The Effect of Exposure to an Agressive Cartoon on Children's Play.

The authors discuss their replications of 2 prominent studies in the area of modeling aggressive behavior; those of Lovaas and Bandura. In the first, they predicted that, given the same socio-economic background, there would be no differences between black and white children in the amount of aggressive play subsequent to viewing an aggressive cartoon. No significant differences are shown between the experimental and control groups for either blacks or whites. The second study, in which 43 pre-schoolers were divided into 3 subject groups, varied the level of aggressive content by showing a different cartoon to each group. It was assumed that the children exposed to the most aggression would emit the most aggressive responses in a subsequent free play period. Again, no significant differences were found. The authors discuss their inability to demonstrate a previously well-documented effect. (TL)