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Does anybody actually find life to be easy? Does everybody feel like that have a purpose in their lives? Everybody struggles with something in life. Some struggles may be harder to get through than others. These struggles can be from small homework assignments to clinical depression. To counter or battle these struggles, people need to find an outlet to help relieve some of these hardships. Some people find very unhealthy outlets such as over excessive drinking and heavy drug use. These outlets eventually just worsen the original struggles. Today, I have a healthier option to bear these hardships: participating in a religious institution. There are many forms of religious institutions, but all of them have some positive health behaviors. If more people begin attending a religious institution, there would also be a healthier society overall. Attending a religious institution will help increase personal wellness, decrease crime rates, and decrease the rates of depression and suicide.
One can result with an increase in personal wellness by attending a religious institution. Many find that when they attend, they feel relaxed and overall better about themselves. According to L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology, in his Religious Influence in Society, attending a service of an institution can strengthen one’s “own basic spiritual nature, self-respect, and peace of mindset.” Being able to release some of the everyday tensions can be very helpful to focus on the hardships at hand. There has even been research done on the stress levels of a sample of people who attend a house of worship. According to Anxiety Centre’s Want To Reduce Stress And Live Longer? Go To Church!, people who go to a religious institution “…had lower stress overall. And as attendance increased, so did the benefits of better health.” So the more times one goes, the higher the health benefits for them. If more people decide to go to a house of worship, then the higher the health benefits and the lower the rates of illness for the community as a whole.
Another way involvement with a religious institution improves the society is by the decrease in crime rates. Many issues within our society could be resolved if there was higher attendance in religious areas. People lose their lives daily due to crimes. According to L. Ron Hubbard’s article, Religious Influence in Society, “the lowering of church attendance in the United States coincided with a rise in pornography and general immorality, and an increase in crime…” If attendance goes up, then crime rates will decrease, and lives will be saved. Even if one isn’t into developing a religious life, one should work on meditation and focusing on their morals.
One final way that religious institutions can affect the society would be how it decreases the rates of depression and suicide. This is the most important factor that is a result of attendance of religious institutions. According to Mr. Patrick Fagan’s article, Why Religion Matters: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability, church “…attendance predicts the suicide rate better than any other factor.” The article also described how the previous study also included unemployment, which is another major factor for suicide. Depression is also decreased from attendance of religious institutions. According to the same article from Mr. Patrick Fagan, Texas high schoolers found to have “…religious beliefs gave meaning to their lives and reduced the incidence of depression among them.” So from having religious beliefs, people find meaning in their lives, which helps them realize their impact on others. That person who commits or thinks about committing suicide could be the next Albert Einstein, the next MLK, or the person who only influences that one person in a minor way. Though without that person, their impact would never lay its print on the Earth.
Even after explaining the pros of attending religious institutions, I know there are still some who believe that the cons outweigh the pros. One of the top excuses people use for not going to or participating in religious practices is that it takes up too much time. If that is an excuse you have at mind, please think back to the following question: Do you truly have a purpose to live in your life? Do you live for somebody-your significant other, your parents, your siblings, your friends, your community? As humans, we long for hope. We are always looking for something more. Even if you don’t want to participate in the religious aspects of the institution, at least spend the time in reflection of the people who mean the most to you in your life. If you don’t attend or participate in any religious practices, what if your current purpose for living dies or leaves? Where would you place your hope then? Wouldn’t you think spending time in reflection for hope in your life is important? It sounds fairly important to me. Please consider spending time in reflection for all of the people you have encountered in your life and how much they mean to you.
Through the impactful changes of wellness, crime rates, and suicide and depression; the society will heal over time. Our world struggles more and more every day as hardships become harder and harder to get through each day. If we can heal the pain little by little by focusing more on our own morals and taking time out of the day to think of others, our world will heal.

Rob Garner

The report here asserts that businesses usually earn money by using sexual and violent ads in order to make consumers more likely to buy their products. The basis of their research stems from things such as film, TV, and video game sales data from the last decade. The researchers point out the majority of movies that generated the most revenue were usually PG-13 or above and rated specifically for having sexual or violent content. The same can be said for TV programs and video games with the top 100 TV shows from the last decade being rated at TV-14 to TV-MA for graphic content – specifically sexual and violent. Finally, the top grossing video games of the last several years were rated T (ages +13) or M (ages +17) once again for violent and sexually explicit content.

