The effects of violent video games on adolescents The overlooked influence of development
1359-1789/02/$ - see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi: 10.1 016/S1359-1789(02)00056-3
1.1. Consequences of violent video games as a function of development: current research
Over the past two decades, more than 20 studies have assessed the relationship between violent video game play and aggression during the adolescent period (including late-adolescent college students). Both correlational (e.g., Fling et al., 1992; Griffiths & Hunt, 1995) and experimental (e.g., Anderson & Dill, 2000; Ballard & Lineberger, 1999) studies offer support for a connection between exposure to violent video games and aggressive behavior. For instance, Fling et al. (1992) found a positive association between video game play and se1f- and teacher-reported aggression in a group of 11- to 17 -year-olds, Anderson and Dill (2000) demonstrated a link between playing violent video games and laboratory aggression in college students. Lynch, Gentile, Olson, and van Brederode (2001), in an assessment of eighth and ninth graders, identified significant associations between violent video game play and aggressive attitudes and behavior.
Given that the primary purpose of this review is to integrate aggression theory, video game research, and adolescent development, only those articles specifically relevant to this task will be discussed in detail. To help integrate theory, research, and development, without having to reevaluate the research on a study-by-study basis, summaries, and conclusions reported in other review articles will be used. Readers interested in study-by-study critiques of the video game literature should read one of the following articles: Bensley and Van Eenwyk (2001), Dill and Dill (1998), or Griffiths (1999).
Most studies assessing the influence of violent video games on aggression have assessed part, but not all, of the adolescent age range (i.e., early, middle, and late). For instance, Co1we1 and Payne (2000) assessed 12- to l-l-year-olds, Lynch et al. (2001) assessed eighth and ninth graders, and van Schie and Wiegman (1997) sampled seventh and eighth graders (see Griffiths, 1999, for additional studies and associated age ranges). Other studies have
1.2. Theories of aggression and violent video games
Theoretical explanations for the link between exposure to violent video games and aggression have been posited using several classic theories of aggression. For instance, when applied to video game violence, Bandura's (1986) socia11earning theory hypothesizes that exposure to video game violence would evoke behavioral mimicry, reinforce already existing aggressive habits, and increase internal arousal. In tum, this internal arousal could be interpreted as anger, which increases the likelihood of aggression. Playing violent video games, according to Berkowitz's (1984) cognitive neoassociation model of aggression, should create ancl!or activate networks of aggressive thoughts, feelings, memories, and beliefs. An additional explanation for the link between violent video game play and aggressive behavior comes from the literature on social information processing in aggressive children. Dodge (1980) contends that aggressive children act aggressively, in part, due to a hostile attributiona1 bias. That is, when exposed to a frustrating social stimulus (e.g., being bumped into a puddle), a hostile attributiona1 bias results in cue distortion, which leads aggressive children to interpret the stimulus as an aggressive cue and respond aggressively (Dodge & Frame, 1982). Social experiences, such as violent video game play, may lead to the formation of a hostile attributiona1 bias. For instance, Kirsh (1998) induced a hostile attributiona1 bias in third and fourth grade children through violent video game play.
More recently, Anderson and Bushman's (2002) General Aggression Model (GAM) has been developed, in part, to account for the effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior. The GAM, described in more detail below, is compatible with theories proposed by Bandura (1986), Berkowitz (1984), and Dodge (1980). Although the GAM has received empirical support (Anderson & Bushman, 2001; Lynch et al., 2001), additional research is necessary to validate the interactive nature of the various GAM components as well as establish the ability of the GAM to predict aggressive behavior. Furthermore, the GAM has yet to be integrated with the developmental issues surrounding aggressive behavior during adolescence.
The present article is organized as follows. Sections 2 and 3 describe the nature of adolescent video game play and development of aggressive behavior during adolescence, respectively. A review of biological and psychosocial causes of adolescent aggressive behavior follows. Section 5 discusses violent video game playas a function of developmental changes in adolescent aggression. Section 6 describes the GAM in detail. Next, the importance of a developmental approach to the assessment violent video games is addressed. Finally, the notions of aggression as a multivariate construct and risk assessment are introduced and discussed in terms of video game research.
