Bojack Horseman Aggression

With an hourly rate of 330 aggressive acts, Bojack Horseman (non-educational cartoon) was the most aggressive show of the three observed. The aggression was primarily psychological in nature, with characters frequently insulting each other (34 acts in 20 minutes). This particular episode of Bojack has the benefit of being in the second season, allowing creators to spend less time introducing characters. This also means that characters are able to act more aggressively with each other, as viewers are expected to be aware of previous grudges and events. The level of prosocial behavior in Bojack was low at an hourly rate of 39, but not the lowest. Because the show features many conversations between characters, there were several opportunities

To provide aid or sympathy, at least one party must be experiencing some sort of issue and at least one other party must be invested, in some way, in the the first party’s welfare. This setup requires time and effort establishing something that isn’t necessary for a character to insult another character’s intelligence, and it’s an act that can be entirely unprovoked. Verbal aggression was by far the most common form of aggression in all three shows, and perhaps it’s no coincidence it’s the most easy to perform with potentially few

What may seem insulting or abusive to one person may not seem that way to another. This highlighted the need to not only have operational definitions but to have explicit and unambiguous operational definitions. It also exemplifies the need to have points of comparison and controlling as many variables as possible. For example, if multiple people watched the same episodes, would the number of aggressive and prosocial acts be the same or similar, even given the same operational definitions? If all three episodes were the first episode of the first season of their respective shows, would the levels of aggressive/prosocial behavior be similar? What if all three shows had all-human casts? This project also demonstrated the effect preconceived notions can have on collecting data. In the case of Puffin Rock, the children’s educational show, it’s possible less effort was made in looking for acts of aggression simply because it’s not expected. Meanwhile, Sense8 purported to have high levels of action and is the type of show one doesn’t expect to have high levels of prosocial behaviors, which may have obscured these behaviors in favor of looking for acts of aggression, because the aggressive behavior was expected and