Media Influences: The Effects of Computer Games

Who did an Experimental Study for the Effects of Computer games?

Bartholow and Anderson (2002)

What was their study?

• They did a lab based study, which recquired students to play either a violent computer game (Mortal Kombat) or a non-violent game (PGA Tournament Golf) for 10 minutes.

• They then carried out the Taylor Competive Reaction Time Task, a standard lab measure of aggression in which the students delivered blasts of white nouse at chose volumes to finish a non existent opponent.

What were the findings?

• Those who played the violent video games selected significantly higher noise levels compared with the non-violent players: means of 5.97 and 4.60 decibels respectively.

What are the strengths of the Experimental studies?

• Allows us to establish a casual link between media aggression and aggressive behaviour.

What are the limitations of the Experimental study?

• Aggression in lab situations don’t involve fear of retaliation so they can be ‘safely aggressive’ in lab is measured artificially and unrealistic eg: Taylor Competitive Reaction Time Task.

• Unethical to measure actual violence.

• Non-Equivalence problem: Experimental studies compare participants playing violent and non-violent games as equivalent.

• Andrew and Przybylskietal (2014): Looked at 2 games: marathon 2, which is a violent first person shooter and recquires 20 keys and 3D whereas Glider Pro is 2D in which the players uses 2 keys. These can’t be equated. More motor control could cause frustration instead of the violence of the game so it refutes violence affecting aggression.

Who did a Correlational Study for Media Influences: The Effects of Computer Games?

• Delisi et al (2003)

What was their study?

• They studied 227 juvenile offenders, all with histories of serious aggressive behaviours such as hitting a teacher or parent or gang fighting.

• Using structured interviews they gathered data or several measures of aggression and violent computer game playing.

What were the findings?

• They found the offenders’ aggressive behaviour was significantly correlated with how often they played violent video games and how much they enjoyed them.

What are the strengths of the Correlational Study?

• Allows psychologists to investigate realistic forms of aggression eg. violent crime.

What are the limitations of the Correlational study?

• Unable to establish cause and effect conclusions

• No variables are manipulated or controlled and here is no random allocation of participants to violent and non-violent groups

• Direction of causality can’t be established eg: does aggressive content cause aggression or do aggressive people consume aggressive content.

Who did a Longitudinal Study for Media Influences: The Effects of Video Games?

Roberson et al (2003)

What was their study?

• He wanted to see if there was a link between what they excessive television viewing in childhood and aggressive behaviour in adulthood.

• They studied 1037 people born in New Zealand in 1972 and 1973 and measured their TV viewing hours at regular intervals up to the age of 26 years.

What were their findings?

• Time spent watching TV was a reliable predictor of aggressive behaviour in a adulthood, measured in terms of convictions and aggressive and violent crimes.

• Those who watched the most TV were also more likely to be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorders and to have aggressive personality traits.

• It appears that the most important media-related factor in influencing aggressive behaviour may be the amount of TV watched rather than whether it has violent content or not.

What are strengths of the Longitudinal Study?

• Investigates changes in aggressive behaviour over time so dynamic nature of media influences can be studied.

• This approach views people as active consumes rather than passive which is more interact with media.

What are the limitations of the Longitudinal Study?

• Vulnerable to confounding variables as many other sources of aggression interact with media influences over a period of time, such as role models in the form of friends or family- it becomes difficult to distentangle them all and assess their contributions to aggressive behaviour.

Who did the Meta Analysis study of Media Influence: Effects of Violent Games?

• Anderson et al (2010)

What were their findings?

• Performed a meta analysis of 136 studies, which included the three types of methodology.

What were their findings?

• Exposure to violent video games was associated with increases aggressive behaviour, thoughts and feelings.

• This was true for men and women.

• It also stood true for both collectivist and individualistic cultures.

• The analysis showed no indication of publication bias.