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Old 11-30-2006, 11:20 PM   #21
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

As someone who has written a paper on this for my social psych class last term, I know that there is significant evidence that indicates that violent video game play is positively correlated to subsequent physiological arousal, aggressive cognition, aggressive behavior, and negatively correlated to subsequent prosocial behavior. The size of the effect is about r = .15 to r = .19. However, all of these studies have only indicated a short-term effect. No longitudinal studies have been conducted to date.

In television/film violence, several longitudinal studies HAVE been conducted that do reveal a positive correlation between viewing violent media and aggression later in life (and, importantly, a NON-significant correlation between aggression and subsequent violent media viewing). It's expected that similar results would be found in similar studies on violent video games, as games are similar to television, and have the (expected) intensifying factor that is their inherently participatory nature.

Let me see if I can get at some sources for you guys.

edit:

Bushman, B.J. and Anderson, C. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: a meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science, 12 (5), 353-359.

Sherry, J. (2001). The effects of violent video games on aggression: a meta-analysis. Human Communication Research, 27(3), 409-431.

Both of those are meta-analyses on the topic, essentially pooling together data from many different studies and indicating the short-term effects that DO exist as I mentioned earlier.

(I could upload these too if you don't believe me...)

Last edited by talisman; 11-30-2006 at 11:47 PM..
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Old 12-1-2006, 12:00 AM   #22
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

The thing is, we all game right?

How many of us kill people?

No one, or else we'd post it on FFR.

The thing is, this is the easiest scapegoat for parents. They can't really think of any real sensible or plausible reason that might be causing their problems. Who they look to? None other than whoever or whatever their kid is doing.

I can say this from experience. At one point, I had a really good friend and I spent quite a bit of time with him, apparently he was the reason for everything wrong about me so they told me to stop seeing him. Of course this didn't happen.

I also read a lot when I was young. A lot as in I come home from school, I read till bed, woke up the next morning, go to school, and read all day. So now, reading just had to be the problem!

Now I'm using the computer, so clearly, whatever I'm currently doing is wrong.

Notice how in all my listed examples, we can all divide that onto two sides of a dichotomy, good or bad, where friends and reading is seen as good and quite possibly, computer being bad.

So it is not the fact that the computer is actually bad for you, it is because we use it a lot.

~Tsugomaru
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Old 12-1-2006, 12:16 AM   #23
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

No one takes seriously the argument that playing violent video games leads to violent crime. Too many defenders of violent games use the same argument many of you have used: "Many people play violent games, yet not even close to all of them kill people!" No ****. I can't think of any rational critics who try to make that argument (that playing games necessarily leads to committing acts of violent crime).

What is claimed, and supported (albeit only in the short-term, for now), is that there's a link between violent video game play and subsequent aggression. The effect is not a huge one, but it is significant.

I noticed that squeek framed his paper around the contention that violent video games are linked to violence. While this may be the perception in the media and public, it certainly isn't the one adopted by the scientific community (as far as I've read) in dealing with this topic. Scientists are looking for links between playing these games and aggression, a term that can be quite rigorously defined and measured.

To sum up: all your evidence on violent video games having no negative effects at all is either A) anecdotal, B) uninformed, or C) misdirected.
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Old 12-1-2006, 12:18 AM   #24
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

There is probably a trend, but it's not necessarily causal.
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Old 12-1-2006, 12:21 AM   #25
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

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Old 12-1-2006, 12:21 AM   #26
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

Many of the studies control for almost every factor conceivable... the data highly suggest that the correlation is probably causal in nature (although causation is almost never "proved" just as nothing in science is ever "proved"). If you can think of other factors to account for the results the researchers found, be my guest.

Let me dig up some example studies...

edit: just a couple from my paper... there's more that we didn't cite (obviously), but I'm far too lazy to pull together those citations for you:

Ballard, M., & Wiest, J. (1996). Mortal kombat (tm): the effects of violent videogame play on males’ hostility and cardiovascular responding. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26(8), 717-730.

Bushman, B.J. and Anderson, C. (2002). Violent video games and hostile expectations: a test of the general aggression model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28 (12), 1679-1686.

Last edited by talisman; 12-1-2006 at 12:25 AM..
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Old 12-1-2006, 12:29 AM   #27
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

The real problem is that parents don't take responsibility for their children's actions.

Yes, video games are violent. That's why they're rated. M-rated games should not be played by children.

http://www.mediafamily.org/research/...grc_2006.shtml

Quote:
For example, most (73%) parents say they “always” help decide what games their children may buy or rent. However, only 30% of children say their parents do. On the opposite side, only 1% of parents say they “never” help decide, in contrast to 25% of children. This pattern of parents giving much more socially acceptable answers is consistent across several aspects, including responses to the following questions:
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Old 12-1-2006, 12:33 AM   #28
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

I guess you are right. I cannot say that because the world is into violent video games. And yes, that is a trend I'm following.

My original argument still holds, that currently, scientist are basing their facts on an easy scape goat.