A second stipulation of the article is that most sexual and violent ads are usually targeted toward the young adult population, defining them as being the group most likely to be disposable with their money. This is also done due to the belief that young adults will be more susceptible to these forms of advertising. This type of advertising increases especially on prime time programs such as sports commercials, or during major programming such as The Voice, AGT, or any other show that would promise a high viewership.

The final argument of the piece claims that humans will react naturally to violent or sexual stimuli. The article utilizes an example from a study where a group of people were presented with a crime scene where a gun was involved and they were also given the criminal’s face. The people involved in this study were more likely to remember the type of gun over the criminal’s face whereas people presented with a similar situation where there was no gun at the scene were able to recall the perpetrator’s face much more clearly.

When all the data is brought together and analyzed, it would seem as though sex and violence really have no effect on consumers. The data began to fluctuate when the advertising is broadcast to a wider range of an audience. The numbers revealed that when sexual and violent advertising is broadcast to a larger crowd, people seem to be less interested in the ad itself and won’t buy the product. It’s also been noticed that using sexual and violent imagery to advertise in something that is violent and sexual and about something violent and sexual, will seriously damage the chances that someone will buy the product.  Granted, the movies, TV, and video games don’t support this, but when you look at them objectively, sex and violence are just in them. Most video games that are released today have violence in some form or another and occasionally something slightly provocative, and that’s just the norm. As far as movies and TV shows go, you need violence and romance nowadays in order to keep the stories compelling for the viewers. Plus, when it comes down to it, most people are smart enough to know when to separate what they see on advertisements from the real world.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter how you choose to advertise a product, TV show, movie, or video game. Sex and Violence won’t necessarily sell, but they do have an impact on how your final sales will turn out. If you make the sex and violence the main focus of your product, then you are definitely going to lose business. On the other hand, if you make the product about something else, but keep the sexual and violent themes as a backdrop to the narrative, then there is a higher possibility the product will sell.

For this piece I’m assuming the target audience would be largely parents of children who are worried about the ads they are seeing negatively affecting their children to think sex and violence are a societal norm. My thoughts went this way when I began to think about why adults would need to worry over the amount of sexual and violent content in things such as ad campaigns or TV commercials.  In terms of reporting the research, I’m putting this out in order to show that sex and violence in terms of ads have no effect whatsoever on people’s’ memory and intentions to buy a product. The research here proves that most people are able to separate the product from the content of the ad and don’t seem to act upon the imagery in the commercial whatsoever.

The research into the climate change perception, observation and policy support in rural Nevada between non-native ranchers, Native Americans, and mainstream America is relevant because the differing opinions on the rate of climate change and the existence of climate change can heavily impact our environment in the near future. Climate change has an extreme and heavy impact on the whole planet, not just the U.S. or the state of Nevada. The research found in the study can cover the arid and semi-arid climates in our country as well. (Smith, et al. 101)
Between the ranchers and the native tribes, the Native American tribes are more inclined to admit and believe that climate change is taking place. As stated in the introduction of the article: “Major climate change surveys have been conducted in the U.S. in the last twenty years.” (101). In the study conducted, about 60% of Nevada’s farmers believe we are in a period of climate change compared to the 100% of environmental managers for the native American tribes. Both groups, the rancher-farmers (RF) and the environmental managers (EM), are noted to have similar education and major land and water management responsibilities. RFs are much less inclined to believe in climate change compared to the tribes, according to a t-test conducted between the two groups (Smith, et al. 106).
The researchers for this article were looking into the adverse effects a lack of knowledge about climate change can have upon the population of rancher-farmers, Native Americans, and the mainstream Americans in our country. The purpose in reporting this research is educating and eventually reversing the effects of climate change before we cause irreversible damage to the planet and its ecosystem. The researchers were inspired to perform the study to educate the public on the true hazards of climate change in our country. As exemplified by the numerous studies and polls performed in the article, the rancher-farmers are the group that least believes that climate change is an extremely important priority. “RF responses at a personal scale were a mere 25% very to extremely important…” (Smith, et al. 109). On the opposite spectrum, 93% Native Americans were reported to “find it a high to top priority at the national scale.” (Smith, et al. 109)
The researchers were also looking to see how the awareness of climate change among Americans had evolved in the past twenty years. From 1989, the percentage rose from 70% to 92% in 2003 (Smith, et al. 108). The methods used to draw up the conclusions for this article stem from numerous surveys and videos given to the public, the rancher-farmers, and Native Americans. The main conclusions they’ve come to (through the results in the article) that most rancher-farmers, when compared to Native Americans, tend to not believe that climate change is occurring.
The article very limitedly explains about the Native Americans’ beliefs in the topic, only mentioning them in the beginning pages, then disincluding them for the later portions of the paper. However, it goes into detail about the different factors for the types of perception the different types of people have about climate change. For example, this figure differs when political views, religious views, education, gender, and age are factored in. More Democrat and left-leaning rancher-farmers tend to believe in climate change than their Republican counterparts. Female RFs are more knowledgeable about climate change and exhibit more concern for the topic than male rancher-farmers. Roughly about ¾ of rancher-farmers are unsure that climate change will impact them or that it will even occur (Smith, et al. 119). Meanwhile, Native Americans observe about an 86% decrease in snow packs, a 79% earlier runoff period, and 75% increased temperatures. Religious beliefs among Native Americans assist the climate change policy as well.
The perception of climate change is ultimately larger in today’s times than in the past. More female RFs are inclined believe and have scientifically accurate facts about it versus the men. More Native Americans and EMs believe in the climate change policy than the average, mainstream American. According to the research article entitled, “Climate Change Communication” from Yale and the George Mason University:

