Cooper and Mackie (1986) Psychology Study Review

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering the aim, sample, procedure, conditions, findings, and evaluation points of Cooper and Mackie's study on video games and aggression.

Aim of Cooper and Mackie

To investigate whether playing or observing video games can cause violence, directly testing the principles of social learning theory.

Social Learning Theory

A psychological theory stating that individuals learn behaviors through observation; in this context, observing or playing an aggressive video game is predicted to make someone more aggressive.

Sample (Cooper and Mackie)

A group of $84$ children who were paired up randomly by matching them to a partner of the same sex and the same grade, with parental consent obtained.

Pre-study Questionnaire

A questionnaire administered to all participants about one week before the experiment to assess their prior experiences with playing video games.

Participant Roles (Cooper and Mackie)

Within each same-sex and same-grade pair, one child was randomly allocated to be the player and the other was allocated to be the observer for a duration of about $8\text{ minutes}$.

High Aggression Condition

An experimental condition where pairs of participants played or observed the violent video game Missile Command.

Low Aggression Condition

An experimental condition where pairs of participants played or observed the video game Pac-Man.

Control Condition

An experimental condition where pairs of participants completed or observed a pen-and-paper maze game.

Room 1 (Toy Play Observation)

A room where participants were covertly observed while having free choice to play with one of four toy categories: an aggressive toy, a skill-based toy, an active toy, or a quiet toy.

Room 2 (Interpersonal Aggression Test)

A test measuring hypothetical aggression where participants evaluated three misbehaviors (talking back to someone, hitting someone, stealing something) and selected punishment severity by pressing a red buzzer, where a longer press indicated a worse punishment.

Toy Play Findings

Girls who played the violent video game were significantly more likely to play with the aggressive toy, whereas boys showed little to no effect across the different game conditions.

Interpersonal Aggression Test Findings

The red buzzer punishment condition showed no significant effect from any of the video game conditions.

Temporal Validity (Cooper and Mackie)

An evaluation limitation noting that because the study was conducted when video games were much less violent than modern games, the findings may have low relevance or applicability to modern contexts.

Ecological Validity (Cooper and Mackie)

An evaluation limitation highlighting that because the study was conducted in an artificial laboratory setting rather than a real-life environment, its ecological validity was low despite high experimental control.