I mean, there was once a time where smoking was accepted by society and they saw nothing wrong about it. At one point, people started noticing how smoking also correlated to death and BAM no one wants to smoke anymore.

Currently, there is no real evidence to this theory and the only thing backing it up is the fact that this is one of the scapegoats that is easy and readily there to use.

I mean sure, I do try to imitate some of the stunts I see in video games, but never to the point where I'd actually get up and do it. I'll leave that to the cosplayers and actors.

~Tsugomaru
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Old 12-1-2006, 12:35 AM   #29
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

Quote:
Originally Posted by talisman View Post
Many of the studies control for almost every factor conceivable... the data highly suggest that the correlation is probably causal in nature (although causation is almost never "proved" just as nothing in science is ever "proved"). If you can think of other factors to account for the results the researchers found, be my guest.

Let me dig up some example studies...

edit: just a couple from my paper... there's more that we didn't cite (obviously), but I'm far too lazy to pull together those citations for you:

Ballard, M., & Wiest, J. (1996). Mortal kombat (tm): the effects of violent videogame play on males’ hostility and cardiovascular responding. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26(8), 717-730.

Bushman, B.J. and Anderson, C. (2002). Violent video games and hostile expectations: a test of the general aggression model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28 (12), 1679-1686.
Isn't it always very possible that violent people who are likely to commit crimes are drawn toward violent video games? Am I missing something here? Is there really any way to show that it's the other way around?
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Old 12-1-2006, 01:43 AM   #30
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

It was once said that these violent games were an answer to solving crime, but that was a very, very long time ago. The thing is, video gaming is a way to release their anger in some ways.

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Old 12-1-2006, 10:49 AM   #31
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

Quote:
Originally Posted by squeek
The real problem is that parents don't take responsibility for their children's actions.
I agree 100%... ultimate responsibility lies in the hands of the parents.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tsugomaru
My original argument still holds, that currently, scientist are basing their facts on an easy scape goat.
No, it really doesn't. Scientists are basing their facts on solid research. You have no evidence to support your claim.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tsugomaru
Currently, there is no real evidence to this theory and the only thing backing it up is the fact that this is one of the scapegoats that is easy and readily there to use.
What "theory"? It seems like you're still talking about video games necessarily causing violent behavior. That's not a widely held nor supported theory. Scientists claim that playing the games is linked to increased aggression, not violence. And there is plenty of evidence to back them up.

Quote:
Originally Posted by chrissi
Isn't it always very possible that violent people who are likely to commit crimes are drawn toward violent video games? Am I missing something here? Is there really any way to show that it's the other way around?
For video games, not yet. For television (which is expected to be similar to video games, for obvious reasons), yes. As I said before, longitudinal studies have found a positive correlation between watching violent television and acts of aggression later in life but have found NO significant correlation between aggressiveness and preference for violent television. This means that the effect is not simply generated by the more aggressive people watching the more violent shows and thus being more likely to display aggressiveness. Like I said, though, no such studies have been conducted with video games to date, so theoretically the jury is still out. But I highly doubt any such longitudinal study would come up with something different than what has been found for television.

Sourcewise, see huesmann et al 2003 and eron et al 1978. I don't have the full citations on me, unfortunately.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tsugomaru
The thing is, video gaming is a way to release their anger in some ways.
This is one of four (I think) theories explaining what happens when we play violent video games or watch violent media, and is referred to as the catharsis hypothesis. The idea of catharsis was popular in the 1950s, and children were encouraged, for example, to beat their pillows to get out anger and frustration. It turned out, of course, that this wasn't solving any problems at all, and was in fact increasing aggressiveness (in the long run). And for that reason I doubt that catharsis really applies to video gaming.
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Old 12-1-2006, 11:56 AM   #32
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Post Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

Quote:
Originally Posted by talisman View Post
I agree 100%... ultimate responsibility lies in the hands of the parents..
The thing is no perent takes responsibility for there kids, regardless of anything



Quote:
Originally Posted by talisman View Post
What "theory"? It seems like you're still talking about video games necessarily causing violent behavior. That's not a widely held nor supported theory. Scientists claim that playing the games is linked to increased aggression, not violence. And there is plenty of evidence to back them up..
Aint that the truth. Here agian, perents should only allowe kids to play games for a short time each day. When my lil' bro was getting too wired playing Army Men (lol Army Men, talk about going crazy) that's what my mom did and it works.


Quote:
Originally Posted by talisman View Post
This is one of four (I think) theories explaining what happens when we play violent video games or watch violent media, and is referred to as the catharsis hypothesis. The idea of catharsis was popular in the 1950s, and children were encouraged, for example, to beat their pillows to get out anger and frustration. It turned out, of course, that this wasn't solving any problems at all, and was in fact increasing aggressiveness (in the long run). And for that reason I doubt that catharsis really applies to video gaming.
I think it does, but not as much as everybody thinks.
I know that when I am tiss at life, playing Tekken helps me out, the problem here is that when inmature kids try it they dont know when to say "ok that was a fun game now lets go on with life" Here agian, perents need to keep a close wacth on there kids
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Old 12-1-2006, 12:18 PM   #33
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

Quote:
r = .15 to r = .19
That's it?

