How TV watched hours work with Cultivation Theory

Emily R. West
Sept. 26, 2025

Rationale

We just went over cultivation theory, which indicates the more someone watches TV the more likely they are to perceive television as reality. What we know is that television programs are not reality. Bombs aren’t going off in D.C. all the time like depicted in the popular show “NCIS,” and people aren’t running into dead bodies daily that are graphically maligned as shown in Dick Wolf’s creation “Law & Order.”

Hypothesis

Because cultivation theory summarizes TV reality becomes reality, I figure the more someone watches popular high-stress TV programming that they will think those professions are available in high numbers across the country.

Variables & method

Four hundred television watchers had their viewership tracked.

Of that, those 400 were surveyed and asked — based off the programming they watched — if they thought law enforcement, medical professionals and other high-stress jobs existed in large numbers. The dependent variable of the linear regression performed was the professional percentage of those jobs while the independent variable was the hours watched.

Leverage estimates for 10 largest outliers
Row # Leverage
164 0.0305
360 0.0207
359 0.0194
371 0.0174
72 0.0162
201 0.0159
265 0.0159
392 0.0148
44 0.0144
97 0.0144
Regression Analysis Results
Coefficient Estimates
Term Estimate Std. Error t p-value
(Intercept) 23.2076 2.2026 10.5363 0.0000
IV 0.8440 0.0630 13.4056 0.0000
Model Fit Statistics
Overall Regression Performance
R-squared Adj. R-squared F-statistic df (model) df (residual) Residual Std. Error
0.3111 0.3093 179.7107 1.0000 398.0000 9.7373

Results & discussion

In conclusion, the line showed that the more someone watched popular crime, criminal justice and medical shows, the more likely they were to believe those jobs were available in plenty of numbers.

Here is the code if you’re wanting to run your own table:

##################################################
# 1. Install and load required packages
##################################################
if (!require("tidyverse")) install.packages("tidyverse")
if (!require("gt")) install.packages("gt")
if (!require("gtExtras")) install.packages("gtExtras")

library(tidyverse)
library(gt)
library(gtExtras)


##################################################
# 2. Read in the dataset
##################################################
# Replace "YOURFILENAME.csv" with the actual filename
mydata <- read.csv("Cultivation.csv")


# ################################################
# # (Optional) 2b. Remove specific cases by row number
# ################################################
# # Example: remove rows 10 and 25
# rows_to_remove <- c(10, 25) # Edit and uncomment this line
# mydata <- mydata[-rows_to_remove, ] # Uncomment this line


##################################################
# 3. Define dependent variable (DV) and independent variable (IV)
##################################################
# Replace YOURDVNAME and YOURIVNAME with actual column names
mydata$DV <- mydata$pct
mydata$IV <- mydata$video


##################################################
# 4. Explore distributions of DV and IV
##################################################
# Make a histogram for DV
DVGraph <- ggplot(mydata, aes(x = DV)) + 
  geom_histogram(color = "black", fill = "#1f78b4")

# Make a histogram for IV
IVGraph <- ggplot(mydata, aes(x = IV)) + 
  geom_histogram(color = "black", fill = "#1f78b4")


##################################################
# 5. Fit and summarize initial regression model
##################################################
# Suppress scientific notation
options(scipen = 999)

# Fit model
myreg <- lm(DV ~ IV, data = mydata)

# Model summary
summary(myreg)


##################################################
# 6. Visualize regression and check for bivariate outliers
##################################################
# Create scatterplot with regression line as a ggplot object
RegressionPlot <- ggplot(mydata, aes(x = IV, y = DV)) +
  geom_point(color = "#1f78b4") +
  geom_smooth(method = "lm", se = FALSE, color = "red") +
  labs(
    title = "Scatterplot of DV vs IV with Regression Line",
    x = "Independent Variable (IV)",
    y = "Dependent Variable (DV)"
  ) +
  theme_minimal()


##################################################
# 7. Check for potential outliers (high leverage points)
##################################################
# Calculate leverage values
hat_vals <- hatvalues(myreg)

# Rule of thumb: leverage > 2 * (number of predictors + 1) / n may be influential
threshold <- 2 * (length(coef(myreg)) / nrow(mydata))

# Create table showing 10 largest leverage values
outliers <- data.frame(
  Obs = 1:nrow(mydata),
  Leverage = hatvalues(myreg)
) %>%
  arrange(desc(Leverage)) %>%
  slice_head(n = 10)

# Format as a gt table
outliers_table <- outliers %>%
  gt() %>%
  tab_header(
    title = "Leverage estimates for 10 largest outliers"
  ) %>%
  cols_label(
    Obs = "Row #",
    Leverage = "Leverage"
  ) %>%
  fmt_number(
    columns = Leverage,
    decimals = 4
  )


##################################################
# 8. Create nicely formatted regression results tables
##################################################
# --- Coefficient-level results ---
reg_results <- as.data.frame(coef(summary(myreg))) %>%
  tibble::rownames_to_column("Term") %>%
  rename(
    Estimate = Estimate,
    `Std. Error` = `Std. Error`,
    t = `t value`,
    `p-value` = `Pr(>|t|)`
  )

reg_table <- reg_results %>%
  gt() %>%
  tab_header(
    title = "Regression Analysis Results",
    subtitle = "Coefficient Estimates"
  ) %>%
  fmt_number(
    columns = c(Estimate, `Std. Error`, t, `p-value`),
    decimals = 4
  )


# --- Model fit statistics ---
reg_summary <- summary(myreg)

fit_stats <- tibble::tibble(
  `R-squared` = reg_summary$r.squared,
  `Adj. R-squared` = reg_summary$adj.r.squared,
  `F-statistic` = reg_summary$fstatistic[1],
  `df (model)` = reg_summary$fstatistic[2],
  `df (residual)` = reg_summary$fstatistic[3],
  `Residual Std. Error` = reg_summary$sigma
)

fit_table <- fit_stats %>%
  gt() %>%
  tab_header(
    title = "Model Fit Statistics",
    subtitle = "Overall Regression Performance"
  ) %>%
  fmt_number(
    columns = everything(),
    decimals = 4
  )


##################################################
# 9. Final print of key graphics and tables
##################################################
DVGraph
IVGraph
RegressionPlot
outliers_table
reg_table
fit_table