The pattern of video game play across adolescence mirrors the development of aggressive behavior across adolescence. For instance, Lindeman et al. (1997) assessed 11-, 14-, and 17- year-olds responses to hypothetical interpersonal conflict situations involving two different types of aggression. The first conflict situation assessed direct aggression (i.e., mean teasing) and the second conflict situation assessed indirect aggression (i.e., spreading rumors). Consistent with gender differences in real-life aggression (Leschied, Cummings, Van Brunschot, Cunningham, & Saunders, 2000), Lindeman et al. (1997) found that aggressive responding to hypothetical conflict scenarios was more frequently seen in males than in females. However, both males and females showed curvilinear patterns for both types of
Apart from psychosocial factors, biological changes during early adolescence, both hormonal and cortical, may influence the aforementioned increase in aggressive behavior. During early adolescence, there is an increase in adrenal hormones (adrenarche) and gonadal hormones (gonadarche). Spear (2000) suggests that adrenarche is a contributing factor to adjustment and behavior problems. Furthermore, gonadarche is positively (albeit weakly)
Adolescents play video games with the greatest frequency during the developmental period during which they respond to provocation situations with the greatest frequency of
Regardless of the reasons why adolescents play violent video games, consequences of such play have been shown to negatively impact social and emotional functioning in children, adolescents, and young adults (Bushman & Anderson, 2001). To explain how violent video games influence aggressive behavior, Anderson and Bushman (2002) have posited the GAM. Of note, this model can be used to explain both the development of aggression across adolescence and individual differences in susceptibility to the influence of violent video games. According to the GAM, personological variables (e.g., trait hostility, attitudes toward violence) and situational variables (e.g., exposure to real-world or media violence) interact to influence an individual's present internal state. Within an individual's internal state, cognitions (e.g., aggressive scripts, hostile thoughts), affects (e.g., hostile feelings), and arousals (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure) influence one another. For example, hostile thoughts (a cognition) can increase hostile feelings (an affect). Subsequently, cognitions, affects, and arousal interact to influence an individual's interpretation of an aggressive act (e.g., harm-
Violent video games negatively influence socio-emotiona1 functioning during the adolescent period (Anderson & Bushman, 2001). However, given that biological and psychosocial changes occur during adolescence, exposure to violent video games should differentially affect the processes operating within the GAM across adolescence. By the time children reach adolescence, personological and internal state components of the GAM, such as cognition, affects, and arousal, are already in place. However, between early and later adolescence, these variables will continue to develop and be influenced by current environments. The general increase in aggression that accompanies early adolescence (Lindeman et al., 1997; Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1998; Steinberg, 2001) should affect the internal state variables of the GAM by reinforcing and increasing aggressive cognitions, aggressive affects, and arousal. Exposure to violent video should further affect the aggressive nature of the adolescent by creating and/or reinforcing aggressive cognitions and scripts, by creating and/or reinforcing hostile affects, and by increasing aggression-related arousal. According to the GAM, cognitions, affects, and arousals directly influence one another. Thus, the increases in physiological arousal (Lynch et al., 2001), aggressive cognitions, and hostile affects (Anderson & Bushman, 2001) that follow violent video game play should interact with one another to negatively bias internal state variables. Although the effects of violent video game play impact early, middle, and late adolescents, the influence of violent video games should be more pronounced in early adolescence than in middle and late adolescence. The heightened physiological arousal experienced by early adolescents (Spear, 2000) should interact with internal state arousal caused by violent video games to create a cumulative level
8. Viewing aggression as a multivariate construct: GAM and violent video games
A variety of factors have been shown to contribute to aggressive behavior across adolescence. Gender, family (e.g., low parental involvement, verbal, and physical aggression), peer (e.g., aggressive or nonaggressive, popularity), school (e.g., achievement, dropout status), and personality (e.g., self-esteem, trait hostility) factors have all been linked to aggression (Leschied et al., 2000). For instance, Viemero (1996) found a positive correlation between parental rejection and peer-nominated aggression. Ellickson, Saner, and McGuigan (1997) linked low academic orientation and dropping out of school with violent behavior. Research also indicates that peers of both adolescent boys (Dishion, Andrews, & Crosby, 1995) and girls (Harris, 1994) tend to encourage and reinforce aggressive behavior. Furthermore, the potential influence of peers, parents, and school may vary across adolescence. For instance, conformity to antisocial peer pressure increases throughout early adolescence, peaking around age 15 (Berndt, 1979).
Like video game play, peer, family, and school factors are considered situational factors in the GAM. Although many factors contribute to aggressive behavior across adolescence, when assessing the impact of video game violence on aggression, the most frequently assessed factors (other than violent video games) are gender and personality. Although physical aggression (e.g., fighting, bullying) and violent crimes (e.g., school shootings) are typically perpetrated by adolescent boys (Leschied et al., 2000), the effects of violent video games do not consistently vary by gender (see Dill & Dill, 1998, for a review). Similarly, research assessing the influence of video game violence as a function of personality has contradictory findings. For instance, whereas some studies find greater effects of video game violence on aggression for individuals high in trait hostility (e.g., Study 1, Anderson
S.J. Kirsh / Aggression and Violent Behavior 8 (2003) 377-389
and Dill, 2000), other studies find no moderator effects for trait hostility and video game violence (e.g., Study 2, Anderson & Dill, 2000; Lynch et al., 2001). However, as Lynch et al. (2001) contend, few studies have adequately addressed personality and video game moderator issues.
