild movies seem to have a positive effect on us psychologically. Much of the research that has dealt with this topic seem to be focused on one side, either positive movies and their outcomes, or the possible negative outcomes of subjects viewing negative movies. There are few studies that compare two groups, one viewing positively valence movies and another group watching negatively valenced movies. The physiological responses of the two groups could be looked at to see whether or not there is a difference in them. By doing this, we could trace the beginning of the cycle of effects that violence has on individual, possibly leading to violence that that individual will exert. Most of the studies to this time have not dealt precisely with physiological responses to these such factors. The physiological responses could play an important role in determining the individual's responses to stimuli that is negative. This information could prove useful in the future in detecting a person's vulnerability to violence. Other outside factors will, of course be playing an important role also and these are hard to keep out. The two studies explained before are examples of how this information could be used in a positive way to help increase the difficult understanding about the mind and how it effects us. Gender could play a role in the interaction, and will be looked at in some detail for comparison.

In this study, I will attempt to establish a relationship between increased physiological responses and viewing movies with violence and a no change or decreased level of physiological responses to those that view nonviolent movies. Gender differences will be looked at also to compare different groups and their responses.

PARTICIPANTS
In this study, I examined the physiological responses of two groups of subjects. This information was recorded on a paper questionnaire (see appendix). Approximately 41 subjects, from two psychology courses in Northwest Missouri were used. The groups were comprised of both male and females, 31females, 10 males. The ages of the individuals varied, from 18 and higher. The group viewing the violent movie clip was warned beforehand that they would be viewing violence and that they could exit the experiment at any time.

MATERIALS
The materials used this experiment were a pencil/paper questionnaire (see appendix), two videotapes, a television, thermometers and a videocassette recorder. The movies that were viewed are the motion pictures Sream and Forrest Gump.

PROCEDURE
The procedure in the experiment went as follows: one group recorded their sex, starting temperature, starting pulse, and stress level from 0-100. They were shown how to take a proper pulse. The "violence" group then viewed the opening clip from the Scream movie. The Scream group was warned beforehand that they would be viewing some violent acts and were free to exit the experiment at any time. After viewing the clip, they then recorded a second temperature, pulse and stress level. The other group not viewing the violent movie followed the same procedures but did not of course view the violent movie. They viewed a clip from the movie Forrest Gump, lasting approximately the same amount of time. After each session, the participants were able to ask any questions and make any comments.

A second ANOVA was calculated comparing the effects of the movie watched and sex of the person on stress. The main effect for movie watched was significant (F(1,36)=.000,p<.05). There was no significant main effect for sex of the subject (F(1,36)=.512,p>.05). There was also no interaction between the two (F(1,36)=.996,p>.05). Thus, the movie watched did have a significant effect of stress. The sex of the subject did not have an effect on the stress.

A third ANOVA was calculated comparing the effects of movie watched and sex of the person on pulse rates. The main effect for the movie watched was found to be significant (F(1,36)=.000,p<.05). There was also a main effect found for the sex of the subject (F(1,36)=.020,p<.05). Thus, the sex and the movie type did have an effect on the pulse levels of the subjects.

The temperature of the males that viewed the movie Forrest Gump had an increase in temperature that averaged 2.5. Females that viewed Forrest Gump had an increase of 2.56 degrees. The males that viewed Scream had a decrease in temperature by an average of 1.2 degrees, while the females dropped 1.7 degrees.

The stress levels of the males that viewed Forrest Gump had a decrease in stress by an average of 6.25, while the females that viewed it had a decrease average of 4.34. The males that watched Scream had an increase in stress of 6.0 for males, and 7.87 for females.

The pulse rates for males that viewed Forrest Gump had a decrease in pulse of 7.0, females 2.73. The males that viewed Scream had an increase in pulse of an average of 3.8, females 10.62. Females had a far greater increase in their pulse rates after viewing the violent movie.

Gelkopf, M. Kreitler, S. Sigal, M. (1993). Laughter in a psychiatric ward: Somatic, emotional, social and clinical influences on schizophrenic patients. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 181, 283-289.

National Coalition on TV Violence (June-August 1991), Violence in Cartoons Increases. NCTV News,12, 7.

Silverblatt, A. (1995). Media Literacy: Keys to Interpreting Media Messages. Praeger:London, 278.

Sex (circle one only) M F

Starting temperature _____

Starting pulse _____

Stress level (0-100) _____

Now record the following information after viewing the short video clip.

Second temperature _____

Second pulse _____

Second stress (0-100) _____

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