Psychology Study Blames Games for Aggressive Behavior

[NaramSuen]

Interesting thing to note, I do believe that youth crime rates have steadily risen. And nobody has ever said that video games were the only cause for increased aggression, only one goddamn factor. Could people please stop being so inanely defensive over something that we really shouldn't be defensive over? It's not like this guy is specifically out to get anything, it's simply an experiment to see what short-/long-term effects we can find from these things.

What source says that youth crime rates have steadily risen? All the statical data I have seen agrees that youth crime in the United States has been steadily decreasing since a high in 1994. Crime rates across the board are at the lowest levels in decades.

I may be entirely mistaken on the youth crime rates, I freely admit that. But I would be interested to know if what I said was true. When people say crime rates they take in extremely general terms, depending on what they put in as "crime" (civil or criminal?), and since all the naysayers say that "the youth is being corrupted!" it would be interesting to see that put to the test. However, as far as I have seen, people only cite crime rates in general which, while useful, isn't specific enough for my taste.

Jumplion I do not know how old you are, but I am defensive of this issue because I have been dealing with people like this researcher my entire life. I have had to listen to experts talk about how Dungeons & Dragons and heavy metal encourages people to worship the "devil," skateboarding leads to juvenile delinquency and video games cause anti-social behaviour. People who make unsubstantiated claims should be subjected to as much scorn as we can heap upon them.

Age has nothing to do with this. Out of curiosity, how old do you think I am?

I get that these people have gone on and on about D&D, comic books, TV, radio, rap music, grunge, Elivis, the whole lot. I've done a few essays on the subject myself. But we gain absolutely nothing by refuting every single piece of researched used just because they give results we don't like. For some people, yes, heavy metal may encourage more destructive behavior, skateboarding can potentially be associated with juvenile delinquency, and some games can cause anti-social behavior. What we don't know, however, is why some of these effects come from certain factors, or how prevalent the short-/long-term effect are (especially the long term effects.) That doesn't mean it effect everyone in the same way, and this study does not try to single games out.

We're a defensive bunch. It's great that we are scrutinizing these kinds of studies for their validity. But the thing is, we're not scrutinizing for the right reasons. We're poking at every little thing wrong with these studies, not because we want to see better studies done, but because they're attacking our precious hobby. And then when a study comes up saying "Video games help increase response time," suddenly we all turn around and declare that the other people are assholes for even think that our precious games could be destructive to anyone. That is an incredibly dangerous mindset when it comes to research, that's the kind of thing that fundamentalist nutjobs do.

Video games have an effect on people, both positive and negative. Do deny it would be incredibly ignorant and short-sighted of us. Not all studies are out to get us, and to ignore any findings just because we've seen this all before it detrimental to the whole point of doing these sorts of studies.

Civil law, by its very definition, is not criminal; it deals with disputes between individuals and/or organizations and rewards compensation, not jail time. Also, the burden of proof for criminal law and civil law are completely different. Crime rates break crimes down into very specific categories, violent, property, drug, etc... and these categories usually have sub-categories. homicide, breaking and entering, impaired driving, etc... I am not sure how much more specific these statistics could get.

My question about age was not intended to be condescending or patronizing, if you took it that way then I apologize. All of your comments are well thought out and interesting to read. I was using it as a way to segue into my broader point about the various scapegoats that have been held up within my lifetime. I grew up in the 80s and have watched a steady train of cynical opportunistic politicians and public figures demonize things that they do not understand in the name of the public good.

I do not deny that video games have both positive and negative effects upon people. However, I greet any claim, positive or negative, with the same amount of scepticism. This type of research will always be jumped upon by people trying to serve their own self-interests and since I have a dog in this fight, I will be on the side-lines casting doubt.

 

[MasterChief892039]

Even if playing games desensitizes one to violence, that doesn't necessarily mean one is more likely to commit violence.

Anecdotally, I would know.

 

[Baneat]

Even if playing games desensitizes one to violence, that doesn't necessarily mean they're more likely to commit violence.

Anecdotally, I would know.

I still think it only desensitises you to pictures of violence, but maybe even not so much.

That two hammer video? I was going to throw up after five seconds, I had to turn it off.


