Exposure to Video Games Flashcards
(38 cards)
What is aggression?
Wide variety of hostile behaviours motivated by fear or frustrated: physical, verbal, relational
violence - subtype of aggression
involves greater intensity and destruction, manifests in attempt to cause harm
violence can be aggressive, but aggression is not always violent
What is the difference between short term and long term effects?
Short term effects: brief exposure to VVG with immediate assessment of outcomes
Long-term effects: accrue from repeated exposures over extended period of time - measured distal from exposure
What are the types of methods used?
Correlational designs: is amount of time spent playing VVG associated with scores on a measure of aggressive thoughts?
Longitudinal designs: does amount of VVG use in a sample of children at age 7 predict their aggressive behaviour at ages 16 and 21?
Experimental designs: do people randomly allocated to play a VVG compared to non-VVG report more aggressive cognitions and behaviours such as willingness to administer aversive stimuli
Epidemiological data: relationship between VVG and violent crime rates
What does epidemiological data hypothesise?
Positive relationship between VVGs and trends in violent crime rates
Does data support the epidemiological data hypothesis?
Negative relationship between VVG sales and violence rate
Significant decrease in crime rates with increasing game sales
Negative relationship between youth violence rates and video games sales between 1996 and 2011
What happened in 2018 in Australia?
Introduction of legislation that allowed for release of R18+ games - burglaries continued to decrease; homicides remained stable, sexual assault
but, important to remember that VVG exposure is not going to be only or main risk factor for societal violence
What did Anderson et al, 2010 look at?
Outcomes:
- Aggressive behavior
- Aggressive thinking;
- Aggressive mood
- Physiological arousal
- Empathy/desensitization to violence
- Prosocial behavior
Rated methodological quality of papers to create “best practice” subset (208 effect sizes) - took each paper and rated it
Controlled for sex, and Time 1 aggressive behavior in longitudinal designs (“best partials” dataset”) and looked at moderating effects of research design and culture
Looked at experimental, longitudinal and cross-sectional
Also looked at effect size in overall sample regardless of methodological quality
What did Anderson et al, 2010 find?
Significant effects of VVG on aggressive behaviour regardless of study design
Effect not moderated by culture, sex and most methodological variables
Weak effect of age – larger effects in younger participants
Effect significant even when methodologically weaker studies included
No evidence that publication bias (using trim and fill approach, only reporting when there had been an effect) had an influence on results
What did Hilgard et al, 2017 look at?
Reanalysis of Anderson et al
Had concerns about: Publication bias: significant studies more likely to be published
P-Hacking: questionable research practices (e.g. data stopping when p < .05, outlier management, outcome switching) increases risk of false positives
Selection bias: flexibility/bias in meta-analytic exclusion criteria, “best practice” more often applied to significant studies
investigated effects in unpublished dissertations
used more advanced methods for detecting and correct publication bias
What did Hilgard et al, 2017 find?
Funnel plots showed asymmetry indicative of bias and overestimated effect sizes
Anderson reported effect size of .21 but when did adjustment, had to reduce it by .03
Evidence of significant bias in estimates from experimental studies of aggressive behaviour - when Hilgard looked it, they reduced it a lot more
Multiple methods suggest that underlying effects so small to be undetectable in typical sample sizes
Unpublished work showed smaller, non-significant effects (r = .01) and less likely to be classed as “best-practice”
What did Ferguson look at?
Outcomes:
aggressive
prosocial behaviour
academic performance
depressive symptoms
attention deficit symptoms
Rated methodological quality of papers to create best practise subset
controlled for sex, time 1 aggressive behaviour in longitudinal designs, personality traits, family environment
Looked at moderators, use of standardises measures, ethnicity, gender, publication status
What did Ferguson find?
VVG have minimal negative effect on children’s wellbeing - accounting for less than 1% of variance in aggressive behaviour (0.09)
Effect not moderated by study design, age of the child, length of longitudinal period
Weaker effects in studies with better methodologies and in unpublished research
Some evidence of publication bias in published studies (using Tandem procedure)
What other risk factors are implicated?
