The Impact of Social Issue Television Programming on Attitudes Toward Rape

A field experiment was conducted to evaluate the impact of a television movie about acquaintance rape on subsequent attitudes about rape. To maximize external validity, a nationally representative sample of 1,038 male and female adults from three age groups was selected to participate in the study. These participants were then randomly assigned to view or not view the movie over a closed-circuit channel, prior to the network broadcast of the film. Afterward, acceptance of rape myths and perceptions of rape as a social problem were measured. The movie increased awareness of date rape as a social problem across all demographic groups. The movie also had a prosocial effect on older females who were less likely to attribute blame to women in date rape situations after exposure. However, the opposite effect tended to occur among older men. The findings suggest that emotional involvement with a movie and selective perception of movie events may mediate the impact of social issue television programming.     

Physiological Desensitization and Judgments About Female Victims of Violence

Earlier published studies have indicated that exposure to filmed violence against women leads to decreased perceptions of violence, systematic reductions in emotional reactions, reduction in self-reported physiological arousal to the violence in the films, and a tendency for subjects exposed to the violence to judge a victim of a sexual assault presented in a more realistic context more harshly. The present study was designed to measure physiological desensitizatian (heart rate) and to investigate the relationships between this measure and other cognitive, affective, and attitudinal components of the desensitization process. Subjects were either exposed to a two-hour videotape portraying violence against women or to exciting, nonviolent material (i.e., auto races, nonviolent sex). Following this, all subjects were exposed to two brief clips of violence perpetrated by a man against a women. During these clips, all subjects’ heart rates were monitored. Afterwards mood reactions and perceptions of the perpetrators and victims depicted in the dependent measure clips were measured. The results indicated that heart rates for subjects exposed to the violent videotape were lower during the final 90 seconds of each violent dependent measure film clip than controls. Although the violence-viewing subjects experienced no change in moods, control subjects experienced significant increases in hostility, anxiety, and depression during the dependent measure clips. Subjects in the violence-viewing condition attributed less injury to the victims but greater responsibility to the perpetrators in the dependent measure clips, compared to control subjects. There was no apparent relationship between physiological desensitization and later victim/perpetrator judgments.     

Why a Victim's Age is Irrelevant When Assessing the Wrongness of Killing

Intuitively, all killings are equally wrong, no matter how old one's victim. In this paper we defend this claim — The Equal Wrongness of Killings Thesis — against a challenge presented by Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen. Lippert-Rasmussen shows The Equal Wrongness of Killings Thesis to be incompatible with two further theses: The Unequal Wrongness of Renderings Unconscious Thesis and The Equivalence Thesis. Lippert-Rasmussen argues that, of the three, The Equal Wrongness of Killings Thesis is the least defensible. He suggests that the most convincing considerations apparently in favour of the Equal Wrongness thesis may be satisfied just as well if we adopt an alternative principle, a 'Prioritarian View' about the wrongness of killing. We argue that The Prioritarian View does not resolve the trilemma: it too is inconsistent with the other two theses. Instead, we argue, the most plausible resolution of the trilemma involves a rejection, rather, of The Unequal Wrongness of Renderings Unconscious Thesis. In its place, we offer an attractive principle that is compatible with both The Equal Wrongness of Killings Thesis as well as The Equivalence Thesis.     

Reflections Relative to Death,Dying, and Grieving Workshops

Death, dying, and grieving are frequent counseling themes. Developmental workshops and courses, such as described in this article, address the crucial existential aspects related to living and dying.