purcc 2012 - University of the Pacific

Poster Session Abstracts
Effects of Media on College Student
Attitudes Towards Islam
Alisa Gordon, Xaio Xaio He, Nicole Otte
Faculty Mentor: Gary Howells,
Rocci Jackson (Graduate student)
In today’s technology driven climate, media
coverage is crucial to most people’s
understanding the events in the world. Media
coverage can also shape people’s thoughts about
a certain subject, such as feelings towards groups
of people. The present study will examine the
effect of media coverage on the attitudes of
college students towards Islam; particularly, the
effects that some media may subsequently
produce fear towards Muslims and Islamic
culture. Previous research has found that since
September 11th, 2001, fears towards Muslims
have steadily increased and persisted (Lee,
Gibson, Thompson, & Timami, 2009). In the
current study, participants from a small private
college will be taking a previously validated
scale, the Islamophobia scale by Lee et al.
(2009). After the first implementation of the
scale, the participant will watch either a neutral
or negatively biased video about Islam. The
participants will wait twenty-four hours and
retake the Islamaphobia scale. Researchers
hypothesize that the viewing of a negatively
biased video about Islam will not affect the
participants’ scores on the Islamaphobia scale. In
order to test the hypothesis, researchers will run
statistical tests such as a paired sample T-test to
assess the differences between each participant’s
scores. This area of research is important in
assessing the views of college students in regards
to Islam, and measuring the overall effects of
how media can shape those views. Future
research can assess the differences of attitudes
towards Islam in regards to gender, age, and
religious views.
Assessment of Islam group threat
perceptions and values
Dandre Ignacio, Bertha Muro Mora, and
Brian Ng
Faculty Mentor: Gary Howells,
Rocci Jackson (Graduate student)
Analyses have implicated a strong, negative
attitude that Americans have against Muslims
(Freyd, 2002 as said in Matthews & Levin,
2012). Matthews and Levin (2012) investigated
perceptions of value threat from Muslims by
American college students to examine the factors
that contribute to discriminatory emotional
responses toward Islamists. It has become an
increasingly accepted norm that media has a
strong influence on its viewers. Thus, the
purpose of the current study is to examine how
media affects the participants' attitude regarding
Islam after they are exposed to a seemingly
genuine article that presents Islam either
conflicting of aligning with Western values.
Participants will be randomly assigned to one of
two conditions; indicating which article they will
be exposed to. They will be given five minutes to
read the article, then will be asked to fill out a
questionnaire using a 7-point Likert Scale; this
will be assessing their perceptions of Muslim
value threats. This will be conducted at the
University of the Pacific's library or psychology
building. We hypothesize that the form of media
that depicts contradictory Muslim values, as
compared to Western Society, will engender
negative attitudinal responses. Conversely, we
also hypothesize that the article that depicts
Muslim values aligning with Western Society
will produce positive attitudes.
Exploring the Bystander Effect in Value
of Stolen Possessions
Nydia Ramos, Rubi Carrillo, Alexa Zaharris,
Jorge Montanez, Itzel Flores
Faculty Mentor: Gary Howells,
Rocci Jackson (Graduate student)
The current current experiment will be based off
of the study by Thomas Moriarty (1975) where
results showed that bystanders were more apt to
stop a thief if the confederate had asked them to
watch their possession in advance versus not
asking them at all. The current experiment will
attempt to do a similar study, and to further
explore this concept, will add two conditions in
which the value of the possession that will be
stolen is either low (school text book) or high
(laptop computer). We will be observing 40
participants from a small private university in
Northern California. In order to leave out any
extraneous variables, there will be an equal
number of female and male participants for each
of the four different scenarios. The hypotheses
are that those who are asked by the victim
confederate to watch the possessions will be
more likely to intervene when the thief
confederate attempts steal the possessions; and
that participants would be more likely to
intervene if it is a high value possession that is
stolen.
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