New Study Connects Violent Games With Lower Self-Control Among Teens

[FalloutJack]

I'm pretty sure you could get similar results by getting one group to play monopoly while another plays trivial pursuit.

Hell, I say you get stronger results out of Monopoly.

OT: Well, looky here. Another hair-brained 'I want to look smart and important' study on violent video games with a very weak premise and still no behavior that you can correctly say the games MAKE people do anymore than they'd do themselves under any other circumstances. Honestly, some half-baked international study trying to make itself look big [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtVIvmOPHOQ] and forgetting the scientific process...AGAIN

*Shakes head*

I'll be in mah bunk.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

So this study does not state the cause of those behaviors?

So this study means nothing. Furthermore, they dare state that "Very few teens are unaffected by violent videogames"

See those two statements.

1. Teens who have less than average self control enjoys violent videogames.

2. Teens who enjoys videogames have less than avg self control.

Now, those two.

1. Wrinkles are caused by an old age.

2. Old people are caused by wrinkles.

See where the logical fallacy lies?
It is hard not to see biased opinion of this study. Just because you've found a relationship between two things that does not mean one of them are the definite cause of one of those problem.

I wish that they try to disprove this.

P.S: German marketing capcha that has something to do with Mastercard. Really? I've never even visited that place!

 

[Weaver]

P.S: German marketing capcha that has something to do with Mastercard. Really? I've never even visited that place!

You're getting it too?!? I couldn't post! I had no idea what it wanted me to do!
You're also in Canada, weird.

OT: I do actually believe that gaming will directly affect ones mood afterwards, but I don't believe there are really any long term effects of any note. I mean I've watched sad movies that had me feeling for the rest of the day, or read some really insightful philosophy that had me pondering for an afternoon. Or seen a comedy that lifted my spirits for awhile.

Experiencing hours of violence will probably affect some people directly afterwards.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Didn't we already agree this wasn't and never was the source of violence? Why are people still on this?

People will always be trying to find a causal link between violent entertainment and violent behavior, because they don't want to admit that sometimes people do bad things for no reason whatsoever. It's also so parents can continue to blame anything other than themselves for the bad behavior of their kids. These studies will never prove that violent entertainment causes violent or any other sort of behavior, but I think people will keep trying pretty much forever regardless.

Studies like this one are designed to falsify and skew evidence reach a particular conclusion and then pass that off as "evidence" that the conclusion is correct, not to accurately prove anything. If it wasn't, they'd find as many people of backgrounds as similar as possible to each other, psychologically evaluate each of them, single out the ones that are as close as is humanly possible to each other, put them on a controlled diet for several weeks, THEN run a test like this. Maybe then the results of the test might actually have some merit.

 

[Something Amyss]

This is so small of a test I can't really find it valid.

You know, numbers similar to this have been used in other studies not about gaming without any controversy. I think this is looking specifically to call it invalid, much in the same way people accuse media of being "biased" when something they don't personally agree with is reported.

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing more (but notinherrently larger) study on this, but I think a better criticism is:

Not suprising at all. After any competative experiance I'd imagine somebody to act more aggresively.

Indeed, how does this compare to other, "normal" activities? In itself, seeking to find the aggressive results of a certain activity isn't negative, but expression of such a thing in a vacuum is at issue, especially since these studies tend to be in response specifically to political pressure from one group or another.

And no, that doesn't mean they're biased, but it may mean the findings will be used in such a way.

Do games promote bad behaviour more than, say, sports? Will roughhousing ("boys will be boys") have a similar impact? Does other media lead to the same behavioural effects?

One thing about tests is thatt they're likely to be repeated. Will the results be?

 

[Screamarie]

I'm sure there's potential for a comment on nationality here but I won't make it.

I'd also wonder how the participants would respond if they had just played a competative sport. Or even Magic the Gathering. I've seen tempers flare a lot while playing that game.