One possibility for the inconsistent moderator effects involving violent video games, gender, and personality is that other situational factors associated with aggression during adolescence (e.g., peers and family factors) were not assessed. Given that aggression is a multivariate construct, a multivariate assessment of the major personological (e.g., hostility, impulsivity) and situational factors (e.g., peers, parents, school) that contribute to aggression during adolescence is warranted. Research on television violence suggests that such an assessment would be valuable. For instance, Singer et al. (1999) found that a combination of exposure to television violence, lack of parental monitoring, and amount of television watched best accounted for aggressive behavior in elementary and middle-school children. Garbarino (1999) contends that the number of risk factors affecting children and adolescents is an important determinant of aggression. Garbarino feels that most children can cope with one or two risk factors (e.g., impoverished family, exposure to violence) without increasing their aggressive behavior. However, when three or more risk factors are present, aggressive behavior is more likely than not. It may be that violent video games primarily impact the aggressive behavior of adolescents who have a certain number of risk factors associated with aggression (e.g., impulsivity, violent home, low parental involvement, aggressive peer group). Adolescents without these risk factors, in contrast, may face little to no risk of increasing their aggressive behavior by playing violent video games.
According to Borum (2000), the construct of "risk of violence" is determined by "contextual," "dynamic," and "continuous" influences. Risk of violence is "contextual" in that violent acts occur in particular settings (e.g., school) and under certain circumstances (e.g., peer rejection). The potential for violence changes from day to day, and therefore, the risk of violence is "dynamic." Finally, risk of violence is "continuous" in that the probability of violent acts varies along a continuum. Risk assessment moves beyond identifying "dangerous" adolescents. Instead, risk approaches to violence determine the likelihood of an adolescent acting violently and the nature of that violence (e.g., physical or verbal assault) given certain circumstances (e.g., bumped into) and contexts (surrounded by aggressive peers. To better understand the impact of exposure to violent video games on aggressive behavior, research needs to move beyond two- and three-factor assessments (e.g., video game violence, trait hostility, and gender) and employ a risk factor approach. Aggressive behavior, in its various forms (e.g., physical or verbal assault), is the result of the cumulative influence of a variety of factors, involving a multitude of contexts. Thus, video game violence research needs to reflect the fact that the risk of violent behavior is contextual, dynamic, and continuous.
Furthermore, it is imperative that developmental issues be considered when assessing the influence of violent video games on aggressive behavior. As previously reviewed, research has demonstrated that biological (e.g., adrenarche, gonadarche, synaptic pruning) and psychosocial (e.g., peers, parents, siblings, school) components of aggression differentially impact the adolescent across development: early adolescents appear to be more vulnerable than late adolescents. Thus, it may be that the risks associated with violent video games are the greatest
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I remember at one point in section 2, the author mentioned video games greater trend toward realism. “here is also a trend toward greater realism: the schematic, cartoonish video games
of the 1970s and 1980s have gradually become more realistic, so that many games now depict
graphic gore in addition to violence” I think this brings up a new way to look at the violence in video games. Is the problem truly that violence in video games is too prevalent, or is it that these video games have become so realistic and graphic? I think the focus of violence and video games should turn more on the realism of these games rather than the violence. Researchers should focus on how playing a “realistic” violent video game with gory graphics translates affects teen interactions with the real world.
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I would hope that most people could understand that its pretty common for boys in their early adolescence to have tendencies towards aggressive behavior. Speaking simply for myself, I often would argue and fight with my parents and didn’t really enjoy speaking to them too much when I first became a teenager. A lot of the time I played video games it was nice just to not have to speak to them. People always try and blame whatever media is cool in whichever day and age on this pretty common behavior. A hundred years ago people thought comic books were causing it, later it was rock n roll music. I think it’s fair to say teenagers are always going to have some negative tendencies as they start getting older and their bodies start changing. And as long as some teenagers are upset and feel alienated in life I would imagine they’re going to search for an outlet they feel comfortable in, whether it’s reading, music, or video games.
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I think this is a fair assessment of the impact of violent video games. Biologically speaking, adolescents are much more aggressive than other age demographics because their bodies are undergoing some intense hormonal changes. That being said, I think this article presents an interesting take on the susceptibility of certain adolescents to the violent messages of video games. Young preteens who identify themselves as social outcasts or who are labeled as social outcasts are much more drawn to the violent video games. While this does not necessarily imply a problem, I think that it is something of note. If adolescents in this age demographic tend to be much more aggressive, shouldn’t we attempt to find a more constructive way for these preteens to burn of some steam that does not necessarily involve the violent ideologies suggested in video games?