For all those that don't understand r values, that is basically insignificant. Does that even count as a valid correlation? I don't think so. Even .3 is a pretty f'ing low correlation. I'd say R should equal atleast .5 before you take seriously the relationship between the two. .65 would be a significant correlation, and .8+ would be highly significant.

Essentially what that means (r=.19) is video games account for less than 4% of the variables in children-videogame violence. Wow, talk about significant. What I take that to mean is essentially video games have nothing to do with violence other than changing ones mood in the moment.

You can think of this like a movie making you feel sad if the movie is really sad. Big deal.


What I'm getting at here is that low correlations (under .5) shouldn't be taken very seriously at face value. Here are some examples why.

You can correlate head size to IQ score by about .35, even though head size shouldn't matter much since there's a lot more in ones head than just brain, but it still does correlate.


IQ and religion r = -0.886. IF that was true then essentially the more religious you are, the dumber you are, and that if you're religious you're almost guaranteed to be stupid, but we all know highly intelligent religious people. The problem here is a confounding variable, in most cases. (though this correlation often in itself stirs up trouble.)


Confounding variables are always a problem in correlations. I could correlate ice cream eating to deaths in the water. Wow! The correlation is pretty high too. Why do they correlate? Because more people go swimming in the summer...
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Old 12-1-2006, 12:25 PM   #34
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

The authors claim the values to be small, but significant. Keep in mind n = 4200 or so for one value and 2800 I think for the other. These were meta-analyses across a lot of studies.

And really, values larger than that are not to be expected. If r were .90 or something that would mean that nearly every kid who played a violent video game would be significantly more aggressive.

You'll have to read the studies themselves to get a better handle of their statistical measures, but in both analyses the authors do say that their findings are significant, and I'm inclined to believe them (being published in peer-reviewed journals and all).
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Old 12-1-2006, 12:42 PM   #35
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

They're definitely small. I think small is an understatement.

Again my argument would be that r=0.19 only accounts for less than 4% of the variability. It's too insignificant to be taken at face value as evidence for this really.

R=.9 is extremely high, yes, I wouldn't expect that. But r=0.5 (25% variability accounted for) isn't unnecessarily high, especially if you want to come out and say that two things are linked.


I'll read into it further.
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Old 12-1-2006, 01:13 PM   #36
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

what one of the authors says:

"We used the correlation coefficient, denoted by r, as the effect-size estimate. According to Cohen (1988), a small r is + or - .10, a medium r is + or - .30, and a large r is + or - .50. Fisher's z transformation was applied to the correlations beforet they were averaged, weighted by the inverse of the variance (i.e., n - 3). Once a 95% confidence interval was obtained for the pooled z score, it was transformed back to a 95% confidence interval for the pooled r, denoted by r (sub +) (Hedges & Olkin, 1985).

...

"Is there a reliable association between exposure to violent video games and aggression? Across 33 independent tests of the relation between video-game violence and aggression, involving 3,033 participants, the average effect size was positive and significant, r = .19. High video-game violence was definitely associated with heightened aggression.... Indeed, this effect of violent video games on aggression is as strong as the effect of condom use on risk of HIV infection (Weller, 1993)."
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Old 12-1-2006, 03:36 PM   #37
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

Ok, while I know p values don't *really* hold up for correlations, I'm assuming that for the 2 meta-analyses you've read, that p <0.05?

Also, reach, maybe I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure that r = .19 accounts for square root of .19 percent variability, which is actually more than 4.something % variability. You probably meant to write this for r = .15.
Plus, I agree, r = .19 IS small, but lets face it, that's pretty much par for the course in psychology, especially social psychology. Which is a very good message to take away, to anyone who's not going to study psychology, that just because something found is significant, doesn't mean its meaningful.
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Old 12-1-2006, 03:50 PM   #38
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

Of course... the quote I just pasted even mentioned obtaining the "95% confidence interval."

Honestly, I trust the authors of a paper in a peer-reviewed journal to decide the degree of significance more than you guys... It's worth noting as well that both studies cite work by Cohen in reporting their statistics (as evidenced above).
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Old 12-1-2006, 05:42 PM   #39
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MixMasterLar View Post
The thing is no perent takes responsibility for there kids, regardless of anything
Can you back that up with proof?

My mom took responsibility for me. I was not allowed to purchase or view R-rated movies until I was of age. I was not allowed to buy "Parental Advisory" CDs until I was of age (and by then I grew out of American music anyway). I was not allowed to purchase or play M-rated games until I was of age.

IT IS NOT HARD TO DO.
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Old 12-1-2006, 05:42 PM   #40
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Default Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

I guess you are right, I do have nothing to back my sources. These are things I've read on the Internet and magazines I recieve at home, the question is not whether or not if the information is right, but where does the informationg comes from.

I'll try to research into this a bit more, this topic made me think. =[

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