Yeah that's something you never hear spoken about. How does the great all American football effect aggression? I'd bet money that it causes, at least for a time, aggression. But the perception of football is good so the fact that it has the chance of being a hostile enviroment to put your kids in, can lead to serious long-term injury or even be fatal, that doesn't matter. I'm not saying football is bad, it can be a very fun thing for kids and teens to do and can lead to healthy qualities, phsyically, emotionally, and mentally, developing in a person, but you have to acknowledge it's drawbacks as well.

And what's so wrong with aggression anyways? Everyone gets aggressive now and again, there's nothing inherently wrong with it. I hate this culture that's developed where kids and teens are not allowed to feel anything other than neutral all day long. If they're happy, they're on drugs or they're up to something, if they're angry or aggressive they're obviously going to end up on a clock-tower with a shotgun, if they're sad they need immediate anti-depressants and suicide watch.

 

[Grabehn]

"it's unhealthy to eat so much chocolate in such a short time span"

It's unhealthy? Oh my, I had never thought about it... that will completely destroy the possibilities of me eating FREE CHOCOLATE EVER AGAIN!

What's this study? And why does the title fits so perfectly the stupid nature of it all? Poorly behaved kids will be like that whether they play games or not, and cheating? I've been playing games since I was a kid, including the "awful awful" GTA 3 by the time I was 10-12 and I don't cheat, nor behaved poorly back then.

Could there be a connection between... parenting and the kids behaviour? Nah forget it, it was just a stupid idea.

 

[Icehearted]

Let's consider the following:
Diet
Genetic predisposition
Societal norms and role assignment (based on geography, class, gender, etc)

And then there's parenting, my personal favorite. Because a video game or TV show are more influential in a pubescent human's life than their guardian(s). Never mind that too many parent's are bad at saying "no", how about not placing your child on a pedestal, or not teaching them that they are the exception and that the world revolves around them?

Yeah naw, I'm sure video games shape behavior WAY more than bad parenting by self-adulating morons that want to be irresponsible permissive pals rather than responsible parents.

Next up, Pac-Man, and it's link to obesity!

 

[Yopaz]

So this study does not state the cause of those behaviors?

So this study means nothing. Furthermore, they dare state that "Very few teens are unaffected by violent videogames"

See those two statements.

1. Teens who have less than average self control enjoys violent videogames.

2. Teens who enjoys videogames have less than avg self control.

Now, those two.

1. Wrinkles are caused by an old age.

2. Old people are caused by wrinkles.

See where the logical fallacy lies?
It is hard not to see biased opinion of this study. Just because you've found a relationship between two things that does not mean one of them are the definite cause of one of those problem.

I wish that they try to disprove this.

P.S: German marketing capcha that has something to do with Mastercard. Really? I've never even visited that place!

And there's a brilliant graph to explain how pointless any of these studies are regardless of conclusion. These guys could have had the opposite result, the opposite conclusion and I would still say it wasn't good enough. A person is more than just the kind of media he or she might be enjoying.

However increased aggression while playing violent games... is anyone going to dispute this? That's a given. When we activate our sympathetic nervous system that's simply what happens to us. Adrenaline pumps through the body, heart rate increases (I won't mention all functions) and we get ready for either fight or flight. This happens when we mentally prepares ourselves to really push ourselves physically such as before we're going to lift weights or sprint. If you measured my aggression at the gym you'd see it going in waves, peaking 10 seconds before I start a set, plummeting when I finish a set. Does exercise cause aggression? Short term yes, long term? I don't know.

Can we rule out video games as a factor? No. Can we blame one single thing? No. I repeat this so many times regardless of what a study concludes, but I see that all the protests here about methods, peer reviewed and size are usually absent when the conclusion is that games are awesome and not harmful. We accept studies that confirm what we want to be true showing we are essentially no better than the politicians who blame video games whenever someone gets shot.

 

[Micalas]

I'm pretty sure you could get similar results by getting one group to play monopoly while another plays trivial pursuit.

Oh my god, I love this example. Another great game to use would be Diplomacy(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_(game)). This game has the potential to end in fist fights, lol.


