Stereotypically, women hide their eyes or cling to men during gory scenes in films while men take the role of comforter and protector. One may wonder whether women are actually disgusted and terrified by the blood and guts or whether they are playing into societies’ expectations that women are weak and need a man to protect them. Are women truly weaker than men in the face of gory scenes, or have they been taught through social conditioning that the normal way to act is terrified and needy?
Ann M. Kring and Albert H. Gordon concluded that women are more emotionally expressive than men (Kring & Gordon, 1998, p. 689). The participants in the experiment were told that the experiment was to study the “psychology of movies” and that their “palm sweating” was being measured (Kring & Gordon, 1998, p. 689). They then watched a ten-minute film while secretly being recorded (Kring & Gordon, 1998, p. 689). These videos were then watched by …show more content…
The independent variable would be gender and type of movie viewed, gory versus neutral. The dependent variable would be the heart rate of both men and women throughout both videos. This experiment could be vital in analyzing female's strength and tolerance compared to their male counterparts. To avoid the mistakes made in the Ann M. Kring and Albert H. Gordon case, we will not have “raters” that could be influenced by stereotypes.
Hypothesis:
Women only respond more negatively to gory movies than men because of social conditioning, therefore, will have the same internal reaction as males. Their heart rate and rise in blood pressure will be the same as the men participants when viewing the same violent, graphic content. Once asked to fill out a self-report woman will follow societal pressures and claim to be more upset then the males.