This is a good question. I absolutely think if it were an illustration or drawing, it would have flown under the radar with little comment. Probably part of the reason why she made it look so realistic is because she wanted to get attention, unfortunately, she is out of synch with the general population and was shocked the photo backfired.
Think about cartoonists, they picture presidents in all sorts of violent ways, and it is just free speech, no one much cares. It is also not very realistic, of course.
If I were a psychologist and testing the hypothesis, I would not use your design as it is flawed. You would not have two groups shown two different media, one photograph and one painting. You see, in one group, you may have a bunch of hardened photojournalists or doctors or maybe just flat out sociopaths. In the other group, you may have Christian housewives who never watch rated R movies, and Elementary school teachers. The groups would have to be one. Of course a person immune to visual violence would have different reactions than a person who is not immune to visual violence.
You would show one group the same content in different media and you would gauge the biofeedback as the participants viewed both pieces of media as well as ask them to complete a self reported survey before viewing the pieces and after. You'd also have to show them other images to conceal your hypothesis from your test subjects. You'd want it to be a blind experiment, maybe even a double blind experiment and not tell your psychology students administering the experiment what it is you are actually testing.
You'd also need a baseline of each of your participants biofeedback, because some people are more high strung than others.
Now that I fixed your experimental design flaws (I am a know it all, sorry), I would hypothesize that after controlling for similar baseline reactions to visual stimuli, the participants would have a higher pulse rate, and respiration rate with the photograph.
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Geff (453)
8 years ago
"You see, in one group, you may have a bunch of hardened photojournalists or doctors or maybe just flat out sociopaths. In the other group, you may have Christian housewives who never watch rated R movies, and Elementary school teachers. The groups would have to be one. Of course a person immune to visual violence would have different reactions than a person who is not immune to visual violence."
I'm not sure if you are familiar with psychological experimentation and experimentation in the scientific field in general. Typically experimenters use random sampling or random selection (i.e taking random people from the population being investigated) and they use random assignment (i.e. the randomly selected people are then randomly assigned to the groups), this method tries to eliminate sample bias.
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I thought of an additional question for the audience. Would the reaction be different if it were a North Korean comedian holding the head of Kim Jong Un. Similar premise right, a comedian holding the head of a country's leader. Would the fact that the person's head being represented being a member of the out-group (or hated enemy group) have any bearing on the resultant reaction?
This question is really an aside. I'm more interested in the reaction to whether or not categorization as art is important in the reaction.
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PlaintiveMelody (245)
8 years ago
Yes, I am familiar with psychological experimentation and experimentation in science. I know they would use random sampling and random assignment. However, even a random sample can be stacked. The point is, you would have to test only one group of people, because even with random sampling and random assignment, one group may be more easily stimulated by visual stimuli than the other. They may not even know how visual stimuli affects them physiologically. You'd need to test them against themselves. The control would be the baseline biofeedback. The only way you could really tell if a realistic photograph was more stimulating than an abstract representation, is to expose both pieces of media to the same participants.
In this case, the control would be the baseline biofeedback- like exposing the participants to pictures of babies, kittens, puppies, flowers, etc. This would be the baseline. Then, you'd expose the subjects to the photograph and the illustration and find out how the subjects' biofeedback differs from their baselines.
You could not test two groups against each other- it would not be valid. All you could conclude from your design is "Group B reacted more strongly than Group A". If you could say 64% of participants reacted more strongly to the photograph than to the illustration, then the results would be more valid.
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Geff (453)
8 years ago
"All you could conclude from your design is "Group B reacted more strongly than Group A"."
Yes, that's the point of the study. I think there might be a misunderstanding. One group is only shown the photo and the other group is only shown the painting.
I think you are underestimating random assignment and random selection. The whole point of random assignment and random selection is to eliminate group bias. With a large enough sample size and random selection + random assignment we can eliminate group bias as a confounding variable. Worst case scenario, the experiment could be replicated, if same results take place over and over then we can conclude with even more accuracy that group bias is not a confounding variable.
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PlaintiveMelody (245)
8 years ago
I did not misunderstand your scenario. The sample size would have to be rather large to eliminate group bias. Any number of things may affect the group bias- time of day the test subjects are tested, whether or not people in group A had eaten prior to testing while group B had not, the test administrators, even the rooms where the subjects are tested may all influence the results. My design is better as there is a control- the control is a baseline biofeedback. Your experiment would absolutely have to be replicated in order to form any meaningful conclusions.
Testing one group with one piece of media and another group with another piece of media would have no control variable. What would be the control in your design?
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Geff (453)
8 years ago
The problems you propose: biases due to time of day and nutrition are biases that would 1) Affect both groups equally, 2) Biases that would naturally take place in the world.
I'm not making this up ofcourse, experimenters have considered these problems you propose.
As for different experiment administrator: There is always a small degree of influence from this. If there isn't one administrator for both groups then typically experimenters choose administrators that are similar in appearance same race/gender. Also, administrators are given very strict training about how to modulate their voice/intonation. They are also given a very strict script for what to say during initial briefing, debriefing and how to react to questions. They cannot go outside the script.
Control group is not needed for such an experiment. Control group is typically used in experiments where you are trying to determine whether or not there is an effect in the given stimulus. Here you are trying to determine whether or not there is a difference in reaction between the two groups.