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I think that this is common sense that teenagers going through hormonal changes are more susceptible to violence, however in regards to Tomas’s response on a more constructive way to handle this anger: what’s really the difference between a video game and a sport? I played football and then played counter strike for hours. Both were relatively violent ways of exerting my stress and anger. All sports require some sense of aggressiveness, but what is really wrong with video games being an outlet for anger especially for kids going through hormonal changes. If they are bad at sports or other activities it probably would make a kid prone to violence more likely to be violent in real life, while video games may increase their sense of violence if they have 3 or more risk factors but provides a sense of accomplishment vs. frustration with life.
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That’s definitely a good point. I think that if we are speaking just about anger management, sports can be just as aggressive an outlet as video games. Brannon, I think, kind of addresses that the difference comes from our generation and how the past generations blame the most recent media because it is not completely understood and accepted. There will always be this sort of generational conflict, and just as comic books and rock n roll were before, video games are now the center of that conflict.
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There’s always constructive and destructive ways of venting aggression or otherwise coping with these changes. In physical sports, you can play as a team player or play more aggressively and be more self-oriented. In video games, you can play with your friends to have fun or you can play by yourself to win and every combination in between.
Finding a correlation between the constructiveness of the activities that children take part in may be a more accurate way of determining the positive/negative effects of a medium, rather than more absolute statements.
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There’s also the combination of playing aggressively as a team (or gang, to use more loaded language), or feeding off of the aggression and violence of your team or peer group in an environment where aggressive action is considered not only normative, but prized. Just look at the completely irrational, foaming-at-the-mouth vitriol that can pop up in team-based competitive games like League of Legends. I would not want to immerse a child or adolescent in that caustic environment, but I don’t believe video games as a media or as a hobby are any more or less likely than sports, etc. to produce such violent tendencies.
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We continually want to blame outside influences for asocial and scary behavior. It is much easier to place the blame on video games than to realize that there are tons of terrible things such as urban decay, lack of institutional control over children, gangs, the breakdown if the family unit, and simply the huge amount of children in America who are unsupervised for large amounts of time. To correlate violence in only medium, such as video games, with violent behavior is so scientifically short sighted that it simply can’t be accepted as a imperative to change our society’s rules towards media
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That being said, these video games have provided an opportunity to act out in ways never before seen. We have talked about “interactivity” a lot throughout class, particularly in our debate about war games, but I think it is more important than ever in this debate. Comic books and music are consumed rather passively whereas video games seem to be consumed much more actively. We need to be sure that we address the interactivity element of video games instead of brushing of the criticism of violent video games because this is a very special medium.
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Win is definitely right that the interactivity of video games make it a particularly special medium that we need to focus on. I think there’s a difference between someone watching a violent movie and someone playing a violent video game. But at the same time I agree with Brannon that blame is placed on popular media for the actions of teenagers. I struggle trying to decide where I stand on the issue because on the one hand it’s an interactive media I could see causing negative affects and on the other hand I know that this is just an old debate that has occurred time and time again.
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I do agree that the issue of interactivity is important in this debate. The fact that violent individuals can be violent in a virtual world is significant. Whether it translates to the outside world seems unclear. However, I would also make the case that violent children and adolescents prefer violent tv shows and movies.
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I think Abby really said it better than I could. People seek out stimuli that appeals to them, so violent people will generally prefer violent media. Correlation vs. causation and all that. Violent games can certainly feed violent tendencies, but so can watching Hostel over and over again. I think that one distinguishing characteristic of video games as a media is how easy it is to sink countless hours into them. Video games stay fresh after movies have gone stale because the game is ever-changing and can be played in different ways, etc.
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I agree that this is a very important point to keep in mind. And as has been stated above, it is important to remember, as a corollary, that not only are violent people drawn to violent stimuli; but at a young, adolescent age children, especially young boys, are drawn to more violent and competitive activities.
While I will of course recognize the caveat that I did not grow up in a particularly violent or at-risk psycho-socioeconomic household, I always loved playing “army men” or with toy guns when I was a child. Moreover, I loved watching action movies and its not so ridiculous to see how I enjoyed playing violent video games. Nevertheless I did/do not see myself as a particularly violent, or violently inclined child/person; even after years of toy guns, war movies and shooter video games.
To bring this rambling, nostalgia-laced monologue back around: yes, violent people who are especially suffering from 3 or more “risk factors” are absolutely drawn to violent media of all forms, but its also important to keep in mind that many young boys (not all of course) are prone to violent means of enjoyment.
