Cooper & Mackie (1986) Flashcards
Background
Previous research had indicated that violence on TV produces an increased tendency towards aggressive behaviour in children, most had male participants. Video games large role in children’s leisure time – TV watchers passive whereas video games are active: would this make a difference in influencing violent behaviour
The study was partly a response to a comment made by C. Everett Koop ( a paediatric surgeon ) who said children are into games, body and the soul
Hypothesis
Playing an aggressive video game compared to other types of games would lead to aggression in children
Aim
To investigate whether computer-generated games depicting a lot of violence affected children and whether they affected boys and girls differently.
Design
Laboratory experiment with an independent measures design. The independent variables (IV):
(a) Whether participants were placed in the high aggression, low aggression or control group.
(b) Types of game played or observed
Dependent variable:
(a) measured aggression levels after playing or observing the game
sample
Target population = set of schools is New Jersey USA
84 9-11 Year olds whose parents gave consent .
Week before the experiment, children filled out a questionnaire to access their experiences of video games, from this children were put into pairs so they were same sex and age. In each pair, one could play game the other would observe ( allowed to talk abt game )
Material
Missile command - hag
Pacman - lag
Pen and paper - cg
other things such as star wars, basketball set and warrior figures but also questionnaire for rating experiences of games and to access prior video game experiences
Procedure
How were the extraneous variables controlled ?
Participants randomly allocated to one of three conditions
(1) participants played or observed aggressive video games - missile command - laser beam to demolish cities
A different group of children rated it high aggressive
(2) participants played or observed non aggressive video games - Pac man - chased around maze - other children rated it low aggressive
(3) participants played or observed pen and paper games based on star wars - control condition
As a way to control extraneous variable, children has 8 minutes playing/observing the game allocated. If children did not know the game, they were given 2 min beforehand to familiarise themselves with the game. After 8 min, the pair would be split apart, one taken to play room, one taken to room to take a test.
Procedure
What occurred in the play room ?
There was an aggressive toy, an active toy, skill toy and quiet toy. There was an experimenter in the room who asked the participant to play by themselves and not disturb her as she had to work something out. meanwhile she was recording which toy was played with, in what order and for how long.
Procedure
What occurred in the test room ?
Each participant performed an activity to measure their interpersonal aggression. They were asked :
(a) How they would punish a child who was caught behaving badly and how they would reward a child who has done something good
(b) Press a button to show level of punishment and reward. Experimenter would time how long they pressed it for. The difference between the duration of punishment and reward buzzers was used to give participant a score for interpersonal aggression
Procedure
What happened after the observation and test ?
participants then swapped around so 1st did test, 2nd one was observed playing. As a control, participant who did the playing was tested first and the other was observed = counter balancing
After being observed, participants were given one final task. They had to complete a questionnaire where they rated their experienced of playing the game they had been given.
Results
61% reported to having a video game system at home which applied to more boys than girls
children who had not played experimenters videogames before = no significant difference to results
participants in aggressive game condition spent more time playing with aggressive toy than participants in other two conditions.
Girls who played missile command game spent more time playing with aggressive toy than girls in the other conditions.
Boys spent overall more time playing with aggressive toy but hardly affected by which game played.
Mean amount played with aggressive toy - due to missile command
female = 79.63 Male = 84.62
Result shows that the type of game played had no effect on the participants interpersonal aggression scores.
Only significant effect was that children had higher scores if they played rather than observed the game.
Results
The post experiment questionnaire showed that participants rated the missile command game as most violent .
Results show male had performed better than females but sex difference was only significant for missile command
where boys scored 8806.87 points and girls scored an average of 4993.75. Strong difference in enjoyment of game, girls mean rating of 3.3 and boys mean rating of 4.37. Boys wanted to keep playing as much as girls did.
Conclusion
playing or watching video games had an impact on aggressive behaviour for girls = more likely ot play with aggressive toy after .
Girls less experience and less exposure to violence -> increased arousal than boys so they imitate what they’ve witnessed = disinhibition effect ( more socially accepted to play with aggressive toy because they had already been encouraged to play with aggressive video game.
Aggressive video games had no impact on interpersonal aggression , buzzer was towards people and missile command was towards objects . Less clear link between games and buzzer
- support principle of SLT
State 2 criticisms of the study
study was biased and therefore difficult to make generalisations. limited age and not represent all ages = age bias
Culturally bias - new jersey . The impact of computer games may be influenced by cultural setting in which they are played. Certain types of children missing from sample, Would a parent consent for their child to take part although they are already aggressive ?
- Study in artificial setting leading to low level of ecological validity . lab is not a reflection of home.
State 3 criticisms of the study
Aggressive behaviour was measured in a narrow way leading to low level of construct validity. Although researchers took two measures of aggression, they did not match. one showed effect of aggressive video games, the other did not so its not reliable. Both could be accused of taking a complex behaviour and narrowing it down to a simple score.
There were a number of uncontrolled extraneous variables making it difficult to establish cause and effect. For example : although researchers accounted for whether children had experience with a game, they had not accounted how much experience a child had had with a game, it could be that boys less affected by game than girls as they’re already used to it. Another extraneous variable is how much a child interacted with a game. Not all children interact the same in 8 min.
only the immediate effects of aggressive video games were tested. in reality, video games influence aggression over time but researchers expected it to happen straight away. Internalisation process needs to happen over a period of time and also time needed for a child to gain confidence to imitate behaviour they have observed.