“Our latest national survey finds that a large majority of Americans think global warming is happening, outnumbering those who don’t by 5 to 1. Americans are also growing more certain that global warming is happening. Certainty has increased 12 percentage points in the past 3 years, with 49% of the public now “extremely” or “very sure” that global warming is happening.” (Leiserowitz, et al. para 1)

Because of the information presented to us by the article, it is clear that many Americans have begun to believe in climate change. Similarly, the Native Americans have also begun to acknowledge the climate changes occurring in the United States. The last group to begin realizing the extremity of climate change in our country, are the rancher-farmers. The results show that we must focus on assisting the research further into this topic with the Native-American tribes. For the ranchers, we must work on bridging the gap of correct and factual information between both genders. Between the three groups, climate change is only beginning to become a well-known larger issue that spans all groups of people; male, female, Native-American, rancher-farmer, and the rest of the country.

Works Cited:

Smith, William James, et al. “Climate Change Perception, Observation and Policy Support in Rural Nevada: A Comparative Analysis of Native Americans, Non-Native Ranchers and Farmers and Mainstream America.” Environmental Science & Policy, vol. 42, 5 July 2014, pp. 101–122., doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2014.03.007.
Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., Rosenthal, S., Cutler, M., & Kotcher, J. (2017). Climate change in the American mind: March 2018. Yale University and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

Over the span of time, changes have been evident. There has been an obvious advance in technology, communication, and language. These are all a big part of our culture; a huge part of who we are as human beings. And within all of this evolution and advance in our culture, there is a subsystem that controls our behavior without us even realizing it. One way that this can be evident is through advertisement. We as c collective do not realize that the things that we see and hear over and over unconsciously control and influence some of the choices that we make every day. This could also affect and develop our character and how we act towards others. Different things can affect us either in a good or a bad way. This is what Robert Lull and Brad J. Bushman were studying. They believed that the inclusion of sex and violence in different types of advertisements have a small but negative effect on the people of which the commercial is shown.  

       By looking at the way that the world is today and the way that the media uses sexual references, the study seemed to show the exact opposite results. To conduct the experiment Lull and Bushman compared sexual ads, violent media, violent ads, and sexual media to see the various effects it had on the people that watched them. They did this experiment 53 times on 8,489 participants. They wanted to test and measure the brand memory, attitude the customer had toward the brand and buying intentions of the customer. In the experiment, Lull and Bushman showed different commercials to the different groups of people. They showed an assertion between commercials that are positive and the commercials that had sex or violence related to it.   They showed these different commercials and ads to the control group of people. After the commercials were shown, they asked the people which commercial they remembered the best. Lull and Bushman also asked which commercial made a good impact on each individual. Then they asked which product would they buy after seeing the ads. This was the information needed to show the data of the buyer’s intention.

