EFFECTS OF VIEWING AGGRESSIVE CARTOONS ON THE BEHAVIOR OF LEARNING DISABLED CHILDREN

Abstract— Forty‐six learning disabled children (M = 7.6 years) were exposed to six aggressive and six control cartoons in school. Treatment effects were assessed using direct observations of five categories of social behavior. There were no main effects for condition, and neither initial aggressiveness nor gender interacted significantly with condition for any of the behaviors. There was a significant interaction of condition with IQ; the low IQ group became significantly more physically aggressive following control compared with aggressive cartoons. The results from the present study are compared with the findings from other field experiments, and their clinical relevance is discussed.