Effect
of Manipulated State Aggression on Pain Tolerance
by Richard Stephens and Claire Allsop, argues that a person’s state aggression
correlates with the individual’s ability to tolerate pain. To test such claim,
Stephens and Allsop evaluated two different group’s pain tolerance – one group
was a controlled group and the other was not− based on swearing and video
games. To test the state aggression of the both of those experiments, Stephens and
Allsop gave each person a questionnaire. To examine their first component –swearing−
Stephens and Allsop allowed their “normal” group to react to ice cold water in
whatever way they pleased, but limited the controlled group actions by not
allowing them to swear during the ice cold water experiment. The results of this
experiment showed that the group that was allowed to swear while placing their
hand in ice cold water resisted longer than the group that was not allowed to
swear. For their second component, their “normal group” was given a golfing
video game to play with no extra help, while their controlled group was given a
shooting video game with the assistance of cheat codes. This video game
experiment indicated that regardless of the extra assistance given, the group
that played a violent video game also had more resistance when placing their hand
in ice cold water in comparison to the group which played a golfing video game.
To finalize their experiment, Stephens and Allsop provided each group with a
state hostility questionnaire to test each individual’s state aggression levels
after each of the previous experiments. After evaluating the results of these
questionnaires, Stephens and Allsop concluded that state aggression does indeed
influence or effect the level of tolerance and individual has towards pain.
Youth:
While reading Stephens
and Allsop’s scholarly article, two things stood out to me that shed some light
into my lightbulb. One was the concept of pain tolerance, and the second was the
concept of swearing. Now, I know that most children genres do not incorporate
foul language. However, an important thing to remember is that what is
considered foul language to us is different than what is considered foul language
to a child. With that said, I thought that I would use a doll’s toy package as
my transformation from this article to a children’s genre. The toy package
would be of a doll that likes to be tickled, but will use “foul language” to inform
the player when the tickling is causing pain, and laughter when it is causing
joy. Some examples of the foul language would be: Oww, poo that hurts or Oww, no not there you’re being “mean!” Some more to come as soon as I degrade
my knowledge of foul language. I will leave a link to a picture of what I was thinking
of below, but with a better, more realistic, looking doll of course.
Adults:
For the adult genre transformation,
I decided to only stick with the concept of pain discussed in the article. As I
was reading, the words “ice cold water” reminded me of an ice pack, and the constant
mention of pain tolerance reminded me of going to the doctor. Therefore, for the
adult genre I am deciding to do one of the following: a doctor’s slip, doctor’s
prescription for medication form, or a medication/drug label. I am still not
sure which one of these would be the best fit in regards to the article, but I
do know I want to stay within the doctor/hospital theme. By using a doctor
related theme, I think I could incorporate a lot of the data and evidence from the
article without it confusing readers or lacking sense.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSusli,
ReplyDeleteI’ve read—and heard about—some weird research in my day, but this one might top them all. Ice water, swearing, and golf/shootem-up video games… all in the name of measuring “pain tolerance”? Seriously?
Hey, just because what they’re doing might have little-to-no correlation to real-world “pain tolerance” doesn’t mean you can’t turn this into a badass WP3. ;)
Let’s start with your older transformation: why is a doctor’s slip a good way to capture the essence of this piece? What would be listed on the slip? And how would that be tied back to the scholarly piece? What would you be hoping to achieve with that transformation? I’m not quite seeing that, but that might be because I’m not quite “seeing” the article.
At the expense of sounding hyper critical and curmudgeon-y, feel free to transform this scholarly piece into a college- or grad-level research class on how to NOT conduct research… they’re ideas/methods sound so, so, so ridiculous… In other words, if you feel like the “essence” of this piece is sloppy, random-ass research, feel free to run with that in some way. What I’m kind of saying is this: is “pain tolerance” best measured (“operationalized”) by dumping ice water on people while they’re playing video games or not giving them cheat codes? Prrrrr….obably not…
I think you’re onto something with the younger transformation and how the doll/toy can help teach a kid the concept of pain, but… I really don’t know, Susli. I’m sorry to be such a Debbie Downer, but—from what I understand about it—I think you might’ve chosen the worst research article in the history of the universe.
Maybe you could run with how the researchers were TRIED to investigate pain tolerance -- i.e., run with the whole "manipulating" environments and experimental methods.
Are you considering any other articles? Feel free to email me. Sorry I’m not being more helpful here.
All this said, if you can clearly articulate WHAT the essence of the piece is, WHY you’re transforming what you’re transforming, and HOW you’ve rhetorically adapted to an audience’s needs, you could pull it off.
Z
Hi Susli,
ReplyDeleteIt seems like you have a lot of interesting ideas for your WP3, however right now they are pretty broad. I like the idea of using a certain theme (hospital or doctors office) for the older audience. I have some questions though.
How would you specifically make the doctors office genre appeal to an older generation? All ages of people go to the doctors. Which genres found in hospitals or doctors office are pertinent to older people?
Also, what are the specific age groups that you think you will be trying to reach? Will tickling be the same as the pain or the feeling of cold from the iced water?
I'm curious to see what you choose to do for the older audience because there are so many different genres of writing that could be found in a doctors office. How would you going to put both swearing and pain tolerance in a doctor's slip or a medication form? How would you show the correlation or any vital information about your study in these genres? How would the language switch and what information would you exclude?