Lizzy Finnegan said:
There was no attempt to gauge the opinions of the participants prior to exposing them to the games - so there was no baseline on how empathetic they were prior to being exposed to the game, nor was there any way to determine their beliefs on the "masculine behaviors" prior to playing the games. Each participant was given a specific objective in the game, which is not uncommon for a controlled study - however, there was no comparison between the short-term objective-based play (do this mission right here) and the player's ability to play without any sort of mission.
Exposing them to the question beforehand would influence the results. This is correct when you have objective measurements such as a blood sample since you need a baseline. For monitoring your personality however whenever you get a repeated question you will try to answer in a similar way as your initial answer.
The fact that people universally deemed too immature to play a particular game may have concerning reactions to playing aforementioned game is not particularly groundbreaking - otherwise all games would be recommended for all players.
Neurobiology (or actual science) has shown that neural plasticity decreases with age making younger participants more suited for studying behaviour as they are more prone to change. The mechanisms for this are clear and how to increase plasticity has been demonstrated in rats. Older individuals form less new synapses and make fewer connections. Also let's face it, we all know plenty of people too young to play games will play them.
only 48 participants were included in the small group who played these "violent sexist" games, and half of them were female. Of the "violent sexist" game participants, only 4 were over the age of 16
Do we actually have enough information to know whether or not this is a small sample size or not? If they did a power analysis and figured that including more participants was unnecessary then it's fine. If they did not do that or figured they would need more to reduce the standard deviation (although I am guessing if they used deviation of some sort they were using SEM rather than SD) then we should discredit it completely. Simply saying that their sample size is too small shows lack of understanding of statistics. I know enough statistics to say I don't know if that is enough or not. Maybe some of the brighter members of the site can chime in?
I've spent plenty of time talking about that one small group, though. Now, let's take a look at the "neutral" and "violent non-sexist" games. To begin, not a single 15-year-old was assigned either of these titles - every single 15-year-old participant was assigned one of the "sexist" games. The "neutral" games, rated 10+, were played by mostly of 18-year-olds, while the pair of Half Life titles, rated 16+, were played by mostly 17-year-olds. Both of these categories were made up 100% of people in the recommended age group for the games, whereas only one participant in the "sexist" group met the criteria for playing the game in the first place.
This however is a solid point. I would also have added that Half-Life as the violent game is a bad pick. It's not personal like GTA, nor are you the agressor, the majority of the enemies aren't even humans. Manhunt would have been better and maybe one group with Spec Ops: The Line would be interesting.
I haven't read the study myself, but I distrust any research based on subjective data by default. We should probably isolate kids from birth and have them play these games 8 hours a day for a few years then release them back in the wild and see if they start catcalling women and beat up prostitutes to get their money back after sleeping with them.
Strazdas said:
MarsAtlas said:
Okay, I'm going to sidestep the whole study and just ask one question that I think is a fair one to ask - why make an article attempting to criticize a study while not reporting on the original study itself? Its not like its an old study whose credibility has suddenly fallen into question. I just don't see the point. Its like making a long-winded response video to a Youtube video with 12 views - who gives a shit? If one doesn't care to report on it when it was published why does one care about a response to it? I don't understand any logic behind it besides "because clickbait".
When bad information goes unopposed it often gets confused for the truth. That youtube video may have only 12 views, but thats 12 people who wanted that video to be made. That being said, if one does not care about a report on the study why does one comment on such report?
Did you know that 50% of the articles published in Nature in neurobiology has been shown to be incorrect in their analysis and should be retracted? That one third of publications in life science in general can not be replicated by independent laboratories? Why aren't there articles on that? Shoddy science happens in every field, it's a huge problem, but every single article doesn't require a long article which (poorly) picks it apart. The peer review system needs to improve and all journals need to agree on certain standards.
Why are we so set on debunking this study? Because we disagree with it. Sadly that's what science is facing across the board. Studies showing that homeopathy doesn't work in double blind trials is met with the same type of arguments as come up whenever someone says anything bad about video games.
Damir Halilovic said:
They asked teenage boys whose hormones are turning their brains into a supernova if "It is OK for a guy to use any and all means to 'convince' a girl to have sex" and expected rational mature answers?
These KIDS are 15 years old. Holy fucking shit.
Into the trash it goes.
This is greatly exaggerated, our hormones aren't really that different during puberty as most think, but coupled with immaturity and lack of experience it does have some funny effects. This would have been fine if the average (or median) age of the groups were similar. They really did inavlidate their study on that one though.
Also because I know this is necessary
I DO NOT PERSONALLY THINK GAMES CAUSE SEXISM, OR VILENCE, BUT I DO NOT HAVE PROOF ONE WAY OR THE OTHER AND I DO NOT THINK WE SHOULD LEND TO MUCH WEIGHT TO STUDIES THAT DO NOT SHOW ADVANCED BEUROBIOLOGICAL MECHANISMS THAT CAN VALIDATE THEIR CLAIM
