Long Time Video Game Critic Claims Conclusive Evidence That Violent Video Games Cause Aggression; Conclusive Except That It Isn't...
from the except-for-the-details dept
Well, the back and forth over the impact of violent video games continues. Every so often someone comes out with a research paper, claiming that violent video games are dangerous for kids, but the details never seem to support those exaggerated claims. Studies have shown that kids playing violent video games have more aggressive thoughts while playing the games (uh, duh!) and that they can become desensitized to the violent images on the screen (but not necessarily desensitized to actual violence). Then there are studies that show that kids who play violent video games tend to be emotional about those video games (again, duh). But none of that suggests the video games actually lead to increased violence or any increased risk of violence. They just suggest that kids get into video games. And, for all the claims of violent video games increasing youth violence, it seems rather damning that as violent video games have increased in popularity, incidents of youth violence have dropped. Other studies have actually suggested on-screen violence may actually decrease real violence, by acting as an outlet.So it seems a bit ridiculous for anyone -- especially a professor who has been solidly on one side of the debate for many years, to stand up and claim that he has conclusively shown that violent video games make kids more "aggressive" (found via Slashdot). First, note the choice of words: not violent, but aggressive. Iowa State psychology professor Craig Anderson, who has already staked his reputation on saying that violent video games have a negative impact on kids, isn't about to back down. He claims that he went through 130 studies and concluded that the support is unequivocal:
"We can now say with utmost confidence that regardless of research method -- that is experimental, correlational, or longitudinal -- and regardless of the cultures tested in this study [East and West], you get the same effects," said Anderson, who is also director of Iowa State's Center for the Study of Violence. "And the effects are that exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in both short-term and long-term contexts. Such exposure also increases aggressive thinking and aggressive affect, and decreases prosocial behavior."Of course, reality is a bit more fuzzy. The same journal that is publishing Anderson's new paper is also publishing a commentary from other researchers who disagree and suggest that Anderson has a pretty bad selection bias problem. But the biggest problem -- as we noted above, is that all of these "violent video games are bad" studies seem to show incredibly weak effects that don't appear to be significant in any meaningful way. As the commentary shows:
Psychology, too often, has lost its ability to put the weak (if any) effects found for VVGs on aggression into a proper perspective. In doing so, it does more to misinform than inform public debates on this issue.Meanwhile, just last year, two Harvard Medical School professors also went through a whole bunch of different studies on violent video games and came to the exact opposite conclusions as Anderson did. It found little actual evidence to support Anderson's claims, and found significant problems with research suggesting there was a serious link between violent video games and actual violence. Among that report's findings:
- In the last 10 years, video games studies have been overwhelmingly popular compared to studies on other media.
- Less than half of studies (41%) used well validated aggression measures.
- Poorly standardized and unreliable measures of aggression tended to produce the highest effects, possibly because their unstandardized format allows researchers to pick and choose from a range of possible outcomes.
- The closer aggression measures got to actual violent behavior, the weaker the effects seen.
- Experimental studies produced much higher effects than correlational or longitudinal studies. As experimental studies were most likely to use aggression measures of poor quality, this may be the reason why.
- There was no evidence that video games produce higher effects than other media, despite their interactive nature.
- Overall, effects were negligible, and we conclude that media violence generally has little demonstrable effect on aggressive behavior.
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Filed Under: craig anderson, video games, violence
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Anyone stop to wonder if humans just become aggressive in competitive situations? Is it that hard to see that it's not the content of the videogames that matter, but the context in which they're played? I could play Teletubby Funtime Land on Xbox Live and I'd still have 10-year-olds calling me a "jew nigger faggot nazi" if I was beating them.
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I think what needs to happen
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The guy's a crank.
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Now back to playing Hello Kitty online...
(joking BTW)
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stress relief form noobs , morons and the idiots of life
when i get all pent up instead puting a hole in wall or someones face
ill play a galactic take over game wiht the cheats for power trip mode
ill make suire i blow it rup damn hard and good
then feeling better i return to the real world without aggression
why are people lying?
do they want me to punch people out and put holes in walls?
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Re: stress relief form noobs , morons and the idiots of life
So, yeah. No more video games for you--you need to 'support' your local government by being part of the 'system.'
(Have a nice day.)
