Gun Control Pt. 2: Violent Video Games

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The open letter also tackled the issue of violent video games be saying:

“Recent social psychology research clearly indicates that there is a direct relationship between gratuitously violent movies/video games and desensitization to real violence and increased aggressive behavior particularly in children and young adults (See Nicholas L. Carnagey, et al. 2007. “The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence” and the references therein. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43:489-496). Therefore, we strongly recommend that gratuitous violence in movies and video games be discouraged. War and war-like behavior should not be glorified. Hollywood and video game producers are exploiting something they know nothing about. General Sherman famously said “War is Hell!” Leave war to the Professionals. War is not a game and should not be “sold” as entertainment to our children.”

I’m sure it goes without saying that this is just one study, and certainly isn’t conclusive with respect to the grand debate surrounding video games. But it does little justice on my part not to delve into this a bit deeper. First, we’ll tackle their citation, which you can read here. Carnagey, Anderson, and Bushman indeed found that playing violent video games desensitized kids. 257 college students (48.2% male, 51.7% female) completed measures and surveys to determine video game preferences and trait aggression, followed by playing a violent or nonviolent video game for 20-minutes. After they played their games, they then watched a 10-minute long video depicting real life violence, during which their heart rate and galvanic skin response were measured. For those that played non-violent games, the heart rate increase quite dramatically from the baseline measure to after game play results for both nonviolent and violent games, however for those that played a nonviolent game their heart rate continued to go up while watching the 10-minute video, whereas those that played violent video games saw a decrease in heart rate. As for the galvanic skin response, the same trend happened during the 10 minute video, whereas there wasn’t much change between the baseline and after game play.

While the results certainly speak for themselves, the authors didn’t tackle the length for which the participants would remain desensitized. This is an important weakness. Mullin and Linz (1995) had participants watch sexually violent films and then measured emotional sensitivity and callousness towards domestic abuse victims [3]. What they found is that repeated exposure maintained desensitization, but after five days of no exposure the participants had rebounded to previous baseline levels. At this point in time, no other studies have tackled this issue directly with respect to violent video games, or even violent videos.

To continue on with what the research seems to indicate, Anderson and Bushman (2001) conducted a meta-analytic review of 35 articles [4]. With respect to 21 articles that followed an experimental procedure, there was a correlation (r = .18) between short term exposure to violent video games and a temporary increase in aggression. [Correlation, which is shown by r vary by size: +/- .10 = small, +/- .30 = medium, +/- .50 = large. + r, means that as one variable increases so does the other, whereas a –r indicates that as one variable increases, the other decreases]. As for the 13 articles that followed non-experimental procedures (field studies), also found a correlation (r = .19) between violence video games and aggression. Other correlations found with respect to non-experimental designs were: time spent playing violent video games (r = .26), preference for violent video games (r = .16), and playing violent videogames in general (r = .16). The authors found a negative correlation between violent video games and prosocial behavior in the real world (r = -.16). In other words, the more a person plays violent video games, the less likely they are to help. Among other correlations was found between aggressive thoughts (cognition) and video game violence (r = .27). In other words, violent video games were found to increase aggressive thoughts in people of all ages and both sexes, and while this is indeed causal, in stark contrast to the other correlations listed above, duration of aggressive thoughts was not stated or measured. There was a positive correlation (r = .18) between violent video games and aggressive affect. Another correlation (r = .22) was found between violent video games and physiological arousal, typically measured by heart rate, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

Meta-analysis is a good tool to find patterns in research findings, in effect, it is basically researching research, which is why I cited the source above. But before I move on from this, I think I should summarize a more recent analysis.

Ferguson (2007) found that much of the research was mixed, but more important that two meta-analyses found within the research small correlations between violent video games and aggression (such as the one listed above), but also found three other meta-analyses that found no support for a causal relationship between aggression and violent games. He further points to research that controls for family violence in which correlations, causal or otherwise evaporate between criminal behavior and violent video games. In other words, criminal behavior may actually be symptom of violence at home, and not time spent playing games. Still, Ferguson also tackles a major issue with respect to publication bias. In any case, Ferguson found a correlation between violent video games and aggressive behavior (r = .14), and visuospatial cognition (this is essentially your visual memory, visual attention, selection, and absorption to – it’s good) (r = .49). With respect to aggressive behavior, that only explains 2% of the variance, and 24% for visuospatial cognition. Ferguson then controlled for publication bias, which reduced those correlations and variance sizes to r = 0.04 (0.01%), and r = .36 (13%) respectively. In other words, Ferguson found that there were positive aspects to playing violent video games, and that aggressive behavior was ruled out due to publication bias, and family violence.

Indeed, there seems to be a growing body of evidence disproving a causal relationship between video game violence and aggression/aggressive behavior, with some searchers focusing on the cathartic effects, or calming/coping use of violent video games. In fact, an article published in January of this year (2014), Ferguson and Olson examined 377 children with attention deficit or depressive symptoms, and rather than find support for aggressive hypotheses, instead found that it has a slight calming effect [5][6][7]. Other studies conducted by Olsen found that among 1,254 7th and 8th graders, the reasons for playing violent video games were tied to coping with emotions, tackling challenging situations, relieve stress, and to help create their own world [8].

It’s a little fascinating, then, that Wayne LaPierre, in the press conference following Sandy Hook, would say:

“And here’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse.” [8]

Indeed, the studies that I have cited above used Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat, and Halo for their experimental (or not) designs. So, with respect to LaPierre’s claim, there’s mixed results to support his stance, if any at all. But this leads us down another road. While pro-gun enthusiasts are quick to cite Hitler, Stalin, Mao, China, Russia, and Germany for the reasons we should maintain a very strict conservative approach to the second amendment, they don’t seem too quick to look at other countries when it comes to violent video games. Indeed, many other nations, most notably Japan, has a comparable or larger population of video game consumption, even with respect to violent video games, and yet far less violent crime. To me it seems hypocritical, but I suppose that’s to be expected from propaganda. And still, the issue becomes far more complex when we begin to realize that the Gun Debate is really a culture war, and not a policy debate.