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One thing that struck me most about this article ( besides it becoming little more than a regurgitation of the results of previous experiments without and clear cut analysis, this devolving into yet another debate between correlation and causation) is the implication that Kirsh reached at the end of paragraph 4.2 about biological processes. One thing in particular is how by late adolescence, pruning of about half of the neural synapses leads to better logical thought processes an thus better decision making. He attribute the lack of this pruning, and the lack of maturity by association, as owing to why young adolescents gravitate towards violent video games. My problem is that this conclusion implies that after the occurrence of the pruning, young adults would have the reasoning and judgement skills not to turn towards violent video games as an acceptable outlet for stress, anxiety or the like. As we all know, this is clearly false, as I, and most of the class, enjoy violent video games; perhaps more so than any other medium of entertainment or stress relief
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I was a little annoyed when I started reading this because I kept asking myself the question what exactly is linking video games to these negative scrutinizes? If video games have become a lease activity of adolescence since the 1970s, about 40 years, how is it that the shootings in school are caused by the video games they play? What connection do the media make or is it just a matter of looking for a scapegoat? They say only the adolescence with the greatest number of risk factors are susceptible to negative consequences but can’t the same thing be said about any violent media outlet? Violent music, violent movies, how do you shield these kids with the highest risk factor from the rest of the world for the rest of their adolescent lives? Is that even enough or will they have to be shielded for the rest of their natural lives because they are simply wired differently. Is this study just a way for them to justify their pinning the problem on video games? beyond that is it enough to start studying them at adolescence or do the researchers need to start even earlier and track the kids from infancy?
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I do agree this article overly simplifies the idea that video games can increase violence in teens with a certain number of predisposed factors that lead to violence. In reality violent ways of acting out have been around forever. Whether it’s a video game or stealing your sisters doll and ripping one of its arms off because you are mad at her. Violent music, violent television, violent movies should all be lumped in here as well. None of this really seems like empirical evidence even though it is often presented as such.
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This feedback language I found really interesting. It makes sense that aggressive thoughts can increase hostile feelings. My only concern is that the language here makes it seem permanent. I don’t believe that it is quite this way. I believe it takes a much deeper interaction and much more time than exposure to violent video games to cause real and lasting change to a persons behavior. A person my feel more excited and aroused to to increased blood pressure caused by a game, but that will fade very quickly. I’d love to here more about PERMANENT (if any) caused by video games.
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I agree, I feel like there should be more to it. This argument that playing violent games is conducive to long-lasting violent behavior seems unlikely. Can you make the argument that playing a lot of farming games will make you more likely to farm or even just exhibit a collecting behavior? I don’t think exposure to violent video games is enough to change someone’s behavior; continuous reinforcement is needed as well as what would seem to be a blurring of lines between reality and game.
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The author here makes a very basic and reasonable claim that hostile thoughts increase feelings of hostility, but the implication, that video games inherently cause hostile thoughts, is one that I question.
When I play Mass Effect or Borderlands, I kill hundreds, if not thousands of computer-simulated opponents. In the game world, my character is committing hostile action, but am I thinking hostile thoughts at the time? Not necessarily. I certainly don’t feel as if I’m in the middle of a war, nor do I feel a particular animosity towards my on-screen foes; they are simply obstacles placed in my way that I must overcome in order to succeed. When I lose, I don’t feel as though I was just violently assaulted, I feel the same irritation I might feel wrestling with a particularly violent puzzle. I would like to see stronger evidence that violent video games DO necessarily cause violent cognition, rather than assume it because they simulate violent action.
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In the data they break down teenage groups into age categories and note that younger teens are more affected and aroused by violence according to GAM measures due to scientific cognitive (chemical) and physical transformations. However, males and females don’t go through the same transitions and the article doesn’t appear to take this into account. I wonder if similar studies have been done according to the same “scientific” methods and measurements to test if males and females have different reactions to violence and reactions of violence. I still struggle to accept any argument without at least an explanation of the study and its methods that drew the conclusions. At this point in the article there appear to be gaps in the research and the reasoning.
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I think to the extent to which they had planned out their research, the study did what it could. However, I’m really not convinced of anything from this study—their conclusion is that more research needs to be done. They seem to use the Anderson and Bushman study, that states that violent games correlate to “aggressive behavior, aggressive affects, aggressive cognition, and physiological arousal,” as justification for theirs, as well as more research.
At the same time though, I’m curious what the objective of these studies really is. What if they do find that violent video games cause a long-term uptick in aggressive behavior in people? What would even be the next step? Is there realistic concern that people will evolve to be less empathetic because of games?
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I agree with Michael and Megan that this study didn’t really have anything to say. It basically went on to reference other studies and then stated that more needs to be done. When I keep seeing correlation after correlation, it becomes easier to question what the point of this study really was, if any.
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What I gathered from this study is that adolescents in the key age demographic for this study (13-15) are generally more aggressive. This has a lot to do with their biological development. I agree with Megan that I would like to see more research done on the differences between male and female levels of aggression (because it need not be stated that puberty is a very different experience given your gender). However, I think what this study is suggesting is that because preteens have aggressive tendencies, they are seeking out mediums that fulfill the psychological drive for these tendencies. I don’t think they are necessarily implying that violent video games = violent teens, but they do seem to suggest that aggressive teens = violent video games.