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Product Placement
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Cue the nutjobs
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Re: Cue the nutjobs
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Re: Re: Cue the nutjobs
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I remember...
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Re: I remember...
And radio.
And dancing.
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Re: Re: I remember...
And Rap music.
And Booze.
And, of course, printed words.
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Re: Re: I remember...
Seriously, isn't it better than say, going to a stadium to watch people slaughter each other live before thousands of screaming fans? Maybe we should go back to REAL gladiators instead of programming Objects.
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Re: Re: I remember...
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This guy's a joke
"We can now say with utmost confidence that regardless of research method -- that is experimental, correlational, or longitudinal -- and regardless of the cultures tested in this study [East and West], you get the same effects,"
Regardless of cultures? C'mon, that is just stupid. Any undergrad sociology paper would get flunked for saying something like that.
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Must Read Series
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Has Craig Anderson ever mailed gay porn to a judge? Got in childish fights with cartoonists? Been disbarred? Nope. Enough said.
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Weird, huh?
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Crazy talk
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Global warming is a hoax. Oops, I mean violent video games don't lead to violence.
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Re: Global warming is a hoax. Oops, I mean violent video games don't lead to violence.
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Re: Global warming is a hoax. Oops, I mean violent video games don't lead to violence.
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Re: Global warming is a hoax. Oops, I mean violent video games don't lead to violence.
You could say that about ANYTHING. We don't know for sure if eating carrots contributes to violent behavior. We don't know for sure if wearing hats contributes to violent behavior. We don't know for sure if posting self-righteous diatribes contributes to violent behavior (although I have my own theory on that one). The bottom line is, if you wait for everything to be proven 100% safe before doing it, you may as well just kill yourself, since you won't be doing anything.
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Re: Re: Global warming is a hoax. Oops, I mean violent video games don't lead to violence.
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Re: Global warming is a hoax. Oops, I mean violent video games don't lead to violence.
I especially like this quote from one of the e-mails...
"Otherwise, however, not much is happening with global warming at the moment. The Earth’s average temperatures have stopped climbing since the beginning of the millennium, and it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year."
Hmm...yet we continue to push for more carbon regulation. Maybe the whole thing was natural and now it's cooling down. Wait, no, that would mean the scientists were wrong. Instead they offer the option that "Our observing system is inadequate."
So yes, global warming could very well have largely been spurred on by fake data, much like violent video games causing violent behavior. Obviously violence didn't exist before video games, after all. Not like people were savagely murdering people at the centers of large crowds and it was considered acceptable in ancient times.
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Humans are naturally agressive and that is why these games are popular.
It's all the children's fault!! Who's going to protect the games??!!
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Graph
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/04/gaming-real-vio/
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I bicycle kicked my brother once and then turned into a dragon and ate his torso.
But then the mushrooms wore off....
AAAHHH! Fungi causes violent behavior!!!!
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The evidence is in!
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Violent video games aren't the problem...
This sort of nonsense about some entertainment form causing violent behavior has been with us a long time.
In my kid days, comic books were the dastardly mind destroying, behavior altering, and antisocial delivery vehicle that would make them be the terror of society when they grew up.
That never came to pass that I know of. In the process of looking at the pictures, I wanted to know what they meant. Low and behold I learned to read.
To this day I have no remote inclination to go rob a bank, jump over a multistory building (or off one), or go knock off a few cops for fun and giggles.
Geeze I must be a retard compared to all these studies that came out at the time...I didn't get it.
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Common Sense
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Adding to the above
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Adding to the above
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Does Professor Craig Anderson cause aggression?
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Where are the parents?
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Craig Anderson is a moron
All of the questions were worded differently for each part of the survey to elicit the results he was looking for. One specifically I remember was regarding your emotional state. On the first game it ranged from bored to entertained, on the mind game it was engaged to unengaged, and on the last it was bored to engaged... so basically just from the descriptions you knew exactly what you were supposed to pick. The whole time I was thinking, "these results were set in stone before the experiment even began, how is he going to spin this?" Well I think we can see he spun it into a beautiful pile of crap.
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New Research for Aggression Causes
More than 99% of humans who were born demonstrated clearly aggressive behavior during their lives, scientists said.
They also suggested to kill all humans as a solution to the aggression problem.
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