After the experiments were conducted the results that came back were similar to the hypothesis in the beginning. Overall, negative media ended up having a negative effect on the audience of which it was being presented to.  Violent media tended to be remembered much less than media without it. Different people from the experiment reported feeling “uncomfortable” with images being displayed. Therefore this will also bring down the likeliness of the product being purchased. Nonviolent ads were valued much more. They were seen as more appealing and professional. When a commercial didn’t have anything related to violence in it, inappropriate slang, or vulgar language, it was more likely for the recipient to retain the information that they were being shown. I also showed that people tended to actually watch the commercial.  Also on the sexual side of the study shows that as the intensity of the sexual content in an ad increases, then the positive attitude toward the ad decreases and have lower buying intentions. A lot of times, the intensity of the sexual content turns people away. They don’t feel comfortable watching it and so they don’t retain the information. In most cases, they didn’t even finish the commercial.  Again, if the commercial is not remembered then the product will not be bought and in the end, the company loses its audience.

         This study initially showed the problem with incorporating sexual innuendos and violence into commercials. The effect of injecting these negative influences into something like television, something we watch and see every day, it has an overall negative effect on different people in different ways. One prominent group or factor that went into this was the age of the participants. After the experiment, the data showed that people of older age had the most problems with the incorporation of sex and violence in commercials and ads. Most of the older generation had children. A key point that was consistent across the board was the children. A parent is not going to want their children seeing and hearing negative influences from television. They want to be able to feel that their children are safe to watch television without having to worry about negative influences or inappropriate language or images. Another factor of age was the cultural aspect. The older generation found that the ads were offensive and they didn’t want to see them at all.  

         Gender also played a large part in the experiment. In the study, there was a higher percentage of brand memory impairment among the men when it came to the sexual content. However, when it came to the commercials with violence, males were more likely to engage in aggressive behavior. A common theory is that males would be more drawn to, or have more interest in physical attractiveness. So, it made sense that they had memory impairments.

         After looking at all of the data and the effect that it had on people, one can see how much we are influenced by media. Companies are always trying to get our attention, and sometimes they use unorthodox approaches to do so. I don’t think that we could ever reach a point where we wouldn’t be influenced by the images and media that we are faced with. However, I think that it is better to be more aware of what is going on and how it could affect us as individuals. We should not condone sex and violence to be incorporated in our media. It is a different time and that sell tactic does not have the same effect that it did back in the day. But the media will continue to work as it has been; there is not much we can do. But we can be aware of what we are watching and how it influences us.

Combatting stress is becoming more and more relevant in our daily lives. Stress has various negative effects including, depression, anxiety, and decreased academic performance in the case of students. Stress, however, is a naturally difficult condition to cure due it being that it varies from person to person. College students in particular are at high risk of elevated stress levels due to homework, studying, and many other factors. It is also noted that many college-age students who suffer from increased stress do not seek help whether it be out of fear or out of pride. Because of this, researchers have been conducting studies trying to find new, but effective, ways to deal with elevated stress in a way that college students would feel comfortable with. Some of these studies include using the modern advances of technology to find internet or app based intervention methods to combat stress in college students. One of these studies was done by Mathias Harrer and a group of researchers who wanted to test if internet based intervention methods would be more effective for treating stress in college students compared to older methods. This writing will showcase a study that points out an effective and almost costless new way to combat increased levels of stress using a platform that all college students are familiar and comfortable with.

Harrer and his fellow researchers had three main reasons to perform this study. First, researchers wanted to test if using app-based and internet interventions would be effective. They wanted to test if college students would be more responsive towards ways of help that were discreet. Harrer and his colleagues were aware that many college students were not open about their stress and would not seek professional assistance so they wanted to test a way where students could acquire help by themselves. Secondly, Harrer and his colleagues wanted to see if college students would accept an internet based intervention versus conventional forms of intervention, which had already failed to be successful for college students. Harrer et al. display this aim by stating “Finally, our aim was to explore intervention participants’ adherence to, and acceptance of, the intervention.” Thirdly, researchers were inspired to perform this study in hopes that successful results here would result in similar tests being done for more severe mental health conditions related to stress. Finally, Harrer wanted to test a treatment that could not only be easy for anyone to access but extremely cost effective as well. This would significantly lower the amount of students who would have been previously unable to access treatment due to transportation, financial status, etc.

Harrer and his fellow researchers were hoping for a certain set of results when they first started this study. For instance, Harrer et al. stated the aim of the study by saying they were hoping to “evaluate the effectiveness of an internet- and mobile-based intervention targeting university students with heightened stress levels.” Researchers were hoping that the internet based intervention would prove to be a more effective treatment for college students. Next, researchers wanted to show that students who used the internet based treatment would be more stress free compared to the students who used a more conventional or old style of stress treatment. They did this by testing one group of students with the internet based treatment and another group what they called a “waitlist control group” (WCG) (Harrer). Finally, researchers wanted see if their prediction about the positive effects on “…mental health outcomes, modifiable risk and protective factors, and college-related outcomes” would be correct (Harrer #). In other words, researchers wanted to see if their new internet based platform would also have a positive effect on other mental conditions, academic results, and the ability to identify possible risks that cause stress.

