Cooper and Mackie Flashcards
when was Cooper and Mackie done
1986
aim of Cooper and Mackie
To see whether video games had more effect on violent behaviour than TV did, on the basis that video games are more active.
hypothesis of Cooper and Mackie
playing video games would have more effect on violent behaviour compared to playing other games
what is aggression
spoken or physical behaviour that is threatening or involves harm to someone
what is randomly
to leave to chanvce
sample of Cooper and Mackie
84 children, aged 9-11 from schools in New Jersey, USA
research method of Cooper and Mackie
Lab experiment
Independent variable of Cooper and Mackie
the type of game played (a violent video game or a paper and pen-maze-game). In each pair, one child played while the other child watched. They swapped around in a second trial so all children ended up playing the game.
Dependent variable of Cooper and Mackie
aggression levels displayed by the children after playing the game. This was measured in two ways.
One was by covertly observing how long children played with certain types of toys from a choice of aggressive toy, an active toy, a skill toy and a quiet toy.
The other was through a test activity, where children showed how much they would punish an imaginary child who had been naughty, measured by how long they would press the buzzer for. This was measure of interpersonal aggression.
At the end, children completed a questionnaire on their experience of playing the game they had been allocated.
how was the extraneous variable controlled in Cooper and Mackie
all participants had eight minutes playing (or observing) the game they had been allocated. If participants didn’t know the game, they had two minutes to familiarise themselves with it beforehand. After eight minutes were up, the pairs of watchers and players were split up. One of each pair was taken to a playroom, while the other was taken to a room to do a test.
what is control
a way of ensuring other variables do not affect the results of a study
procedure of Cooper and Mackie
An Independent groups design was used and participants either played or observed a high aggression game (Missile Command), a low aggression game (Pac-Man) or a control game (maze-solving with a pen and pencil).
They then went to a playroom to see which toy they chose to play with (aggressive, active, quiet or skill), Interpersonal aggression was also measured by answering questions on a scenario.
findings of Cooper and Mackie
Participants in the aggressive game condition spent more time playing with the aggressive toy then those who played one of the other two games. This was truer of girls than boys. Boys liked to play while girls like to observe.
The type of game played had no effect on interpersonal aggression (how much the participants wanted to punish the naughty child) However, children showed higher levels of aggression here when they had actually played a game rather than watched it being played.
The questionnaire showed that boys performed better on the violent game compared to girls and also enjoyed playing it more.
conclusion of Cooper and Mackie
The researchers concluded that children (mainly girls) had played more with the violent toy after playing the violent game because of some level of imitation.
The game did not affect interpersonal aggression because the game itself did not involve any human characters. In other words what the children had observed happening in the game had some impact on learned behaviour.
Playing or watching an aggressive video game had an impact on the aggressive behaviour of girls but not boys
Limitations of Cooper and Mackie 1
The sample was biased as it only investigated a small age range and one culture. Therefore it can’t be generalised, since the impact of computer games may be due to the cultural setting in which they are played or the age of the child.
