COOPER AND MACKIE Flashcards
What was the hypothesis of Cooper and Mackie (1986)?
predicted that playing an aggressive video game would lead to increased aggression in children
boys and girls will perceive video games differently
What was the aim of Cooper and Mackie (1986)?
to investigate whether computer-generated games depicting a lot of violence affected children and whether they affected boys and girls differently
What was the background of Cooper and Mackie (1986)?
previous research had indicated that violence on TV produced an increased tendency towards aggressive behaviours in children, mostly male participants
-Video games play a large role in children’s leisure time
more active than passively watching TV
What was the method of Cooper and Mackie (1986)?
Lab experiment
Independent measures deign
IV was the type of game played or observed
DV was the measure of aggression
What was condition 1 of Cooper and Mackie (1986)?
pair of participants played or observed a high aggression, low aggression or control video game
one participant went to a toy room and chose either an aggressive toy, active toy, skill based toy or quiet toy
the other participant to measure interpersonal aggression
they were asked to press a buzzer to show the level of punishment
how did Cooper and Mackie (1986) control extraneous variables?
after 8 minutes observers and players swapped
In the pre-experiment questionnaire, 61 per cent of all participants reported having a video game system at home, mainly boys
girls who had played the aggressive game spent much more time playing with the aggressive toy than girls in the other conditions
no effect on the participants’ interpersonal aggression scores
playing or watching an aggressive video game had an impact on the aggressive behaviour of girls
girls reacted with greater arousal
allowing girls to play with aggressive games may have led to a disinhibition effect
boys were not affected
no effect on interpersonal measures of aggression
playing and observing had no difference
what was the sample for Cooper and Mackie (1986)?
84 children
- 44 males
- 45 female
from a 5th grade school in New Jersey
What is disinhibition in relation to Cooper and Mackie (1986) ?
This means that the girls felt it was socially acceptable to play with the aggressive toy because they had already been encouraged to play an aggressive video game.
sample too small to be generalised
lacks ecological validity
Aggressive behaviour was measured in a narrow way, leading to low levels of construct validity
lacks temporal validity
many extraneous variables making it difficult to establish cause and effect e.g. researchers didn’t have control for how much prior experience a child had with a game
