Order ID | 53563633773 |
Type | Essay |
Writer Level | Masters |
Style | APA |
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Perfect Number of Pages to Order | 5-10 Pages |
Physical Aggression Subscale of The Aggression Questionnaire
Aggr. Behav.
Helping and Hurting 283
approved by the Iowa State University’s Institutional Review Board and all participants were treated in ac- cordance with APA ethical guidelines.
Materials and Measures
Trait aggression. The 9-item physical aggres- sion subscale of the aggression questionnaire was ad- ministered prior to the experimental manipulation to assess trait aggression [Buss and Perry, 1992]. The Buss–Perry aggression questionnaire has been suc- cessfully used to assess trait aggression with a range of age groups including elementary school children [e.g., Reynes and Lorant, 2001, 2003, 2004; Walters et al., 2010; Zhen et al., 2011]. Participants rated their agreement with statements on a 5-point scale (1 = “Extremely uncharacteristic of me,” 5 = “Extremely characteristic of me”), alpha = .81.
Video games. Four E-rated video games were used: two violent (Ty2, n = 31, Crash Twin sanity, n = 32); and two neutral (Pure Pinball, n = 30, Su- per Monkey Ball Deluxe, n = 30). One E-10 game was used for the prosocial category (Chibi Robo, n = 671). Ty2 and Crash Twin sanity are action adventure games in which the goal is to complete various stages by defeating the enemies and bosses, while overcom- ing any obstacles on the way. The goal of Pinball is to keep the ball on the table using the left and right trig- gers. Super Monkey ball requires the player to guide a monkey through various puzzles toward the goal within the time limit. Chibi Robo lets the player con- trol a robot whose job is to make its family happy by cleaning up, helping them out in their chores, and everyday tasks. As the player cleans up throughout the house, they earn Happy Points that improve their robot’s ranking. The player can do several things to get happy points (e.g., picking up trash and throwing it in a trashcan, scrubbing stain marks with a tooth- brush). All video games were played for 30 min.
Helping or hurting behavior. Helping or hurt- ing behavior was assessed using the tangram puzzle procedure [Gentile et al., 2009]. Tangrams are based on seven differently shaped plastic pieces (e.g., small square, large triangle) used to form a specified out- lined shape. Participants chose 11 puzzles that their “partner” would attempt to complete from a set of ten easy, ten medium, and ten hard puzzles. Participants were told that their partner would win a $10 gift cer- tificate if he/she completed at least ten of the assigned puzzles within 10 min. Thus, participants could help
1A second prosocial game (as in Gentile et al., 2009) was initially tested, but its difficulty prevented many children from getting to the prosocial parts of the game.
their partner by assigning easy puzzles, or hurt their partner by assigning hard puzzles.
Postexperimental questionnaire. Participants rated their game on several dimensions using 10-point scales: action-packed, enjoyable, exciting, entertain- ing, fun, involving, hard to play, frustrating. They also rated their “ability on the video game task.” Repli- cating prior work [Anderson and Dill, 2000], these individual ratings formed a “fun” scale (alpha = .92) and a “difficulty” scale (alpha = .70). They were not significantly correlated with each other (r = .06). Par- ticipants also indicated their agreement with a state- ment that “The game involved helping other people” and a statement that “The game was violent.”
PROCEDURE
After arrival, both parent and child completed con- sent forms explaining the overall purpose2 and pro- cedures. Participants were told that the research in- volved how playing different video games affected performance on puzzles. Participants were told that they would play a video game by themselves, work together with a partner on a puzzle task, and that they would choose 11 tangrams for their partner to complete (there was no actual partner). If their part- ner completed ten of the 11 tangrams within 10 min, their partner would win a $10 gift certificate. They were told that after selecting tangrams for their part- ner they would receive 11 tangrams from their partner, and that although their performance would be scored they were not eligible to win a gift certificate. To jus- tify this unequal treatment, participants were told that one of the study’s goals was to determine whether a potential prize influences performance within this tangram task.
Participants received standardized tangram instruc- tions and a practice packet. After demonstrating un- derstanding of the tangram task, participants received video game instructions and practiced until they demonstrated mastery of the controls. Participants played the assigned game for 30 min by themselves. Then they chose 11 tangrams to assign their partner, and were encouraged to pick from multiple difficulty categories. Finally, participants completed the pos- texperimental questionnaire (including demograph- ics) and a funnel debriefing with open-ended probes for suspicion. Fourteen suspicious participants were identified and excluded from analyses, 11 males and
2The child was given a slightly different version of the consent form in which they were led to believe that there is an actual partner they will be participating with. The parent’s consent form revealed that there is no actual partner in this study.
Aggr. Behav.
284 Saleem et al.
three females. Suspicion was unrelated to experimen- tal condition, P > .20.
