Violent Video Games...oh wait, no...Demand Characteristics Have Long-Term Influences

This study came out back in September but, in my opinion, it's nearly a classic for how not to do experimental video game research.  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) intructed 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.

Ignoring the repetition of old problems (the poorly validated aggression measure, the poorly matched video games, the sub-adequate exposure time) I was left wondering how the very obvious demand characteristics of this study evaded the peer reviewers.  The experimenters TOLD participants to think about video games for 24 hours.  It seems to me they might as well have written down the study hypotheses and told participants to expect to write an essay on the General Aggression Model the next day.

As noted in the original article "Thus, violent video game effects can cause an increase in aggression at least 24 hr after the game has been turned off, at least among men who ruminate about the game. It is reasonable to assume that our lab results will generalize to the ‘‘real world.’’ Violent gamers usually play longer than 20 min and probably ruminate about their game play in a habitual manner."

This generalization to the real world is only possible if in the real world experimenters come into your home and instruct you to think about your video games for the next 24 hours.  I'm left wondering what it means that video game players "...probably ruminate about their game play in a habitual manner."  Seems a pretty broad stroke to paint with. 

This has been a problem with a lot of the video game research, particularly on the experimental side.  Much of the research is done with college students and are probably quite used to hypothesis guessing psychological research (once someone has learned about Milgram's studies, I almost think they should never be allowed to participate in psychological research again).  But very often the participants are given some instructions which are clearly related to the study hypotheses and also odd enough to set hypothesis guessing in motion.  It's disappointing to see such research as this received uncritically when such flaws are evident. 

While I'm on this study, John Sherry's work very early on (2001) suggested such short exposure times (20 minutes) are sub-standard.  Longer exposure times in video game violence research are associated with smaller effects, not larger ones.  For awhile this finding was puzzling (and ignored due to its inconvenience I suspect).

More recently Przybylski, Rigby and Ryan (2010) seem to have figured out why.  It turns out violent video games often have more difficult controls than non-violent games.  When exposure times are short, violent game players are cut off before they've even figured out the controls.  Imagine trying to master Modern Warfare 2 while people randomized to the non-violent condition are humming away at Tetris (and I've seen just those kinds of parings in research more than once, I wish I were exaggerating).  Any "aggression" appears to be due to being frustrated at being cut off at such a short interval.  At longer intervals players have mastered the controls and fewer differences between randomized groups are seen.

Apparently we should go ahead and play violent video games, as long as its not for only 20 minutes at a time...

[Edited for format]

 

 

 

 

Comments

[CherryBomb]

1.

By splitting them into male/female, instructions to "ruminate"/no instructions and between 6 video games, they are down to about 5 members in each group. They do try to show that some groups can be combined for analysis, but starting with 5 is a bit dicey. It might be more convincing if they did a second round, with two groups of males playing the same violent game, one with the ruminate instruction and one without. Like you say, all games are different, and might plausibly affect a player's aggression for some other reason than the violent content. Maybe eliminate that variable.

[优文网]

2.

Like you say, all games are different, and might plausibly affect a player's aggression for some other reason than the violent content. Maybe eliminate that variable.

[Stabs]

3.

Were any of the test subjects actually violent? Arrested for assault, for example? Or fighting?

I would suggest that this study had discovered that after exposure to violent video games a group of test subjects did not, in fact, become violent.

[C Ferguson]

4.

No, no one actually became violent. That's true for my laboratory studies. Ethically they can't provoke people to actually become violent in the lab. But of course it is a serious weaknesses of laboratory experiments...they can't be generalized to serious acts of aggression. Unfortunately too many scholars imply such links in an irresponsible manner.

[Stabs]

5.

Well quite.

I don't think generalisations can be drawn from these studies unless the whole picture is looked at. What did kids do before violent video games? They got bored and went out. What did they do outside? Well with no money not much to do except hang around on street corners. And what happened when kids hanging around on street corners saw someone apparently rich and vulnerable? They sometimes mugged them.

There are good reasons why our society uses a variety of electronic nannies and electronic opiates and cultures where video games are not widespread may have a higher crime rate than characters where the teenagers stay indoors and play WoW.