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A lot of connections were made in the article, but the ends to which these connections were made are nebulous at best. I would consider this article more of a message to future researchers to look out for certain things and be aware of the connections made in this paper whilst doing their research.
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The article mentions that early teens are more susceptible to violence in video games to older teens. Isn’t this common sense. A child going through hormonal changes may be suffering feelings of social outcast or mixed up emotions. This may lead them to seek guidance. Whether its from their parents, a counselor, or maybe solace in a video game.
Their loss of language to identify themselves as individuals may drive them into the arms of an expert that could influence them, but is a video game really that immersive. Could a susceptible child really be trained by a video game that it is ok to commit a violent act and use the video game as a source of expertise and guidance?
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The study suggests that there are more contributing factors involved in a child’s tendency towards violence. By citing the singer study—which determined that lack of parental monitoring paired with excessive exposure to television and television violence increase violent tendencies—this study suggests that video games alone cannot account of a child’s tendency towards violence. Actually, it seems to suggest that violent video games are a contributing factor to preexisting violence schemas. This really throws a wrench in the argument that violent video games breed violence. However, if you have a child with preexisting violent tendencies, shouldn’t there be some fale-stops to keep these children from interacting with a medium that only further reinforces these violent schemas?
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I agree. Pre-existing violent tendencies do seem to be a major factor in whether or not a child or adolescent even chooses to play a violent video game. I wander if the video game medium further reinforces the violent schemas as you stated or if they provide an outlet for children to be violent outside of real life.
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This section in my opinion essentially throws the whole thing out the window.
“It may be that violent video games primarily impact the aggressive behavior of adolescents who have a certain number of risk factors associated with aggression (e.g., impulsivity, violent home, low parental involvement, aggressive peer group). Adolescents without these risk factors, in contrast, may face little to no risk of increasing their aggressive behavior by playing violent video games.”
How are video games AT ALL the problem if this is even remotely true (to me it seems very rational). I understand the desire to psychologically map violence’s effect on people, but in a culture completely inebriated with violence, in which a large majority of the population can live without overly aggressive behavior, much less shoot up a workplace or school, why are video games still such a large contention? Playing games don’t affect a child the same way as watching one parent beat another. Not to mention the prominence of television and movie violence, which gets similar attention but is sanctified as art (I believe the same earlier argument applies to film as well though—it wouldn’t appear to have a noticeable effect either as compared to Garbarino’s “risk factors”).
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I totally agree with your rationale. It seems to me like all this article is saying, especially from this quote, is that people who are already at risk of being overly violent can be pushed over the edge by a variety of factors, and one of those factors is video games. Like Michael, I see that violent movies or domestic abuse seem to be worse. Overall, I’d like to see more studies, which require the medium to age appropriately, as it is a very new medium.
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I think the argument presented in these studies (particularly the sections about GAM) put forward playing a violent video game as a situational variable – meaning they only have short term effects. The idea is that given a kid with risk factors, playing a violent video game may contribute to that acting aggressively or violently in the near future.
So imagine a kid with an unstable home life. The kid plays an violent video game in the morning, goes to school where he is surrounded by aggressive peers. A lot of the research presented seems to say that playing that video game in the morning might be the difference between acting aggressive or not.
However, I do ultimately agree with you. I am unconvinced that play a video game is all that different from watching a Hollywood action flick, particularly in a society saturated with violence in the media.
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I agree completely with your idea of video games as a situational variable. I think the idea is if a kid is already on edge that its probably not best to give that kid the most recent edition of Grand Theft Auto and tell him to have a go for eight hours every day. The studies give a lot of information but I think this all goes back to common sense. I don’t think any person in America is advocating that unstable kids, or kids who already have violent tendencies, should be exposed to more violence in media. However there’s also no real way to make sure those types of kids don’t play these games or watch those types of movies. What can you do? In my opinion, not much, focus on prevention and giving unstable kids positive outlets and less on how video games are ruining the youth.
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I agree this article literally throws out it’s premise which doesn’t really seem to be backed by any actual data and is more or less fueled by assumptions/common sense. Of course kids who are not predisposed to violence or violent situations wont act more aggressively when given a violent video game. However, these kids are already in what was described in this thread as an inebriated culture of violence. The kids will be surrounded by violent commercials, peer pressure, and family problems. Is a video game going to really push them over the edge or help them escape their mental situation for a little while.
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Is it really worth studying the effects of violent video games or is this just an over hyped media problem? If the government is willing to spend millions of dollars at researching this topic, shouldn’t there at least be more evidence present that calls for the need of such expensive research?
