Did the words “sex” and “violence” capture your attention? If so, please read the following excerpt from Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding (2011).
“**If we humans want to grab others’ attention, we need [to] only say the words ‘sex’ and ‘violence’. **Similarly, in most nonhuman animals, the two circumstances in which communication most often takes place are – you guessed it – mating and aggression. Male songbirds, such as canaries and finches, produce a specific song to attract mates and another to convey the message, 'This is my territory, back off!” (Kendeigh, 1941). Chimpanzees use a combination of vocalizations and visual displays, such as facial expressions and slapping on the ground, to convey aggression (de Waal, 1989). When it comes to mating rituals, male chimpanzees squat with their knees spread to display their penises as an invitation to mate (admittedly, chimpanzees aren’t known for their subtlety). Of course, we humans have our own ways of attracting mates, although we usually call this something more polite like ‘flirting’ when it comes to our own species."
Where is the backup evidence to support the first line?!? Do people really get more attentive when they hear the terms “sex” and “violence”? If so, does this mean that schools should try to use the terms “sex” and “violence” in the classroom to keep some sleepy students awake and alert?
I don’t think anyone will argue that sex and violence sure are interesting, but I doubt they’d be effective for keeping people attentive in class. By the time students are at the point where sex gets their attention, it’s really about getting them to stop thinking about sex long enough to learn.
The two words combined have become a hackneyed, cliched stock phrase that is so overused in the media that I usually just skip over it unless something more specific is offered. (The only reason I opened this thread was the three words before: “Is this true?!?.” “Sex and violence” is so general, and so generally used, that it’s pretty much meaningless. It doesn’t get my attention–it just tells me that the writer wasn’t very imaginative.
No!!! It was your use of ALL CAPS!!! And lots of exclamation marks!!! And And should I mention superfluous and oddly located question marks ?!?
And not for the obvious reason. It’s because people who title threads like that are either fruitcakes, and thus amusing, or they are spambots, and thus need too be reported.
You would have got the same reaction with "Is this true?!?CHEAP ROLEX WATCHES!!!
Where is the backup for *any *of the claims?
What is this claim based on? They reference a couple of studies that show that *some *animals *do *communicate under circumstances of sex and violence, but no evidence that, even in those species, *most *communication takes place in reference to those actions.
On the face of it, the claim seems absurd, at least for social animals. A chimpanzee communicates constantly with its troupe about its emotional state, whether it has food and so forth via body language. Since this communication changes every time the animal moves a muscle, it would seem that there are millions of instances of communication every day that don’t have anything to do with sex or violence, and only a few that do.
I’m not even sure how one would go about *testing *such a claim, it’s so close to meaningless.
I would not have noticed had you not capitalized the words. Not because I’d assume you were a spambot, but because capitalizing words makes them stand out.
No, didn’t attract my attention at all. Couldn’t even be bothered to open the thread, much less be impelled to answer to it.
But, this might be because I am a mature Americam male, and I have become so acclimated (or jaded) that the mere implication of there being either sex or violence is no longer sufficient to rouse me from my lethargic state.
In the Navy, certain misuse of navigational equipment is punishable by Court Marital. I knew this sailor who was sent to the brig for a month for a Sextant Violation.
I can’t really search for cites right now, but sure, lots of experiments have been done flashing up words, and recording how long and how quickly they attract people’s gaze.
And not surprisingly many find that words that tap into our more primitive, emotional instincts tend to have high salience. I’m not sure about a word like “violence” but things like “blood” and “rage” seem to work.
I’d have to dig up the classroom materials from my old mass communication studies, but there is a known connection between sexual words and/or images on magazine covers and reader response. Psychiatrists have even studied pupil dilation in men and women who were shown various sexual and nonsexual images.
As for violence, check out the previews for any random action flick. It goes something like this: big explosion, a long look at the hero, car chase, fight, beautiful woman, witty remark, another fight, etc. Those scenes aren’t picked at random.