Harrer uncovered several principle findings during during their experiment. For example, the researchers found that “the intervention was well accepted among the large majority of students” (Harrer et al). This means that their prediction was correct and college students were very accepting of the internet and app based intervention they had experimented with. Next, researchers found that the internet based intervention had positive effects on both stress and academic outcomes for the students (Harrer et al). In fact, Harrer and his fellow researchers noted that the benefits of their study exceeded their expectations, especially when compared to previous trials. In addition, it found that levels of depression in the college students had decreased as well. However, the research also found that other items such as self esteem, self compassion, resilience, and perfectionism were not significantly affected by their study (Harrer et al). Finally, researchers gained negative feedback from the participants about the time taken on of some of the modules in the intervention (Harrer et al). This can only be improved upon in the future with follow-up studies and test to determine the optimal length for some of the modules in the intervention. Further testing is required but significant data has been collected to show several beneficial findings that resulted from the experiment.

We can draw several conclusions from Harrer’s study on the effectiveness of internet and app based intervention for stress. For instance, based off the findings of the study, more modern ways of intervention seem to be more effective against stress in college students compared to older methods. In addition to internet based interventions being more effective, college students that were participating in the study mostly were very accepting of the modern style of intervention. Next, we can conclude that more discreet way of dealing with stress related issues is more favorable for college students. It was reported in the study that many college students admitted to having stress issues but did not seek professional help. This is the advantage of an online based system. It lets students not reveal their identity when admitting to personal issues such as increased stress. Finally, it is concluded that a test that was effective against stress should also be effective against some more serious stress related conditions, such as depression. The only way to be certain; however, is to perform follow-up studies testing whether or not this internet-based system is as effective against depression and other similar stress-related conditions.

There were several limitations identified by the group of researchers who performed the experiment. One concern of the researchers was “women were overrepresented in the study sample” (Harrer et al). This is concerning because the researchers may have not have gotten the full data they needed. There could be a significant difference in the effectiveness of this experimental test in women compared to men. The only solution to this problem would be to redo the experiment and to have a larger sample size that includes as many men as women. Another concern for researchers was that their college participants received outside treatment in addition to the online based treatment they received from the experiment. Researchers figured if they were able to seek treatment via the experimental study why wouldn’t they also seek professional help. The concern still exists that many students who suffer from stress and stress related conditions are too shy or embarrassed to seek help so they would not come forward even for the more discreet online platform of intervention. The only way to confirm this suspicion would be to perform anonymous surveys in addition to gathering more experimental data. Regardless of the positive results of the study, more tests and experiments will need to be performed in order to gain a more accurate image of the effectiveness of internet based intervention for stress in college students. However, the new ideas presented in this study will impact the future of treating stress in college students. College students were overall accepting of the internet based intervention and satisfied with the results. With more research and studies, such as this one by Harrer and his fellow researchers, we can expect the problem of elevated stress in college students to decrease in the future.

Harrer, Mathias, et al. “Effectiveness of an Internet- and App-Based Intervention for College Students With Elevated Stress: Randomized Controlled Trial.” Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports., U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2018, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5938594/.  

The deep meta-analytic review on promotions of sex and violence through media and ad content by Robert Lull and Brad J. Buschman, was impressively eye-catching. The widely known belief that sex and violence sell has possibly been debunked and actually explained within this research by using an evolutional and emotional arousal framework. This clearly states that even though violence and sex arouse emotional cues, its use within advertisements and media affect the decrease of brand memory, brand attitudes, and buying intentions. It informs the advertisement audience that in order to increase sales, remembrance, and favorability, another tactic must be used besides violence and sex. The assessment also introduces reasons to understand that violent and sexual advertisements and media are not the absolute affecters for negative behaviors, though it also wasn’t disproven. These evidences and findings are defined within the research and its many sub-categories that will be talked about in this essay.