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I would tend to agree with you, Alec, that the money may not be worth it. The problem at this point is that people are quick to point the finger at video games because there is a large portion of them that are extremely violent and are becoming increasingly accurate in their depictions of such violence. Experiments and research done to figure out the arrow of causation will be time and money consuming, but with violence becoming a part of every day life (video games as well as movies, tv, and books), I don’t see the demand lowering for research on this topic.
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I agree with you, although I think that it is unfortunate that this is the case. I don’t see from this article how it proves if at all, that violent video games are any worse for kids than other violent media forms. It seems to me that other factors like area of upbringing and home-life seem to play a larger role in a child’s violent outbreaks, rather than violent video games or any violent form of media or expression.
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In short, I would have to say that absolutely this is an overhyped problem. Look at their specific words the risk of violence is determined by “contextual, dynamic and continuous influences.” They’re saying its all context and the potential for violence changes from day to day. There are so many factors at play it’s way too easy and way too convenient to just say “let’s get rid of the video games.” If these studies are going to be taken seriously then Borum was right in that they can’t be based on two or three factor assessments, they need to start encompassing large amounts of factors to get to the root of the issue. If and when we ever do get to the root of the issue I’d be more than willing to bet that video games have little to do with the problem.
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I realize I am walking into a total MINEFIELD by bring this up, but here it goes…Oh gosh I’m already picturing the backlash I’m gonna get for this…
Recently, I read a piece in the news magazine “The Week” that talked with some people who knew Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter. They said he was fascinated with the Norwegian shooter who killed 77 people and one time wondered whether or not anybody was going to beat that “score.”
This use of video game language is VERY disturbing to me. Especially since Lanza is not the only shooter to be associated with violent video games.
Pause for a second, I am NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT saying that violent video games cause mass shootings. What I am, very delicately, saying is that many times when we read about a shooter, violent video games are associated with them somehow. There are other, and probably greater factors too, but because of this frequency, I feel the research money is absolutely justified.
Please don’t hurt me…
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I’m hesitant to associate the phrase containing the word “score” to video games specifically. Other arguments came up in these readings comparing aggression with sports, and it’s just as easy to score points (or fouls) by taking aggressive actions in sports and determine one’s effectiveness or skill by those metrics (especially ice hockey).
While I do agree that it is disturbing that this connection can be made, it’s just abstract enough that I wouldn’t necessarily correlate the two. As many others have said in this topic, media hype is most likely the cause of these associations rather than reality itself.
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I am having trouble seeing that video games cause violent people, but rather violent people are interested in violent video games. Lets try the example of a car racing game. I will play a racing game because it is thrilling, graphically intense, and fun, however I would never race a car in real life because it seems so dangerous. On the other hand, I think that a person who is interested in real life racing will certainly, if exposed to video games, enjoy playing the racing video games. I agree that their is a correlation of video games to violence people, but I believe violent children are interested are in violent video games and not that violent video games causeviolent children (unless other factors are present as discussed in the article).
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I found that I agreed more with the latter part of this article in calling for studies that assessed video games alongside know developmental issues know to incite violent acts and test whether or not violent video games may serve as a compounding factor to aggression. However, to conduct a study where adolescence in this case are subjected to certain hardships and some given the option of playing games or not would be entirely unethical. Therefore, data gathered on the subject would be from a census of existing data and situations that are riddled with the potential for hidden and/or misleading variables.
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But what would such a study look like? How might you go about testing the theory of “other situational factors” (para20)? What might some ethical concerns be in the study method you propose? Do these same ethical concerns arise when we are testing if video games make people violent?
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I think you could have a study with people that are in bad situations that would be willing to participate. The problem comes when finding those people, and then trying to entice them to help you. It may take financial help and in that case they may be unable to say no and then it’s unethical. At the same time though I do believe it wouldn’t be unethical to have children or teenagers with some mental problems (not drastic ones) that would be willing to participate.
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The problem that you and the article refer to is that such an experiment would be very difficult to create. The second half of this article (which I tend to agree with more) points out the obvious flaw that other factors must be considered when determining if aggression is affected by video game play. The problem is that it is very difficult in this case to control for (as you mentioned earlier) gender as well as income, temperament, and other psychological factors.
My main problem with articles like this (as well as many others) stating that video games are causing aggression is that they don’t take into account that something else could be causing the aggressive behavior. The first thing that people turn to after a violent outburst is video games, not other art/media forms, as Michael pointed out earlier. Aggression can be caused by many things and many parts of the brain, which is why psychologists are continuously doing research on this topic.
