Master's Theses

Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

Fall 1995

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Advisor

Thomas T. Jackson

Abstract

The following study looked at the relationship between the types of television shows a person watches, either violent, neutral, or nonviolent, and his/her score on the Character Counts Questionnaire (CCQ), which measures a person's character and ethical values. Subjects were asked to complete the CCQ and rate on a five point bipolar scale, whether they enjoyed or did not enjoy watching the selected television shows. While using the CCQ, several problems were found and changes were made to overcome them. The most prevalent problem was that the original scoring method was so rigid it did not give a reflective measure of the person's character. In order to derive a more reflective measure of the subject's character an alternate scoring method was implemented. Results from both scoring methods were analyzed and discussed. It was hypothesized that the results would show a negative correlation between the CCQ scores and the enjoyment of violent television shows, as well as a positive correlation between the CCQ scores and the enjoyment of both nonviolent and neutral television shows. The Pearson product-moment correlation was used to measure the relationships. The results using both the original and alternate scoring supported the hypothesis of a negative correlation between the CCQ scores and the enjoyment of violent television shows, but did not support the hypotheses of a positive correlation between the CCQ scores and the enjoyment of both nonviolent and neutral television shows. This study also tested whether males would have lower scores than females, regardless of age, whether older subjects would have higher scores than younger subjects, regardless of gender, and whether young males would have the lowest scores as compared to old males and young or old females. A 2 (Age Group) x 2 (Gender) ANOVA was used to analyze the hypotheses. Using the original scoring, no significant differences were found between the groups. However, using the alternate scoring significant differences did arise. Males had significantly lower scores than females, regardless of age, older subjects had significantly higher scores than younger subjects, regardless of gender, and young males had the lowest scores as compared to old males and young or old females.

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Rights

© 1995 Keri Lynn Phillips

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