Inspiration and Discoveries the Authors Hope to Find
To reiterate, the most global belief is that sex and violence sell. The authors of this review were inspired by that cliché and wanted to disprove that theory through their own theory which is

based on evolution. The theory argues that “ancestors that paid attention to violent cues were less likely to be killed by enemies or predators” and those “that paid attention to sexual cues were more likely to reproduce”.  As you can see in Figure 1, the photo perfectly portrays violence and sex within one setting which was a good test of evolutional cues. Though the overall conclusion they were looking for is the effectiveness of sexual and violent media and advertisements and if it connects to their theory. They also wanted to discover what advertisers needed to consider when trying to create a successful advertisement. Not only is this an important piece to read from an advertisers standpoint, it is also significant for those who believe common theories without doing their own research as well.

Methods
Most importantly, the authors, Robert Lull and Brad J. Buschman, involved several methods to make a more credible and believable study. Like most studies, there are steps involved to really determine if the hypothesis has enough information to determine complete accuracy. Not only were experimental designs created, but most steps were geared towards the specific advertisement needs of brand memory, brand attitudes and buying intentions. Their first step was to conduct a literary research for sufficient and credible evidence that would support their theory. This included two electronic databases which were PsychINFO and Communication and Mass Media Complete, as well as the article citation websites, ProQuest and Google Scholar.
An inclusion criteria was also developed for both advertisements and studies. The advertisements were to have sexual and/or violent media and/or ad content as well as a control group and an experimental group. Brand memory was also to be included which is where participants were to list advertised brands based off of memory alone. Participants also had to establish brand attitudes by rating a product from 1, very bad to 7, very good.  A scale was also developed for buying intentions of a product where participants rated from 1, very unlikely to 5, very likely of purchasing. Overall, Lull and Buschman discovered “a total of 44 research reports that included 53 individual studies of 8,489 participants that met the inclusion criteria”. Furthermore, studies needed to feature specific stimuli in order to qualify for this research. This included violent and/or sexual stimuli and media and/or ad content, as well as MPAA ratings or FCC ratings. Studies also needed pretests like surveys and focus groups among a large audience for a more reliable research.
In addition, experimental designs were established for stronger credibility and for more substantial evidence. There was between-subjects which were experiments and surveys, within-subjects which were participants in a control group, and mixed

designs which combined between-subjects and within-subjects factors. Moderator variables were also included to test congruity. Congruity is like a violent ad within a violent movie or a sexual ad within a sexual article. A code to measure the level of sex in sexual ads were as ranged: 0 = none, 1 = suggestive content, 2 = revealing clothes, 3 = breasts or buttocks, 4 = genitals visible. This code was used in advertisements and media just like Figure 2. By introducing levels, it was easier to measure congruity in a study that was also measuring media exposure.

Limitations
Even with as many methods as they designed, many gaps were projected within the study. Most of them stemmed from the overall problem that not enough studies were available to fully test each hypothesis. For one, there was a lack of psychophysiological studies which could’ve helped decide if violence or sex increased attention on the central ideas of the content. Further psychophysiological limitations were accounted to the fact that “very few studies used methods that directly measured important mechanisms such as attention and arousal” during advertisement viewings. Also, it was very difficult to control media exposure as well as purchase behavior. This was credited to the fact “that advertising contexts influence implicit and explicit brand memory differently” which is a huge influencer to buying intentions. This means that there were also no valuable studies for program or advertisement congruity which was the main assessor of brand memory and buying intentions.
Even more so, there were some studies supporting the advertisement congruity, though they did not meet a few

aspects of the inclusion criteria. The final limitation was the lack of cultural studies that could determine the results of viewers everywhere. The only countries that information could be found for was the United States, England, Canada, France, and Germany.  In Figure 3, this photo from the ANAR Foundation, which is stationed within Spain and South America, advertises their fight towards victim child abuse. In Spanish, this poster says “Sometimes child abuse is only visible to the child who suffers” above the child’s head. This poster received a lot of recognition due to the cruel vividness of it but this type of advertisement was not one of the countries to be included in the study. Though this might have worked in Spain, “previous research in Turkey found a large effect of sexual media exposure on memory impairment for foreign languages”. Due to this, it is important for further research to occur for more cultural examinations.

