efinition of a videogame that the general public uses; an interactive game played on a television or monitor whereby onscreen objects can be manipulated through the use of a controller. Violent video games are those that involve death and destruction to things resembling reality and/or fantasy. Definitions of “aggression,” however, differ. Cooper and Mackie (1986) used a child’s toy selection and distribution of reward/punishment as an indicator of aggression. Tamborini et all (2000) consider aggression to be hostile thoughts. Derek (1995) defines aggression as a mindset that includes seven subcategories (the Buss-Durkee Inventory): assault, irritability, indirect hostility, negativism, resentment, suspicion, and verbal hostility. Ballard and Weist (1996) use the word “hostility” instead of aggression. In this case it refers to thoughts of defensiveness, dominance, aggression, self-confidence, nurturance, and autonomy. Sherry (2000) just says, “…and some form of aggressiveness as the dependant variable.” The Cooper and Mackie study and the Sherry study are the only two that incorporate behavior in their definition of aggressiveness. All of the others deal only with thoughts, but are quite similar in their intent.The real make-or-break portion of research is the method in which you seek and categorize the data. Cooper and Mackie (1986) took 84 4th and 5th graders from New Jersey. They had equal numbers of boys and girls separated into three groups. One group played the “violent” game Missile Commander (a cheesy game where you shoot lasers at little dots representing bombs falling on a city), another played Pac Man (which we all know and love), and the control group solved mazes with pencil and paper. After 8 minutes of game play the kids were told to select a toy to play with while the researcher did some work (the researcher was actually observing how long the ch...