Oh and I find it funny they used a modified Milgram Experiment(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment) in here. Fail.

 

[Billy D Williams]

In all seriousness here, couldn't the fact that for the violent games that used Grand Theft Auto, a game series generally described as fun and engaging, and for the others they used games like Pinball and Minigulf, games I can only imagine are as boring as they sound? It just seems like the non-violent group would be less engaged in what they were doing because they were playing shitty games, therefore adding in a factor that one group was more engaged than the other which can completely invalidate the entire study.

 

[FalloutJack]

Now, I have to ask this twice, once for each thread:

Shouldn't the presence of a pro violent video game study and an anti violent video game study side-by-side cause some sort of paradox, space distortion, or matter/anti-matter explosion?

 

[Something Amyss]

Didn't we already agree this wasn't and never was the source of violence? Why are people still on this?

I really would have liked to have been privvy to the meeting where this was decided once and for all.

 

[Something Amyss]

In all seriousness here, couldn't the fact that for the violent games that used Grand Theft Auto, a game series generally described as fun and engaging, and for the others they used games like Pinball and Minigulf, games I can only imagine are as boring as they sound? It just seems like the non-violent group would be less engaged in what they were doing because they were playing shitty games, therefore adding in a factor that one group was more engaged than the other which can completely invalidate the entire study.

I think this is a fair argument. I wonder how we would rate engagement, though.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

[quote = Abstract]Violent video games glorify and reward immoral behaviors (e.g., murder, assault, rape, robbery, arson, motor vehicle theft). Based on the moral disengagement theory, we predicted that violent games would increase multiple immoral behaviors (i.e., lack of self-control, cheating, aggression), especially for people low in moral disengagement. High school students (N = 172) who had completed a measure of moral disengagement were randomly assigned to play one of the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) violent video games, or a nonviolent game. Self-control was measured using the weight of uneaten chocolates (i.e., M&M?s) in a bowl by the computer. After gameplay, participants could cheat on a test to win raffle tickets for attractive prizes (e.g., iPad). Aggression was measured using a competitive task in which participants could give an ostensible partner unpleasant noise blasts through headphones. Results showed that violent video games decreased self-control and increased cheating and aggression, especially for people high in moral disengagement. [/quote]

Decent sized test group, but very shitty tests for all parameters tested.

 

[Ghaleon640]

I remember seeing example after example of biased half-assed studies by people with obvious agendas when researching for middle school papers. Since then I've always had a hard time trusting them unless they go into incredible detail of their controls beforehand. I'm in college now and I still have an issue getting over my own bias toward these types of studies.

 

[seditary]

Did they just indirectly say that people with high 'moral disengagement' eat more chocolate?

How in the world does morals have to do with eating chocolate in any way? (assuming its ethically made of course)

 

[JLF]

Their choice of control group games makes comparisons difficult to make. First off games that do not raise your heartbeat, which in turn raises your level of exertion, to about the same level, could not leave out the possibility that "violent games" group might be more hungry than the control. Which in turn could led to higher consumption of chocolate.

Secondly, if the games do not reach to near equal levels of arousal (not the sexual kind) one can not be sure if aggressive behavior is because of the games or because of physical arousal. E.g. exercising and playing sports makes an individual more assertive ("violent") and insensitive (for a short period of time) to other people. Hormonal changes especially increased testosterone levels increases the tendency to "violent" like behaviour.

It would be interesting to see if they at all took into account these arguments. I will have to wait for the original article to become available. But at first glance the study seems to have not accounted for all possible confounding variables. But I could be wrong.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This was obviously manipulated. Everything stinks of political agenda. And no one should take any research with such a low number of participants seriously.

 

[rosac]

jesus christ guys, it's just one study. To the person complaining "It didn't look at family background" well, a lot of studies don't, even studies looking at alcohol addiction (my current area of research for my dissertation).

I think that if you read the actual published research it would more than likely have a better account of what happened and what the study found than an article on a gaming magazine. It seems they touched a nerve here.