Ferguson et al, 2018
Explored correlation between exposure to family violence, personality, trait aggression, video game playing and violent criminal behaviour in undergrads
Violent criminal behaviour significantly associated with:
- Trait aggression (r = .33)
- Physical abuse (r = .27)
- Spanking (r = .19)
- Verbal abuse (r = .18)
- Male gender (r = -.19)
- But not exposure to violent video games (r = 0.11) not significantly correlated
What did the regression analysis show about risk factors? Ferguson et al
Trait aggression and exposure to physical abuse strongest predictors of violent criminal behaviour
Violent not significant alone, but had an impact on trait aggression
Direct exposure to VVG did not predict violent criminal behaviour
Significant interaction between trait aggression and VVG exposure on violent crime
Exposure to VVG had little effect on crime behavior, except in players in top quartile for trait aggression - group of people prone to violent behaviour and enjoy playing violent games
Not games, exposure to physical abuse as a child and trait aggression
Consistent with a Catalyst Model
Subtype of aggressive individuals who are prone to violent behavior and enjoy VVG
What are the 8 methodological limitations?
Diversity in video games Mismatched control conditions in experiments No pre-test measures of aggression Overreliance on bivariate correlations Selective interpretation and citation bias Unstandardised aggression measures Moderators Lack of clinical/real world validity
What is the problem and solution with the diversity in video games?
Huge variability within violent video games, differ in the dimensions (realistic vs fantasy, difficulty and pace of action, target of violence)
Solution:
routinely code these factors and conduct moderator analyses in meta-analyses
manipulate in future studies to determine impact
What did Hull et al, 2014 look at in terms of diversity in video games?
Looked if type of protagonist impact aggression
Tracked use of mature-rated risk glorifying VVG and deviant risky behaviours in 5000 teenagers over 4 years
Greater game play associated with increases in sensation seeking and rebelliousness
Predicted change in alcohol, smoking, delinquency
What did Hull et al, 2014 find in terms of diversity in video games?
Effects stronger in youth who played VVG with an antisocial protagonist (e.g. GTA) compared than heroic protagonist (e.g. Spider Man)
If character looks like them, they aggresse more they can more strongly identify with characters who look like them
What is the problem with mismatched control conditions in experimental studies?
Violent and non-violent games often not matched for: ◦ Competitiveness, ◦ Difficulty level ◦ Frustration ◦ Pace of action
Solution:
Use modified game paradigms where researchers manipulate violent content of a single video game by changing underlying code to reduce effect of confounding variables
Change code to modify the content
What does Przybylskilet et al believe causes aggression and violence?
Aggression and violence result from threatened or actual thwarting of basic psychological needs:
need for competence
need for autonomy
need for relatedness
What did Przybylskilet et al look at?
Hypothesised that games that undermined players’ feelings of competence would lead to increases in aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviour
Manipulated complexity of game interface, complexity of controls, opportunity to build experience, degree of challenge and violent/non-violent content of games
Self-report, cognitive and behavioural indicators of aggression
What did Przybylskilet et al find?
Gaming that undermined need for competence associated with short term shifts in:
aggressive feelings
accessibility of aggressive thoughts
aggressive behaviours
• Importantly, effects were independent of the degree of violence in the games
• Suggests that how challenging or frustrating a game is, rather than its violent content might be more predictive of aggression
What is the problem with no pre test measures of aggression?
Unclear if higher post-test aggression scores in VVG condition reflects an increase or a differential reduction
Some evidence that all video games reduce hostility from pre-post-test
Solution: Measure aggression (other outcomes) pre- and post- VVG exposure
What is the problem with over reliance on bivariate correlations?
Some studies only report raw correlation between VVG exposure and aggression
Fail to control for third variables that may influence both VVG use and aggression levels e.g.
◦ gender
◦ trait aggression
◦ family environment
Might see a significant effect, but without controlling for other variables
Solution:
- Measure key confounds routinely
- Present controlled analyses as standard
- Pre-registered analyses