So, use that two hammer video, for genuine violence, make it clear that that man is *actually* being murdered, and run the test again. Ethics of that are questionable though.

Trust me, it's just as bad as people who don't play video games.

PS: I'll make it clear I can watch SAW movies and allsorts of simulated violence all day, but when it gets real that's when the desensitisation all goes away completely and utterly. I think I speak for most reasonable people when I say that I know there's a difference between the real and the virtual.

 

[Womplord]

I actually agree that playing violent video games will tend to make you more aggressive. I don't really care though, I don't think it's THAT big of a deal...

 

[Treblaine]

"Blast him with a loud sound"

OH LORD GOD NO! THAT IS SO VIOLENT!

Give me a break, crying babies blast me with loud an unpleasant sounds when they cry and no one would describe that as "violent". A loud noise is a harmless prank.

This is NOT a controlled experiment as they have not controlled for competitiveness, how playing ANY game makes people more competitive and likely to use a louder noise in the pursuit of victory.

 

[loodmoney]

Spoiler: snip

The fuck? The louder a sound you 'blasted' at your opponent, the more aggressive you are? How does that make any sense?
And besides, it depends what you mean by 'desensitized'. If it no longer bothers you to see fake blood in movies or computer-animated blood, that doesn't mean that seeing someone get kicked in the face or ripped in half and eaten in real life wouldn't bother you. That's what I always found annoying with these 'scientific studies'. They assume that showing you images on a screen that you know are fake is the same as real-life disturbing images.
Give us some credit, we can tell fact from fiction.

The images used to test for desensitisation to were taken from the International Affective Picture System. They are pictures of real things, not computer animated. They are photographs, much like you would find in a newspaper or other media that is about real life.

Alright, I'll give you that, they were using real photos. But when I said 'fake blood in movies' I was counting very photo-realistic images as part of something we still knew wasn't really there. Images do have power, I don't deny that, but being able to handle fake violence doesn't mean you would take real violence in stride.

Unfortunately, due to the constraints of ethics, psychologists cannot test using real violence. So pictures are a compromise. However, the fact that desensitised participants blasted more noise at their opponent does support the idea that they took real violence in stride (again, as close to real violence as is possible). On the other hand, it could be argued that pictures aren't the best way to represent violent scenarios (as compared to e.g. videos), but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

In our everyday lives, we don't expect bloody violence, generally. But when we play a violent game, we certainly do expect it. So when do you think we'll be less surprised and disturbed to see it?
The experiment was contaminated just by people being in an abnormal situation (being in a controlled environment while being observed) and playing violent games. They were put in the mindset of expecting inordinately violent images and that's exactly what they got. As for the people playing nonviolent games, they probably weren't in the mindset of 'There will be bloody images on my screen, and that is normal'. Violent pictures were thrust upon them when they didn't expect it, so of course their brain activity spiked.

That's pretty much what desensitisation to violence is: expecting (in some sense, in this case on the neural level) violence, and having less of a reaction to it. And gamers who had more previous exposure to violent games were more desensitised, i.e., they were more in the mindset you mention, regardless of whether they played a violent or non-violent game before the test.

All psychology experiments are contaminated by people being in a artificial situation, but this cannot be held against this particular experiment without it being held against all psychology experiments. And that will include all those that support the absence of a link or a negative link between video games and violence.

This could be an interesting discussion if you'd please not be so infuriatingly condescending.

Yeah, sorry about that, and it wasn't meant to target you in particular, so much as the majority of the thread that responded with a knee-jerk reaction. It's just rather hard to watch a group of otherwise rational people become anti-science as soon as a study of this sort comes out.

"Blast him with a loud sound"

OH LORD GOD NO! THAT IS SO VIOLENT!

Give me a break, crying babies blast me with loud an unpleasant sounds when they cry and no one would describe that as "violent". A loud noise is a harmless prank.

This is NOT a controlled experiment as they have not controlled for competitiveness, how playing ANY game makes people more competitive and likely to use a louder noise in the pursuit of victory.

The noise blast thing went up to 105 decibels, which is above the level that, at extended esposure, causes hearing damage. It is as loud as a fire alarm (the old kind, that doesn't gradually increase in volume), and other [http://www.sengpielaudio.com/TableOfSoundPressureLevels.htm] unpleasant [http://decibelcar.com/index.php/menugeneric/87-dbequivalent.html] things [http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/loudness.html]. You must remember that experimenters have to operate within ethical limits, and this pushes up against the "harmless prank" level.