RESULTS
Scoring Tangram Choices
Participants chose medium difficulty tangrams most frequently (Mmedium = 4.65), followed by the hard (Mhard = 3.67), and easy tangrams (Measy = 2.70). Because the task had ten puzzles per difficulty level, participants had to pick from at least two cate- gories. It is possible for someone to pick ten medium tangrams and one easy (or hard) tangram to com- plete the 11 required. However, this individual is not necessarily intending to help (or harm) their partner, because the partner needed to complete only ten tan- grams to win the gift certificate. Thus, “helping” was operationally defined as the number of “easy” puzzles greater than one. Similarly, “hurting” was defined as the number of “hard” puzzles greater than one3.
Preliminary Analyses
Manipulation check. Participants’ perceptions of helpful and violent content in their assigned game were analyzed with a 3 (game type: prosocial, neu- tral, or violent) × 2 (rating type: helping or violent) analysis of variance, with rating type as a repeated measures factor. The predicted game type by rating type interaction was significant, F(2, 157) = 117.43, P < .001. The prosocial game (M = 7.18) was rated sig- nificantly higher on helpfulness than either the neutral (M = 2.13) or violent games (M = 1.84), Fs(1, 157) = 129.58 and 162.12, Ps < .001, respectively. The latter two conditions were not significantly different, F < 1.00. Also, the violent games (M = 4.54) were rated significantly higher on violence than the neutral (M = 1.07) or prosocial games (M = 1.28), Fs(1, 157) = 106.42 and 104.84, Ps < .001, respectively. The latter two were not significantly different, F < 1.00.
Covariates. Separate one-way ANOVAs (game type: prosocial, neutral, or violent) were conducted on the fun and difficulty game ratings. Difficulty ratings differed by game type, F(2, 169) = 20.07, P < .001. Contrasts revealed that the violent games (M = 4.68) were perceived as more difficult than the prosocial (M = 2.78) and neutral (M = 3.74) games, Fs(1, 169)
3For example, participants who chose 3 easy tangrams were assigned a “helping” score of 2. As in Gentile et al., 2009, the correlation between the raw # of easy and hard tangrams was large, r = −0.61, p < .001. Also as in that study, the “greater than one” scoring procedure reduced this correlation, r = −0.51, p < .001. Note that using the raw scores in the main analyses yielded results that were essentially the same as those reported here, also as in Gentile et al., 2009.
= 40.14 and 9.29, Ps < .001 and .01, respectively. The neutral games were rated as more difficult than the prosocial game, F(1, 169) = 9.51, P < .01. Thus, difficulty rating was used as a covariate in all analyses of the help/hurt tangram choices.
Fun ratings did not differ by game type, nor were any specific game contrasts significant, Fs < 2.00, Ps > .15. Furthermore, preliminary analyses found no significant effects of fun ratings or participant sex on helping and hurting behavior. Therefore, these pre- dictors were dropped.
Main Analyses: Tangram Choices
A 3 (game type: prosocial, neutral, or violent) × 2 (behavior type: helping or hurting) analysis of covari- ance was conducted on helping and hurting tangram behavior, with behavior type as a repeated factor, and trait aggression and game difficulty as covariates. The game type by trait aggression interaction was not sig- nificant and thus was not included in the final model. Game difficulty yielded no significant effects, Ps > .50, and is not discussed further.
Video game effects. The main prediction was that playing a prosocial game would lead to increased helpful and decreased hurtful behavior, relative to vi- olent games, with neutral games yielding intermediate behaviors. The means (shown in Fig. 1) fit this model quite well, and the specific contrast testing this model (decreasing linear contrast from prosocial to neutral to violent games for helpful behavior, increasing lin- ear contrast for hurtful behavior) accounted for 97% of the predicted interaction variance, F(1, 152) = 9.02, P < .001. Furthermore, deviations from the predicted pattern were nonsignificant, F < 1.
Fig. 1. Helpful and hurtful puzzle choices as a function of video game played.
Aggr. Behav.
Helping and Hurting 285
For both helpful and hurtful behavior, the proso- cial and violent game conditions were significantly different. Those who played a prosocial game were significantly more helpful (M = 2.25; SD = 2.23) than those who had played a violent game (M = 1.43; SD = 1.48), F(1, 152) = 4.65, P < .05, d = 0.35. Those who played a violent game were significantly more hurtful (M = 3.23; SD = 1.86) than those who played a prosocial game (M = 2.01; SD = 2.03), F(1, 152) = 9.20, P < .01, d = 0.49. The neutral condition means for helpful (M = 1.77; SD = 1.47) and hurtful (M = 2.82; SD = 1.89) behaviors fell between the other two game conditions.
Trait aggression effects. The behavior type by trait aggression interaction also was significant, F(1, 152) = 5.82, P < .05, d = .39. As expected, trait aggression was positively related to hurtful behavior and negatively related to helpful behavior, bhurtful = 0.15, P < .05, bhelpful = −0.16, P < .05, respectively. This further validates the tangram task as a measure of both prosocial and aggressive behavior.
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