Still, you can use a completely unrelated painting and photo. The same photo and painting is given to both groups. If both groups react similarly to this control content that we can further eliminate group bias.
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PlaintiveMelody (245)
8 years ago
I understand the experimental design as you have proposed it, but it is still not as valid as the one I proposed. No matter how large a sample size you have, no matter how large a pool of subjects you have from which to draw your sample, you could still only say "this group of people responded this way to this media" and "another group of people responded this way to another piece of media". As the people are not the same and have different backgrounds, beliefs, political philosophies, reactions to visual stimuli, etc. it would not be very valid.
Testing one group to find out various reactions to different pieces of media would make more sense as possible confounding variables have been eliminated. Then, the results for example could be, "when shown a realistic photograph of Donald Trump's severed head and an illustration of Donald Trump's severed head, 64% of the participants had an increase in pulse rate and respiration rate when shown the photograph of Donald Trump's severed head".
There are just too many differences among individuals to draw any meaningful conclusions from the experiment the way you have designed it. I know random sampling is supposed to control for group bias, and random assignment. It is just not as well designed as the one I proposed.
Perhaps my design does not make sense to you as I often have problems with clarity when expressing myself online.
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Geff (453)
8 years ago
The order in which the images are shown might become a confounding variable. I hypothesize that if the group is shown the photo first, they will formulate a response to the photo in their head. If they are then shown the painting they would mimic the same response in order to maintain consistency.
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PlaintiveMelody (245)
8 years ago
That's a very good concern. That is why I said you would have to intersperse the pictures with a bunch of different images. Also, I think there would have to be multiple photos vs. illustrations to make sure the results are not a "one off". This way, if the test subject consistently reacts more strongly to the photographs than the illustrations, you would have more reliable results.
I think we have gone far afield from your original question, which is if we think people would react more strongly to the photograph than an illustration or an abstract painting.
I think on average, people would have stronger reactions to a photograph than an abstract representation. I would like to answer your question about North Korean participants in another post. If it is alright.
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Geff (453)
8 years ago
In a non-experimental setting. In a hypothetical scenario if Kathy Griffin did not publish the photo and instead published the painting would people show the same backlash or would it be regarded as art. Would the subversive nature of it be regarded as a typical form of artistic expression?
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PlaintiveMelody (245)
8 years ago
I don't think it would have gotten nearly the bad publicity and backlash if it were a painting or illustration instead of a photograph. I think the venue would be important, too. Let's say it was an illustration in The New Yorker, most people would think "Ho, hum that's a liberal magazine. It's what they do."
I don't know if it would be regarded as a great piece of art, but something along the lines of an editorial cartoon.
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PlaintiveMelody (245)
8 years ago
I think an experiment like this would be impossible to execute in North Korea, simply because they are living under a totalitarian regime and have conditioned themselves to react appropriately (according to whatever the state wants). Questionairres and surveys would be completely false, as the subjects would be too scared to answer truthfully. They'd probably say they were horrified at any representation of a beheaded dear leader. But, I would hypothesize that even biofeedback would be false, as they could work themselves up into an expected response.
A few years ago, when Kim Jong Il (I think) died, it was surreal to see on television the absolutely distraught crowds who had been told to grieve. The mourning was mandated, so inauthentic.
Which also brings up the question of biofeedback. Simply the fact that test results show an increased pulse rate or respiration rate would not be enough- because the subjects could be excited in a good way about the photograph, it could be the excitement of pleasure rather than the excitement of horror that produced such responses in your subjects. You'd need your participants to complete surveys about their political beliefs, and how they felt when they saw the pictures (I'd make them complete surveys with a bunch of questions to keep them blind to the study and ask them to describe how every image made them feel).
Also, if you think about it, there are an awful lot of people in the US who hate Trump. So a person who is in complete accord with Griffin, may not be horrified by such an image, or even pleasurably excited. I think it would be better to expose them to many photos vs. illustrations.
The point about the photo first then the illustration is a good one, so it would probably be best to get the person back to baseline, before showing the second piece of media. I think you'd have to randomly assign which subjects see the photograph first or the illustration first.
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Geff (453)
8 years ago
I used North Korea as an example. It could be any member of our out-group, North Korean, Pakistani, German, Chinese, Japanese, Russia; the details are not important, think about only the underlying idea.
A comedian or artist from enemy team, X.
Enemy team leader, Y
(Y's perceived approval does not matter in this scenario, he/she could have high approval and be well liked and not a dictator. Or, he/she could be disliked dictator. Disregard approval for this example. Remember, only consider the underlying idea, not the details.)
X publishes a photo depicting him/herself holding Y's severed head.
In the aftermath X experiences community backlash.
What would the community perception be from us, the out-group.
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PlaintiveMelody (245)
8 years ago
I would think that some members of the out group, the X group, might think Y had undue influence in manufacturing or at least exacerbating the community backlash. It is a natural thing to assume. I am sure if it were a picture of Obama's severed head, many Republicans would think the comedian or artist lost jobs because Obama leaned on his Hollywood friends to exercise their influence. I am sure some Democrats think the same about Trump.
It seems to me (I don't know for sure) that most people regardless of political persuasion think it was distasteful, just like most people thought the effigies of Obama were distasteful.
So, I would say group X would think Y had exercised his influence in engineering some of the backlash. Whether or not Y did is immaterial.
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