Blog Number 7

This article “Pictures in Our Heads” by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson was extremely interesting, it talks about the connection between what we see on television and our perception on issues and the world. The article goes into great detail on two scientific experiments, the first conducted by George Gerbner he looked at prime time television and how accurately it depicted the real world. He found it to be completely false in nearly all aspects but also concluded that a shocking amount of people are effected by what they see on television, things like people develop less sympathy for rape victims, think crime is the norm, overestimate the number of physician and had more racially and sexist attitudes. The second experiment was conducted by Shanto Iyengar and Donald Kinder, these political psychologists alter the new contend for three different groups each with their own focus on important issues facing America. After a week the tested individual’s opinions were influenced by the programming and felt their focus issue was really the most important. In a way both studies support each other, the both prove that the messages seen on television create our perception of reality, weather its political or day to day reality. Both studies show that you can change people views on their own world just by what is projected upon them via the tube, scary to think about next time you sit down to watch Spongebob!