Video games

• Media - communication channels such as tv, films, books through which news, entertainment and data are made available.

  Media influences- changes in behaviour that are attributed after exposure to media.

  Eron estimates that a child entering secondary school will have seen 8000 murders and 100,000 violent acts on TV.
• Bandura et al

  • was designed to examine the role of a model on influencing behaviour
  • recorded behaviour of young children who watched an adult behave in an aggressive way towards a Bobo doll
  • the adult hit the doll with a hammer and shouted abuse at it
  • conducted further research involving a filmed adult behaviour instead on in person and saw the same result
  • children still copied this behaviour which supports the idea that media influence can have a direct influence
• Lab experiments into violent films and tv usually involve

  • design - independent groups design and random allocation to conditions
  • experimental conditions - Ps view violent film scenes
  • control condition - Ps watch non violent scenes
  • DV - observed to see how they then interact with others

  Findings generally show that children who watch violent scenes are more aggressive in their behaviour and their thoughts.
• Bartholow and Anderson - s.e. for computer games

  • students played a violent computer game (Mortal Kombat) or a non violent game(PGA Tournament Golf) for 10 minutes
  • Ps carried out a lab measure of aggression where students deliver blasts of white noise at chosen volumes
  • those who played the violent computer game gave significantly louder blasts of noise to an opponent than those who played the non violent game
• Evaluation for research into computer games

  • experiments allow researchers to find a causal link between media and aggression as the IV is manipulated by the experimenter in controlled conditions
  • using white noise blasts is an artifical measure of aggression and is not a form of aggression that is found in most real life situations
  • a further problem is that lab studies cannot create real life aggressive situations as this would be unethical
• Correlations typically look at the link between time spent playing violent video games and measures of aggression.

  Findings include an increase in aggressiveness, while others suggest a decrease in criminality.
• Huesman et al

  • surveyed 329 Ps between 6-9 and found that 15 years later the exposure between males and females to TV violence in childhood predicted increased aggression in adulthood.
  • in particular, the 25% of study Ps who viewed the most violent media in childhood were the most likely to be more aggressive in adulthood
  • these individuals exhibited a range of factors such as shoving their spouses, beating people up and committing crimes
  • more true if they identified with characters that were also aggressive
  • the TV violence was realistic compared to their childhoods
• Much of the research has failed to control for other variables such as mental health and family life, which may have impacted the results.
• Research has found that children who are already at risk may be more likely to choose to play video games. Although it is possible that viewing violent media causes aggressive behaviour (socialisation hypothesis), it could be that people who are already aggressive choose to be exposed to violent media, such as computer games..
• To date, there is no direct evidence of this link.
• Game difficulty and mastery may be important variables to consider. Research suggests that aggression may be linked to a player's experience of frustration and failure during a game rather than the game's violent storyline.

  • found that in both violent and non violent games, it was the game difficulty that led to frustration and aggression
  • this shows the link between the two to be very complicated