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I agree completely and I would liek to offer an explination (as I understand it anyways). The way the world works is that it will jump on the new thing, the new media that people don’t fully understand because as far as they know that new media is the source of all the problems. Since all the old media have been around for a while they already feel like they understand the effects of those media already (even though no one can fully understand a singular media outlet) so to compensate for their fear and lack of understanding they will simply blame the new media because it is not understood well enough by the majority of the population. But if you look at the data it disproves this fear and shows that the aggression and other problems attributed to video games can not be definitively be pinned to video games as the sole source
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Like most of the other people that have commented so far, I’m not really confident in the results of these studies mention as to the effects of violent video games on violence. I am very curious though, as to what violent video games they are testing with. I know that when people talk about violent video games, they often mean shooters, or fighting games, I suppose? I ask this because personally, I don’t get very angry or violent when I play Call of Duty, but I do tend to get angry sometimes when playing some other online games that typically wouldn’t be considered violent, like League of Legends. Things like lag and other players can cause anger and perchance violence.
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I can understand that when ever you are playing a strategic game or anything online and you are in a competitive mode that you can easily become frustrated and end up getting mad at the littlest things, is that what you meant or is it the game itself having an effect on you, making you more irritable?
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I think your comment gets at an important point. What is it about games that might make someone aggressive. Much of the research discussed in this paper presents aggressive behavior in children as an emulation of violent and aggressive behavior in video games. However, in my own experience, anger or frustration has little to do with the game-world (what Galloway would call diegetic actions). Things like lag or a game freezing without having saved recently are much more likely to lead me to aggressive behavior.
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I think you put what I was trying to say more clearly, and now I’m curious. If games do cause violence, do people get angry with the game, or angry AT the game. This article and most people who argue against violent video games say that children can get angry/violent with the game, and then take that violence out when they are no longer playing. At the same time, getting angry AT a game, while it could lead to violence, seems to be a random factor, somewhat unrelated to video games as a whole. One can get just as frustrated playing a board game, and that game need not be violent in the slightest. I think this is an important differentiation.
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I think this a great distinction to be made. I would not have thought of this difference, but I think it’s valuable. These different types of anger I think would likely produce different actions from a teenager. (if any at all) I can remember being angry AT a game and getting frustrated, but really that just ended with myself in a terrible mood. I think being angry WITH a game would relate more to the immersion we find in video games. I think it’s in this type of anger that researchers could find some correlation to violent acts. But over all I think this is a good distinction researchers should look at. What would the responses to these types of anger look like?
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I think that this is an excellent point that Max brings up. Speaking from personal experience, i find myself less violently inclined and angry at the game enemies who I am shooting at (even if they are Nazis, the quintessential bad-guy). More often than not, I find myself angry at the myriad nuances of the game’s design. Be it directed towards the AI, where the difficulty is unnecessarily, exponentially and suddenly ratcheted up; at the mechanics, where I am constantly stuck at invisible walls, or “saved into a corner” as it is known; or other misc. “bugs” and encoding errors within the game itself. Although there are times when I am playing a multiplayer match that I become extremely frustrated and even angry at other people; it is more often than not because they are pre-pubescent boys shouting obscenities ad nauseum whilst “tea bagging” my corpse, which simply drives me not to seek vengeance, but to turn off my mic and/or put down the game.
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Most of the studies here attempted to elucidate the relationship between playing video games and aggressive behavior. As presented in this paper, the general consensus is that video games contribute in some way to aggression. However one study mentioned implied that violent video games could lead to desensitization to violence. It seems to me that these two conclusions are contradictory. How is it that violent video games could simultaneously inspire aggression and apathy towards aggression? Is there anyway to theoretically or empirically square this inconsistency?
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Actually the desensitization study was in the other reading. Sorry, the two kinda ran together for me. But the question still stands
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I do think that this is a fair article in that it presents several studies that offer incites into video games causing violence. However, I think that it would be equally, if not more important to study the causation. Perhaps it is not that video games cause violence in adolescents but that violent individuals seek out violent video games. If this were the case, wouldn’t playing video games be positive in that it lets individuals “engage” in aggression without being physically violent? I am not arguing that all video game players who seek out violent video games are violent but I am suggesting that there could be a causal link in violent individuals.
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When reading this, just like most people, I didn’t really have much to say. It seems to me that much of the evidence shown in this article points to a general observable aggressiveness in boys, even without the presence of video games. What I wonder is whether or not there is a correlation between games becoming increasingly violent throughout the years and increasingly aggressive behavior in adolescence. Are games becoming increasingly more violent and thus, we observe more aggressiveness from adolescents now through these shootings?
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I agree that video games definitely influence people, but I think it can be both positive and negative. It depends on the game and the person because each of us is different, so the effect will never be the same. Adolescence is one of the most important periods of life because it’s a transitional stage. I’m not that experienced in that field, but I need to improve my knowledge because I need to write a paper. I’ve come across this page https://papersowl.com/examples/adolescence/, which provided me with a lot of useful essay examples about Adolescence, and after reading this post I will for sure include the part about video games. I think that now it’s part of our life, and a lot of people play different games, so it’s worth mentioning.
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