Implications and Drawn Conclusions
The theoretical implication of the evolutional and emotional arousal framework helped reason the idea that decreased memory, attitudes, and buying intentions stem from sexual and violent ads/media. Though sex and violence arouse cognitional attention, it distracts the audience from the overall meaning of the advertisement. Also, it was discovered that since violent and sexual ads are very common and have been apparent for years, it just doesn’t grab the audience’s attention anymore. Lull and Buschman were able to conclude that “among the 100 highest-rated television programs, 100 top-grossing films, and 50 top-selling video games from 2009, 48% were specifically rated for violent content and 28% were specifically rated for sexual content”.
In addition, older generations believe violent and sexual content is offensive to its viewers. Not only that, but since males are more sexual and aggressive, they have greater brand memory than women when an ad or media content is sexual or violent. It was also discovered that program/advertisement congruity, ad content intensity, and demographics of target audience are important factors that advertisers need to consider when creating an effective advertisement. These findings urged a focus towards genders, ages, and cultures, just like teens who are constantly being suckered into purchasing Axe Body Spray, even though women tend to dislike the scent. The findings of this study will help lead a determined answer to the effectiveness of certain advertisements in the future.

The world is getting warmer. The earth is experiencing rapid climate change, and it is only going to get more extreme if nothing is done to try to correct it. For a long time, I had found very few people who believed any differently. Then, as I got older, I realized just how divisive this subject really is. In 2008, only “79% of Americans believed that global warming was occurring” (1). Climate change is a highly volatile subject, especially today, with our current administration keeping the Environmental Protection Agency in limbo, while most of the developed world continues in their efforts to stop climate change. The truth is, in 2010, between 69% and 75% of Americans believed that climate change was occurring (1).

This opposition to the existence of climate change was something I was shocked to discover. Now, I’ve learned there are large pockets of the country where, in the eyes of certain communities, the existence of climate change is much more radical to defend than it is to deny. Studies being done in these areas of the country can be very helpful in discovering the beliefs of all Americans, not just the ones that are easily accessible.

A study was conducted in rural Nevada to collect data on the population’s opinions of climate change, as well as their support of government policies surrounding it. The study also focused on the potential for differing opinions between the ranchers/farmers, and the Native Americans in the areas. The study also sought to understand the reasoning for the differences in beliefs between the two groups through multiple sources. Most of the information was gathered in the form of surveys.

The first factor that was accounted for was the difference in the political affiliation of the ranchers/farmers and Native Americans. Results of this study show that 73% of farmers/ranchers identified as republican, while 14% identified as democrat. Only 5% of Native Americans identified as republican, while 52% identified as democrat (2). It is important to note that an entire 24% of Native Americans claimed “no interest in politics” (2). Political affiliation does not always correlate with belief in climate change, but it certainly was an indicator in this experiment. Climate change has definitely been politicized in our modern age, especially in the Trump era, where climate change denial has been synonymous with conservatism and right leaning individuals.

The second factor was the population’s source of climate change information. The majority of both ranchers/farmers and Native Americans get their climate change information from television, ranchers/farmers at 61%, and Native Americans at 48% (4). There wasn’t further data about the type of television that the rural population was watching, which is a very important factor. Almost every popular news channel seems to have it’s own political agenda. When you hear Fox News, it is pretty well defined in our modern age as a conservative leaning news outlet, the same with CNN and more liberal views. Depending on what news outlets both groups pay attention to, the data could be further affected by it.

One last factor that proved important were the religious views of both groups. While the majority of both the ranchers/farmers and Native Americans held religious beliefs, there were different ways that they each interpreted “the will of God”. In the words of a Nevada Farmer:

“I think it is very presumptuous of man to think he can control the earth and weather. God made the earth and controls the weather. All the control man could come up with would be wasted in one single volcano eruption. The idiots profiting off of the ruse of global warming, Al Gore, etc” (17).

This clearly demonstrates a feeling of an absence of control over such massive environmental changes. On the other hand, in the words of a Nevada tribe member:

“Our people treated our land with respect, and we continue to hold our land as a sacred place and continue to fight for water and fight to protect our environment. Respect for all life, including Mother Earth” (17).

This perspective clearly takes a more active approach, and reflects the data that more Native Americans are inclined to believe and attempt to prevent global warming. Religious beliefs certainly inform many American’s beliefs about climate change, and to varying degrees. This is the main factor that takes climate change out of a simply scientific arena, and confounds it in a way that makes it simply unapproachable from a purely scientific standpoint. As with most issues that are quite complex, multiple approaches ensure a better and more well rounded understanding of the topic.

This study does a great job of explaining a complex issue. It not only provides us with valuable data that gives us a glimpse of the goings on in rural areas of the United States, but it also provides potential solutions that encourage the idea that climate change is very much real, something that humans helped cause, and can be slowed down with enough human effort. The researchers believe that the best way to properly reach out to these isolated groups of farmers is to make connections with organizations that these farmers find credible, and discuss the issues through a comfortable medium (19). Another way to break through most effectively would be to go through the women in these communities, given that they are statistically more likely to believe in climate change and to be concerned about its negative effects, according to the study(19).