Also, both groups played games, so if "any game makes people more competitive", that was controlled for. However, there was no control for the "competitivness" of the games in either group, so that could be a legitimate criticism: the violent games might have been more competitive than the non-violent ones.

 

[Jumplion]

Civil law, by its very definition, is not criminal; it deals with disputes between individuals and/or organizations and rewards compensation, not jail time. Also, the burden of proof for criminal law and civil law are completely different. Crime rates break crimes down into very specific categories, violent, property, drug, etc... and these categories usually have sub-categories. homicide, breaking and entering, impaired driving, etc... I am not sure how much more specific these statistics could get.

But statistics can be twisted to fit any purpose. Often times when I see someone say "crime has dropped since video games!" they often include both civil and criminal as "crime" is a pretty broad term. Some might view "property damage" as a pretty low crime, so they remove that. I've seen it once or twice. Juvenile crime is a different category than "standard" crime and I have yet to see anyone give me the specifics on that.

My question about age was not intended to be condescending or patronizing, if you took it that way then I apologize. All of your comments are well thought out and interesting to read. I was using it as a way to segue into my broader point about the various scapegoats that have been held up within my lifetime. I grew up in the 80s and have watched a steady train of cynical opportunistic politicians and public figures demonize things that they do not understand in the name of the public good.

I grew up partway into the 90s, but I understand the whole scapegoating thing. This does not mean, however, that we should face the other way and stick our fingers in our ears. After years of us doing the same thing when comic books/D&D/rap was under attack, it's bound to not really be the best solution to combating the naysayers and ignorant politicians. It only further helps their point that we are unsociable manchildren that can't handle anything.

I do not deny that video games have both positive and negative effects upon people. However, I greet any claim, positive or negative, with the same amount of scepticism. This type of research will always be jumped upon by people trying to serve their own self-interests and since I have a dog in this fight, I will be on the side-lines casting doubt.

But do you? Do you really give the same amount of skepticism to positive-yielding studies? That's what I'm doubtful of.

 

[mechanixis]

They're right, I shot twenty real live people today without even thinking about it. I can't even tell the difference!

 

[CosmicCommander]

Social Psychology.

AAAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Oh, he's just a wannabe sociologist who's trying to generate a career break. It's a branch of a field that can't even be called Science. It's randomly analysing population trends and inventing bullshit terminology for them. And then saying that Marx sets it all right.

 

[loodmoney]

Social Psychology.

AAAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Oh, he's just a wannabe sociologist who's trying to generate a career break. It's a branch of a field that can't even be called Science. It's randomly analysing population trends and inventing bullshit terminology for them. And then saying that Marx sets it all right.

From the publisher's website [http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/622874/description#description]:

The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology publishes original research and theory on human social behavior and related phenomena. The journal emphasizes empirical, conceptually based research that advances an understanding of important social psychological processes. The journal also publishes literature reviews, theoretical analyses, and methodological comments.

There is a difference between sociology and social psychology. This is the latter.

Bartholow's faculty page [http://psychology.missouri.edu/bartholowb] lists 18 papers that he has either authored or co-authored in the last ten years. The paper in question was co-authored with three other psychologists. This isn't exactly a "career break".

Participants
Participants were selected from a pool of over 2,000 undergraduates who completed a video game usage questionnaire as part of a battery of measures administered in a webbased survey.[...]
Procedure
Participants were told that the study concerned the effects of video games on visual perception and reaction time. After participants gave their consent, the researcher applied scalp electrodes for electroencephalogram (EEG) recording.

So not a "random analysis of population trends", but a specific experiment conducted on a group of participants.

References that begin with "M":

MacKinnon, D. P., & Fairchild, A. J. (2009). Current directions in mediation analysis. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 16-20.

Mullin, C. R., & Linz, D. (1995). Desensitization and resensitization to violence against women: Effects of exposure to sexually violent films on judgments of domestic violence victims. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 44-459.

