Cooper and Mackie (1986)
Hypothesis
Playing an aggressive video game comared to otehr types of games would lead to increased aggression in children.
Aim
Whether violent games encourgaed aggressive behaviour and if there was a difference between male and female participants.
Method
Lab experiment
Independent measures design
IV- type of game played or observed
DV- aggression levels after playing/ observing the game
Sample
From New Jersey, USA
84 participants (44M 40F)
Aged 9-11
A week before the experiment, children completed a questionnaire to assess their experience of video games
Partcipants were paired by same age and sex
In each pair, one played the game while the other observed.
Materials
Video games- missile command, pac-man and star wars pen and paper tasks.
Buzzer
Toys- active, agressive, quiet and skill
Controls within the study
used random sampling
All participants had 8 minutes playing or observing.
If they didn't know the game, they were give 2 minutes to familiarise with the game.
One of each pair was taken to a playroom, while the other was taken to do a test. Counterbalanced groups.
Criticisms
Age bias, culturally biased- Lacks external validity.
The study supports SLT due to the evidence is presents that children imitate behaviour they had observed in the video games.
Passive,quiet children were underrepresented in the sample.- Lacks external validity
Set in an artificial setting- Lacks ecological validity. Doesn't mirroir game playing at home (avg 42.57 mins)
Aggressive behaviour is measured in a narrow way i.e how much an aggressive toy is played with- reductionist hence lacks construct validity.
Lack of control over extraneous variables
How much experience a child had with a game
All participants weren't engaged with it in the same way.
Participant differences
Only the immediate effects of aggressive video games were tested- in reality they might influence aggression over time hence, can't generalise results to real life.
Cross-sectional study