New Study Gives “Conclusive Evidence” of Harm Caused by Violent Games, or Maybe It Doesn’t

Mon, Nov 3, 2008

I know, I know -- another study linking violent video games to the inevitable downfall of society, and the corruption of the very precious children who are our future? You'd think, after having this argument for over 25 years, that we'd just stop listening to this kind of thing. You'd think it would just wash over us, like so much white noise, or like the tears of a disbarred attorney. The last time I bothered to speak at length about "scientific" study regarding the correlation (yet never quite the causation) between violent games and irreparable harm to our doe-eyed youngsters, I made the following remark:

Surely, after half a lifetime of having this discussion, there has got to be some proven link, some incontrovertible silver bullet that will put this thing to rest. [...] Let me know when you find it.

With that declaration in place, I could rest easy, and wait for a study that was worth our time, until today:

We now have conclusive evidence that playing violent video games has harmful effects on children and adolescents.

Oh, snap. Conclusive evidence? Evidence that serves to put an end to doubt, question, or uncertainty? That kind of conclusive? Man, is my face red. I asked for it, and they delivered. If they've got conclusive evidence, then I need to get rid of these dangerous games immediately. I wonder if there's a hazmat crew available on short notice that can --

...given the weak effect sizes, the lack of control of relevant variables, and the failure of the authors to acknowledge data and research which contradicts their hypothesis, I am left with little confidence that the results of the current study provides much meaningful information on the impact of violent games.

Oh.

The full story is thus: Dr. Craig Anderson, the Director of the Center for the Study of Violence, and oft-published Professor on the topic of violent games and aggressive behavior, has concluded a new study on the aforementioned subject. Published in Pediatrics, the "Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics," Anderson's study is entitled "Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States." The study was reported upon, this morning, by the Washington Post (via Blue's News), including the usual parental anecdotes, along with the earlier "conclusive" declaration by Anderson.

In comments to the Washington Post, Anderson tries to keep at least some perspective, reassuring us all that "A healthy, normal, nonviolent child or adolescent who has no other risk factors for high aggression or violence is not going to become a school shooter simply because they play five hours or 10 hours a week of these violent video games." Of course, within his own study, Anderson asserts that "Existing experimental studies demonstrate that playing a violent video game causes an immediate increase in aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive emotions," only moments after having defined "aggression" in no uncertain terms: "Aggression is an act conducted by 1 person with the intent of hurting another person; it is not an emotion, thought, or intention." Perhaps this is just my boorish, under-educated brain at work, but to me that sounds like "If you play a violent video game, you are at significant increased risk to turn around and punch the guy sitting next you you, in the face." Man, I wish I could have seen that study. Or maybe I don't -- if I'd watched that kind of behavior, I'd probably be at increased risk. I don't know how psychologists keep from murdering their entire families, given the high amount of violence they watch and analyze every day.

Of course, I'm not a psychology professor. Hell, I'm not any kind of professor. I don't even have the accreditation of DJ Professor K. However, Anderson's paper has received a Post-publication Peer Review -- a P³R -- from a researcher at Texas A&M. As reported on GamePolitics, Dr. Christopher Ferguson, an Assistant Professor of Psychology and also a published writer on the subject of game violence, has read Anderson's longitudinal study, and doesn't much care for it at all. That last quote about "little confidence" is from Ferguson, as are the following criticisms:

The authors here simply ignore a wide body of research which conflicts with their views.

Video game exposure overlapped in this study approximately half a percent to 2% with the variance in aggression, which is as close to zero as one can get without being zero. If anything it is remarkable how little effect that violent games had on trait aggression, considering that other relevant variables were not controlled.

The authors also fail to note that during the period in which violent video games became increasingly popular, youth violence has plummeted approximately 66% to levels not seen since the 1960s. Although I suspect the authors would simply try to argue that this does not matter, such arguments are disingenuous, particularly as they raise the issue of youth violence themselves.

That last point is perhaps the most telling of all: If one is going to prop up a study based on a correlation (violent games makes for aggressive behavior), it's irresponsible to ignore an even larger and more generalized correlation (sales of violent games go up while actual youth violence goes down). I don't believe either one of these points to an actual causation, but fair is fair. For that matter, Anderson's study bases its "conclusive" evidence on its across-the-board findings, suggesting that these results are irrefutable because the same increased aggression was seen both in American and Japanese children; i.e., violent games can be harmful regardless of cultural background. Even in a culture with markedly lower youth violence, video games can adversely affect our children's behavior. In Anderson's own words, "it demonstrates that such longitudinal effects occur in highly individualistic cultures with high societal levels of physical aggression and violence (the United States), and in more collectivistic cultures with low levels of physical aggression and violence."

Nowhere in the study, however, is justification provided for Anderson's own postulation -- the one where he says that the United States has "high societal levels of physical aggression and violence" relative to Japan or other nations. If violent games cause an identical effect across all audiences, why are we the ones with the higher violence level? GamePolitics posted some of Anderson's additional comments from the Des Moines Register, where he touts his study as having proved the point:

"The culture is so different, and their overall violence rate is so much lower than in the U.S.," Anderson said in a news release. "The argument has been made - it's not a very good argument, but it's been made by the video game industry - that all our research on violent video game effects must be wrong because Japanese kids play a lot of violent video games and Japan has a low violence rate.

"By gathering data from Japan, we can test that hypothesis directly and ask, 'Is it the case that Japanese kids are totally unaffected by playing violent video games?' And of course, they aren't. They're affected pretty much the same way American kids are."

Fair enough, Dr. Anderson -- so why are we allegedly so much more violent? Were you going to mention any reasons at all? No? You don't think that might have been relevant to the discussion? That it might have shed a little light on the exact degree of game/violence correlation?

I have conclusive evidence that you're not very good at this.

America, Chris Ferguson, controversy, Craig Anderson, Japan, Opinion, Study, violence in games

This post was written by:

Jesse Henning - who has written 474 posts on GameCyte.

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2 Comments For This Post

alphaxion Says:
November 4th, 2008 at 6:17 am
And of course we are yet to see *anyone* address the issue of how we play the games.
If you're playing a game that induces the production of adrenaline - compare the frenentic mashing of buttons during a beat em up to the measured calm of a golf sim - but with no physical exhersion to burn up this adrenaline, surely that would lead to a person showing signs of "aggressive tendancies" which will taper off when the adrenaline is finally burned off.

Try comparing the same violent games with a Wii like exhaustive control mechanic and see if a person is aggressive after playing.

I have mentioned this to Dr Byron (from the UK Byron Report) as well as to a professor at UCI, the Byron report turned out to ignore my suggestions, the lady at UCI promised to take it on board cause she hadn't thought about it like that.

There's more to playing a game than its contents.
Jesse Henning Says:
November 4th, 2008 at 8:33 am
@Alphaxion:

That's a remarkably good point. Kudos to you for bringing it to the attention of the researchers, too!

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