Note that neither of these are Marx. The conclusion is also worth quoting in this regard:

In summary, the present research is the first to demonstrate that acute desensitization to violence can account for the causal effect of violent video game exposure on aggression. In short, these data indicate that a brain on media violence provides one important pathway for increased aggression.

Again, no Marx.

Can we start taking science seriously now--even when it says things we don't like to hear?

 

[solidstatemind]

Time for another episode of "you should have read the paper." Let's begin.

Hm. I'm guessing from the nebulous 'measured brain waves' statement that Bartholow used Event-Related potentials obtained via electroencephalography (or EEG). While you can gain some useful data that way, I certainly wouldn't consider it probative without data obtained via different methods (MRI, CT, or PET scans) to support it.

Outside of that, there is nothing here except poor science. In my training, you were supposed to gather data and then use it to devise a hypothesis, and then try to disprove that hypothesis. This sounds like the very definition of someone having a belief and then devising 'experiments' to support that belief.

Bad, bad, bad science, that.

I take it from the "guessing" and "sounds like" that you didn't read the paper. Wasn't there something in your training that said that you should have done that, before writing it of as "ad, bad, bad"? It was EEG though, so you got that right.

How about a small lesson in logic?

Statement one: I get the impression that Mr. Bartholow had an outcome in mind.
Statement two: Having an outcome in mind is bad science.
Statement three: if one and two are true, then Bartholow engaged in bad science.

Perhaps, for nit-pickers such as yourself, I should've explicitly said statement two, rather than just implying it with 'Bad, bad, bad science, that.'

But, the bottom line is that no, despite what you may think, I did not need to read the paper before I made the comments that I made. Nothing I said challenged anything specific to the paper- I only made a comment and an initial observation based upon the video, the news story, and the press release from the University. I am well within my rights to do that. Feel free to disregard them, but you cannot say that they are completely without foundation or merit.

But now that I've read the paper (all glorious 19 pages of it), let's get down to brass tacks, shall we?

You know what? The bottom line is that this 'study' is gross sensationalism: a pseudo-science version of Jack Thompson's alarmism. Even if you skip some obvious questions about how they obtained their 'quantifiable' evidence (they mention using scalp electrodes, but in the footnotes section they state that they used a 28 electrode cap, which is vastly, vastly different and allows for an unacceptable level of potential variability in the opinion of most professionals, as well as 28 electrodes being too small a number of loci for diagnostic purposes. How long was baseline activity established for? Were subjects stimulated with 'neutral' and 'violent' imagery before playing the video game?), you can easily make the argument that the confounding factors could not be reasonably limited. For example, how many of the participants in the study could've had their tendency towards 'violence' (in the convenient context that Mr. Bartholow defined the word) affected by other media such as horror movies, violent graphic novels, or music that promotes violence and antisocial behavior (to name just one potential issue) before they took part in the study? Yes, they were screened as to whether or not they 'regularly' played violent video games, but there was nothing in regards to other potentially desensitizing media.

Look, I'm one of those people who actually do believe that violence in the media has some derogatory effects on society, but I think it's hopelessly simplistic and naive to attempt to pin it completely on video games. Violent imagery has become more and more prevalent across all media, and in my mind it is not only possible but probable that it has at least had a desensitizing effect on some of the more susceptible members of society. Given the trivial amount of 'data' that he generated and the limited scope of its application, I have to figure that either Mr. Bartholow is attempting to provide a convenient scapegoat for the problem, or he is attempting to attract attention by being 'controversial'.

Either way, it's a depressing example of how science is being at least warped and at worst whored out to serve personal and political agendas by many people. Dick Feynman is probably spinning in his grave.

 

[MB202]

I hate it when scientists jump to conclusions.

 

[CosmicCommander]

-Snip-

Oh, I wasn't having anything directed at the study. I was just feeling like making fun of the bullshit social sciences. Ie, social psychology, which is closely linked to Sociology.

 

[Baneat]

*Extremely* unfair, sensationalist and unprofessional titling going on here, even the comics on the website are taking the piss out of this.

 

[thirion1850]

Yeah, kind of old news there. Becoming jaded to violence isn't new to.. anything?

 

[Phyroxis]

I never said Astronomy was invalid..? Nor that correlation was unacceptable.

