Cooper & Mackie (1986)

A study into the transmission of aggression through imitation and aggressive models

Hypothesis:

• They predicted that playing an aggressive video game compared to other types of games would lead to increased aggression in children.

Design:

• The researchers used a laboratory experiment and an independent measures design.

• The independent variable was the type of game played or observed

• The dependent variable measured was the levels of aggressions observed.

Sample:

• The target population was a set of schools in the suburbs of New Jersey, USA.

• The sample was made up of 84 nine-eleven year olds. The parents gave consent to the experiment.

• A week before the experiment, the children filled out a questionnaire to assess their experience of video games.

• The children were put into pairs of the same sex and age. In each pair, one child was selected to play a game and the other would observe.

Materials:

• Violent video game: Missile Command video game

• Non-violent video game: Pac-man video game

• Control game: Star Wars & Tron paper-and-pen maze game

• Aggressive toy: Warrior figure

• Active toy: Basketball set

• Skill toy: Pinball machine

• Quiet toy: Building Blocks

• Questionnaire for recording previous experience of video games

• Questionnaire for rating games played in the experiment

Procedure:

• Participants were randomly allocated to one of three conditions (independent measures design):

• Condition 1: participants played or observed an aggressive video game called Missile Command (players had to destroy laser beams before they demolished cities)

• Condition 2: participants played or observed a non-aggressive video game called Pac-Man

• Condition 3: Participants played or observed paper-and-pen maze games based on Star Wars and Tron. This was the control condition as it wasn’t a video game.

• To control extraneous variables, all participants had eight minutes…