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

[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.

 

[magicmonkeybars]

Seems to me that the kids that played the violent games became smarter while the kids that played the boring games became more subservient to the rules of society.

 

[Demagogue]

Oh another article on Violence in videogames? It must be Tuesday...

 

[irok]

Pft, lower self control? where is that shown , in a competitive environment people are merely acting competitively as well as the fact that is only 200 subjects and the overarching idea that aggression and "lower self control" while playing these games actually translates to normal real life behavior , a fallacy and one that has been disproven before but I'm sure this will get media attention.

 

[Azuaron]

I'm an experimental psychologist.

The most important problem with this study is that the "nonviolent" games were boring calm games. When you do an experiment like this, it's important to distinguish between the effects of simple adrenaline (exciting but nonviolent) and exciting with violence.

Beyond that, while it has been shown that exciting video games have a whole manner of immediate effects that range from humorous to socially detrimental, the same can be said of non-videogame interactive experiences that ramp up the adrenaline (football!)

And, when it comes to long term effects, no study has shown that playing violent videogames results in any long-term detrimental effects (such as criminality).

 

[faefrost]

So did they do anything to perhaps I dunno "remove the video game element" from the equation to create a control group? Maybe have them fingerpainting or something? Because all this study seems to imply is that Videogamers crave chocolate. And the more action the game has the more chocolate they desire. I'm not seeing a firm test of morality in eating chocolate when the test parameters are "eat as much as you want. Just be aware too much can be bad for you".

 

[Zer0Saber]

I thought there was a nearly identical study, but instead of video games the show people videos that "prove" causality and everything is predetermined, and other videos that "proved" nothing is predetermined. they took a test, were asked to take the correct amount of dollar coins for their score. the people who watched the no fate video were disks and took more. all these reactions seem situational and not long term.

 

[Pyramid Head]

Hilarious that these "Studies" are almost constantly riddled with errors that disqualify practically every conclusion. Way to go quacks for consistently displaying you deserve about as much credibility as the scumbags who claim vaccines cause autism.

 

[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!

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.

I am not here to argue the legitimacy of the study. Of course, I an see logical connection between the lack of self control and violent video games. What I am here to question is the opinion of this "Doctor" which may undermine the purpose of this study.

A study finds connection between VVG and Lack of self control. sure, I get that.

A doctor of the study jumps in to conclusion and declares that VVG are affecting teenagers(and it seems to imply that VVG are the cause.). Yeah, this statement is not even backed up by the study. THIS is the part where I get angry. Just because you are a doctor doesn't mean everything you say is true sir.

You see, I tend to make my character the strongest in the entire gaming world(I still remember level 134, Master of all field archer in Skyrim) due to the mental trauma I've received when I was young.
But if someone comes to me and say games caused me to have the power fantasy mental trauma, I would say that that man is crackpot scientist.

Like a wise man once said, it is really easy to solve the problem if you choose the answer beforehand.

 

[Yopaz]

I am not here to argue the legitimacy of the study. Of course, I an see logical connection between the lack of self control and violent video games. What I am here to question is the opinion of this "Doctor" which may undermine the purpose of this study.

Sorry, I wasn't very clear on this, but I did not mean this about your post. I quoted your post because I genuinely thought it was brilliant and you brought up the fact that a correlation does not imply causation. I apologize for the confusion there, I agree completely with you.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

Guys, obviously the real correlation here is that eating chocolate makes you violent.

 

[Wadderz]

I am a bit surprised by the number of people in this thread commenting on the small sample size that this study uses. In experimental psychology and even medicine a sample size of over 100 is usually considered more than adequate. There are plenty of Nature papers in my own field with a sample size smaller than 20 in each group tested. The kind of organisational manpower required for a clinical or experimental study including upwards of a thousand participants is just unheard of - that's the realm of epidemiological studies.

Having said that... the outcome measures here were clearly thought up by a kindergartener high on acid.

 

[DaWaffledude]

For Christ's sake we all know how this plays out:

"Video Games increase violence!"

"No they don't! The study is poorly designed!"

Repeat until thread dies down, then we get another story that's pretty much the exact same.