Another conclusion drawn by the researchers in this study is that “it is time to focus on capacity building and collaborative research with tribes” (19). Because the tribes in these rural areas are already more inclined to believe in climate change, and “their decision making is not always dominated by short-term economic gain”, unlike the majority of farmers, they are the best chance these rural communities have of learning to identify and fight against climate change (19).

It is easy to let climate change be a difficult subject to discuss, and to get upset by the opposing side of our own beliefs, but the next step for this country needs to be towards understanding. When both sides understand the impetus behind the other’s actions and the emotions behind them, then we can move closer towards change, and towards a country that protects the planet and prevents further harm to it.

People do a lot of reading within their lifetime. Some of that reading is for a class that they are taking and sometimes it is for their own enjoyment. The study “Reading, Risk, and Reality: College Students and Reading for Pleasure” addresses the reading habits of college students. It is a common belief that college students and those born in the digital age do not like to read for fun. Julie Gilbert and Barbara Fister created their own study to see if this belief is true and what can be done to get college students to do more reading outside of class. They are trying to get college students to “free read” more so that they can also receive the benefits of leisure reading.

 In their study, Gilbert and Fister found that the previous notion that college students do not want to read for pleasure was actually false. They found that students wanted to read for fun and enjoyed reading, but there were many obstacles that kept them from being able to read for fun. Some of those obstacles included students not having the time to read, not knowing what to read, not having a section in a campus library for leisure reading, having to think critically about what they were reading, and not finding books that they were interested in reading.

Gilbert and Fister point out that college students are given a lot of material to read for each of their classes. It is part of the learning process, but sometimes the amount students are given to read for a class is too much. Students can barely cover the readings they are required to for class, let alone read for their own leisure. They do not have the time to read for fun as they are consumed by classwork. The authors propose that campus libraries then make the checkout period for books longer so that students can read them over breaks in the winter, spring, and summer when they are not given a huge load of classwork.

Sometimes students have the desire to read, but they do not know what to read. They want to know what books would be the most beneficial to them in their studies. Gilbert and Fister propose that professors create lists of books that students could read at their own leisure. Those books would correlate with what was being taught in the class, or they would further develop the skills taught in class. They would help give students an idea of the types of books that would be the most beneficial for them to read outside of their classwork.

Some campus libraries in colleges and universities do not have much money in their budget, so they do not bother having a fiction section. This puts the students who enjoy reading fiction at a disadvantage when they are trying to find books to read for fun. Some students may not have any other access to places to find books, so if the campus library does not have any fiction books, then the student does not have access to an entire genre of books that many people enjoy reading. Along with suggesting that college campus libraries have fiction books, Gilbert and Fister suggest that libraries have their general fiction section separate from their literature sections. That would make it easier for students to differentiate which books were mostly read for pleasure from the books that would most likely required to read for a class. Separating those sections would make it easier for students to find the kind of book that they are looking for to read.

Then Gilbert and Fister point out that reading for leisure and reading for a class is different in that reading for a class requires students to think critically about what they are reading. That involves taking an in-depth look at a reading and making an analysis from it. When students have to think critically about a reading, then they usually are not able to enjoy the reading as the would if they were reading for fun. Students have to read differently when they are reading to think critically and when they are reading for their own leisure.

Overall, the goal of Gilbert and Fister’s study was to provide ways for college students to increase the amount that they read for their own leisure. They think that they can get college students to do more leisure reading through the ideas that they propose and that students want to do more leisure reading. They justify the latter belief through the results of a survey that they gave to college students at Gustavus Adolphus College, a private liberal arts college. The problem with their justification, though is that those results may not be the same for every college in the United States. They might not even be the same for the majority of students at Gustavus since the study does not tell us how many students took the survey in the first place.

To determine the value of Gilbert and Fister’s study, further research needs to be done on the ideas that they propose. Since, they provide no data on how effective their ideas are, someone needs to go out and try the ideas that they are suggesting to see if they work. If any of them work, then the study has value to those interested in increasing the amount that college students read for leisure. But if all of their proposed ideas fail, then the study has little to no value. Once the value of the study has been determined, it can then be decided how it should be incorporated onto college campuses and libraries across the United States.