Finally! A study that looks for the keys where they were lost rather than under the streetlight.
Violent games not to blame for youth aggression.
Ferguson found that depressive symptoms were a strong predictor for youth aggression and rule breaking, and their influence was particularly severe for those who had preexisting antisocial personality traits. However, neither exposure to violence from video games or television at the start of the study predicted aggressive behavior in young people or rule-breaking at 12 months.
Ferguson concludes: “Depressive symptoms stand out as particularly strong predictors of youth violence and aggression, and therefore current levels of depression may be a key variable of interest in the prevention of serious aggression in youth. The current study finds no evidence to support a long-term relationship between video game violence use and subsequent aggression. Even though the debate over violent video games and youth violence will continue, it must do so with restraint.”
This comes on the heels of another study I came across the other day that was more like the typical “videogames cause violence” studies:
Violent Video Games…oh wait, no…Demand Characteristics Have Long-Term Influences
The study being discussed is here.
Very briefly, as is typical, the study authors randomly assigned college students to play either a violent (e.g. Mortal Kombat…which got me wondering if anyone even still plays that anymore) or non-violent (e.g. Grand Turismo 5, Guitar Hero) game. Some of the participants (again randomly assigned) were then told to think about the game they had played for the next 24 hours. They then returned to the lab the next day to be tested on their “aggression” using the commonly used “noise burst” TCRTT that has come under increasingly fire for poor validity recently (Kutner & Olson, 2008; Ritter & Eslea, 2005; Tedeschi & Quigley, 1996). The authors claim results indicated that college students (the males at least, not the women) instructed by the experimenters to think about the video games over the intervening 24 hours were more “aggressive” whereas college students not so instructed were not.
Apparently, crap like this is publishable. Hmmmmm
People think more about videogames for 24 hours when told to think about videogames for 24 hours. Great.
Our whole culture glorifies the violent rather than the analytical response to just about everything. Action scenes engage our brains. Strange though, that action scenes involving animals at play – binding rabbits, frolicking fawns and goats etc do not seem to cause the same level of arousal as competitive sports action or violent war-games or fights between individuals or teams.
Is this human nature? What part of this is innate? Is it the interest in motion and action? (as I suspect) or are we naturally drawn to scenarios where there is hurt or humiliation dished out to someone (who, hypothetically we do not identify with)?
Having lived in a few cultures where competitive children’s play is not found, where they do not “automatically” play to win or lose and where giving another child pain – emotional or physical) is seen as a sign of poor judgement and poor impulse control, I tend to find violent video games and team sprits in my own culture rather repugnant – they indicator a widespread acceptance of a form of interpersonal behaviour and personal conduct that is not kind, not generous, not mature, and certainly not admirable. It is as though our culture is keeping up perpetually in that stage of childhood when we were rebellious and would hit out at anyone who thwarted us. Why would a culture want to keep people at the emotional level as most two year olds?