SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Instructor:  Susan Boland

Case Study 1.6 

Adapted from a case study written by Erik Coats and Robert S. Feldman in Feldman, R.S. & Regan, P.C. (1995). Social Psychology: Student Workbook with Case Studies. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:  Prentice Hall.  

·        This case study assignment requires that you apply information from lecture and from Chapter 2 of the textbook.  Read the case study carefully and answer the questions in detail.  Follow the instructions for case study assignments in the course handout booklet.  A copy of the instructions is also on my web-page http://www.lhup.edu/sboland/ 

·          Avoid quoting directly from the textbook -- write using your own words.  Information taken from the text, even if rewritten in your own words, must be credited to or cited to the textbook authors.  See the full instructions for more information about citing the text as a reference.  I also suggest that you review the class exercise on plagiarism.

·          If you have any questions regarding this assignment, please ask.  I am also happy to go over rough drafts of case studies with you.  If you wish me to review a rough draft, you must set up an appointment, allowing at least 20 minutes to go over the paper with me. Keep in mind that you may want to revise your paper after our conference, so you should have your rough draft ready well before the due date.  

 

Case Study 1.6:  Cindy’s Choice 

Cindy is required to design, carry out, and present the results of a research study for her senior psychology course.  She is interested in the influence of video and computer game violence on children’s aggressive behavior, but can’t decide which of two studies to conduct.  Her father teaches 6th grade, and Cindy thinks she could get permission from the school district and the parents to involve her father’s students in either study.  

Study 1:  Her first study idea is to have the children keep track of the time they spend playing video or computer games during a one-week period.  The next week, she would observe during play periods at school, and assess how aggressive each child is.   Cindy thinks she will focus on physical aggression and will count the number of times each child hits, punches, kicks, trips, or shoves another child. 

Study 2: Cindy’s second idea is to divide the classroom into two groups.  She would have one group play a video game containing violence, and have the other group play a non-violent video game.  Afterwards she would give the children time to play and would again keep track of each child’s aggressive behavior as describe above in Study 1.  

1.   a.  One of the studies uses a correlational design and one uses an experimental design.
            First  briefly describe each type of research design.

b.  Next identify each study idea as correlational or experimental.

c.  Finally, explain the basis for your identification.  In other words, explain what makes one
     of the study ideas a correlational design and the other an experimental design.  

2.    a.  In your own words, define independent variable. 

        b. What is the independent variable in the experimental study? How is the variable manipulated
             in the study?

c.       Suggest a different variable related to children’s aggressive behavior that a researcher could  manipulate. Devise an operational definition of the variable, that is, describe how it could be manipulated. 

3.    a.    What is a dependent variable?

       b.   What is the dependent variable in the experiment?  How is the dependent variable
             measured?      

       c.    Suggest a different dependent variable (must be a social behavior) that might be related
             to playing video and computer games.  How could you measure this variable? 

 4.   Cindy’s instructor tells her that she must randomly assign children to the two game-playing groups
        in her second study.   

  1. What is random assignment? (Note:  Do NOT confuse random assignment with random sampling.  They are two different processes, used for two different purposes.) 
     
  1. Why is it important that Cindy use random assignment?  Why couldn’t Cindy just let the children choose which video or computer game they played – what problems would this introduce? (Be specific in your answer.  Answers that simply say that random assignment improves the validity of a study, without explaining how, are inadequate.)

5.  Suppose Cindy decides to conduct her first study.

a.       What type of relationship would you expect that Cindy would find between the variables of game violence and aggressive behavior?  Do you think the relationship would be positive or negative? Explain your answer.

 b.      If Cindy discovered a strong relationship between the variables, can she conclude that playing
       a certain type of game can cause the children to act aggressively or nonaggressively?
       Explain your answer.  

c.       Give at least one alternative explanation for a relationship between game violence and aggressive behavior.