media influences on aggression

• P: Many studies in this area fail to account for other variables that explain why some people display aggressive behaviour and why those same people may choose to play violent computer games

  E: Ferguson claim that much of the research on the effects of computer game violence has failed to control for other variables known to influence aggressive behaviour. Their meta analysis showed that the effects of violent media content on aggressive behaviour disappears when other potential influences such as trait aggression, family violence and mental health are taken into consideration
• link for other causal variables

  L: the researchers suggest that these other risk factors, as opposed to exposure to media violence, are the primary cause of aggressive and violent behaviour
• P: a weakness of lab experiments in this area is that researchers cannot measure real life aggression. Therefore they must use measures of aggressive behaviour that have no relationship to real life aggression and can only measure short term effects

  E: these measures of aggressive behaviour include administering noise blasts or even hot chilli sauce to another participant, neither of which have much to do with actual aggressive behaviour. longitudinal studies are able to observe real life patterns of behaviour and document both short term and long term effects
• link for problems with research

  L: however, a problem for most longitudinal studies is that participants may be exposed to other forms of media violence during the course of the study, meaning that the effect from violent video game exposure alone is uncertain
• P: a study by przybylski suggests that aggressive behaviour may be linked to a player's experiences of failure and frustration during a game rather than the game's violent storyline

  E: they found that it was not the storyline or imagery, but the lack of mastery and difficulty players had in completing the game, that led to frustration and aggression. this was evident across both violent and non violent games
• link for game difficulty

  L: the researchers suggest that we tend to have fairly simplistic views when it comes to the link between video games and aggression, as even non violent games can leave players feeling aggressive if they are poorly designed or too difficult
• There is strong experimental support for the idea that violent media can increase aggression. For example, Bandura's Bobo doll study showed that children who observed aggressive models on TV were more likely to imitate that aggression. More recent research, such as Bushman and Huesmann (2006), found a consistent link between exposure to violent media and increased aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This supports the claim that media can have a direct influence on aggression.