Cooper and mackie

• Cooper and Macki

  Researchers who investigated whether video games can cause violence
• Study procedure

  1. Participants completed questionnaire about video game experience

  2. Participants randomly assigned to play or observe video game (high aggression, low aggression, or control)

  3. Participants played with toys in one room while observed

  4. Participants completed interpersonal aggression test in another room
• Findings

  • Girls more affected by violent video games than boys
  • Boys not affected by type of video game played
  • Buzzer test not affected by video game condition
• Study had low temporal validity as it was quite old and video games were less violent at the time
• Study had low ecological validity as it was conducted in a lab rather than a real-life environment
• One limitation of the Cooper and Macki study could be the small sample size of 84 children