You're repeating the line that correlation =/= causation. That doesn't mean it still can't be true. Astronomy is wholly based off correlation, so if you go "hurr correlation not causation" then you're discounting an entire science.

Correlation =|= causation. That is a fact. From a definition standpoint, they are two separate concepts. They are not the same thing. That being said, correlation is a perfectly good tool for science.

You need to separate fact from opinion. Core to your attack on me is the assumption that I haven't separated the fact from opinion. Many people say "correlation =|= causation" with the silent following of "therefore it is not legitimate science". I do not. I say "correlation =|= causation, therefore we need to be careful of what we assert and make sure we don't overstep our scientific bounds."

Why? Because, as opposed to causal data, correlational data does not tell you what caused what. It just tells you that the two variables are related. One may cause the other, or there could be a third, unaccounted for, variable affecting the both of them. Therefore you just know that some relationship exists, not the specifics of the causal relation. Based on this, making causal attributions "x caused y" is outright lying, because you cannot know what caused what with correlational data. It is not possible.

At no point does correlation =|= causation say that correlation is trash and isn't scientific. Nor does asserting that fact mean that I disagree or have magically disproven the article (or in the case of your strangely tunnel-visioned attack on me, the science) in question. I never asserted that you need causation to do science. That [non existent assertion] is a core premise of your attack on me. I don't see why you continue to belabor the undisputed point [that causation is valid in science], there is no disagreement here.


Also, your childish hyperbole is outright insulting and mis-characterizing of the situation entirely. Its like a kid saying "I like kitties" and then you assume, from that alone, that he hates dog shows because there are no kitties there. Talk about jumping to conclusions.

 

[Phyroxis]

Double-post as a result of some strange first-post-not-showing-up-problem. Delete this.

 

[I.N.producer]

I never said Astronomy was invalid..? Nor that correlation was unacceptable.

You're repeating the line that correlation =/= causation. That doesn't mean it still can't be true. Astronomy is wholly based off correlation, so if you go "hurr correlation not causation" then you're discounting an entire science.

Astronomy is based on correlation because everything is absurdly far away. You can't conduct proper experiments, so you make observations, draw conclusions, and revise these conclusions as new information is revealed by observation.

Basing psychology only on correlation would make no sense because it is testable. That example is a little out of context.

 

[legendp]

I think someone who gets smashed (drunk) at the pub will do a lot more damage than someone who like's to sit at home playing violent video games. I think it is down to the person. I don't quench at blood but I am not a fan of it either however I have played a lot of violent video games and consider myself a pacifism (meaning I will only resort to violence as a last resort). a kid who sits at home playing video games is probaly more afraid to hit someone than someone who is out every night.

 

[Cyberjester]

"At least that's how associate professor Bruce Bartholow from the University of Missouri sounds when he describes his experiment that attempts to prove the correlation between violent games and aggression"


Duuuuude. Have you ever heard of libel? Insulting someone because you disagree with them is NOT covered under freedom of speech. Regardless of what you may have heard.

I would actually agree with the results. Repeated exposure to something will get you used to it, whether it be CP, violence, P in general, mad dentists, whatever. I'd argue that games are not the only influence, but come on.

Arden: The World of Shakespeare was ditched because "it would be too boring for people to play".

Nobody dies horribly so it's boring? It's like most insults leveled at the Wii. "Well I'd like to see it play CoD with decent frame rates". Can't shoot something, don't want anything to do with it. But again, not just games. TV, movies, music, books. We seem to get off on violence, so of course violence is what we are served. Over, and over, and over, and over again.

And yes, even a short session of blowing people up will cause more aggressive action. It's like, put a person in a polite and formal setting and they'll behave themselves. A few minutes in CoD and it's "GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY!! Can you believe that? Just walks in front of me while I'm shooting the FUCKWIT.".

Actual conversation. ^ ^

Yes the results are right, the conclusion.. Actually is correct. Participation in violence will make one more disposed to violence. IMO they should have gone a step further and said something along the lines of "Violence in media such as film and music will desensitize people to violence and video games are such a pervasive form of media that the impact can be higher than a movie. However both are bad, it is simply the level of attention given to the media and time spent on it which determines the full impact regardless of subject.".

Stopping at "Violence breeds violence" (I mean, who knew?) is however what they were looking at, not social ills as a result of various media.