Re:Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, ... a ...
by greendestiny on Saturday August 13, 2011 @10:57AM
(#2881060)
I think peer review is a very basic hurdle in the research process. The results are then up for review - and that's what we're doing here in a minor way. In the section that really matters, violent behaviour, results seem massively skewed in favour of results from cross-sectional studies. Experimental and longitudinal studies showed strong sex differences. All non-experimental (and no doubt some of the experimental) studies were strongly subject to self-selection. None of the longitudinal studies were done on subjects over 16. Just because its a meta-study doesn't mean it isn't subject to massive flaws.
Does anything in there reliably address the issue of correlation versus causation. Most people play video games - if I was a violent person surely that would be my entertainment of choice right?
-- The paper reports no significant sex effect: --
There was no evidence that the VGV effect on aggressive behavior differed for males and females (ps .10). The VGV effect was slightly larger for females in experimental and longitudinal studies and was slightly larger for males in the crosssectional studies, but none of these differences were significant.
-- The age effect is only borderline significant: --
Average age of the participants was not significantly related to the VGV effect sizes in experimental or longitudinal studies ( ps .50). However, it is important to note that there were no longitudinal studies on participants older than 16. For crosssectional studies there was a marginally significant effect of age (b .005, Z 1.82, p .07). Studies with older participants tended to yield slightly smaller effect sizes than did those with younger participants
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Anyone with a dash of understanding of the human mind wouldn't find these results surprising, BTW. Even if you're able to make the difference between real life and games, acting violently in virtual environments trains your brain to react more violently in general.
BTW, I don't have any personal bias against violent video games.
-- Initial post, before the editions:
Indeed, then, and I'm a bit surprised that the peer review accepted an abstract that contradicts the content of the paper. Is the journal also biased against violent games?