Study Says Stable Kids Unaffected by Game Violence

Study Says Stable Kids Unaffected by Game Violence

April 4, 2007
Most youngsters are not affected by video game violence, says a new study conducted at Australia's Swinburne University of Technology.

As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, researchers looked at 120 kids aged 11 to 15 before and after a 20-minute session of Quake II (screen shot at left).

Results showed that test subjects who displayed anxiety, neurotic behavior or aggression beforehand were more likely to show increased aggression after playing the first-person shooter. But the majority of kids were unaffected by the game, according to the study results which are published in the Psychology, Crime and Law journal.

Swineburn's Professor Grant Devilly told the Morning Herald:
The majority of people did not increase in aggression at all and we're not the first people to find that. 

(the idea that violent games increase aggression is) the only message parents have ever received and it's just not accurate. You've got to basically read your own kid. If you have a quite hyper kid they will come down after playing a bit, but for the rest of kids, the vast majority, it makes no difference at all in their general aggression rate.

Comments

@rob

it wasnt just doom they were blaming, marylin manson was a huge target for them when it happened, apparently they were fans of his music. the reason people target games and such is because out of all the possible causes and solutions, something like video game content and accesibility are easy to fix. more complex problems such as identifying the effects bullying had and harris and klybold and major depression they had are much harder to correct and near impossible to reverse the damage if it was in the extremes, and in that case it was. you cant honestly state that doom made them go and shoot up 12 or so classmates and then shoot themselves with shotguns. what politicans are doing is creating a quick-fix solution to a problem that cannot have one.
Is anyone else amused that they're forcing poor kiddies to play Quake II?? At least spring for something made in the last 5 years, guys.
@ Gameplay blog
What encoding did you post in?
[...]
Jabrwock: I had a look and I can not find it at all. Must be in the next issue.
It's great to see another study that states common sense! This is kinda sad that it takes a study to explain this. Wonder what's different in the world now that there studies showing that it's the person not the game that matters. I've been saying for a long time that violent people would be more inclined to play violent games, but that doesn't mean everyone who plays them are violent.

So did anyone e-mail this study to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?

@ Lazy

Does it matter? Okay, it kinda does. I read a "report" on the PTC site the other day that claimed religion was being portrayed "negatively" and complained that that was a vague description at best. So, I gotta agree that we need a definition of aggression to better understand the results.

I'd assume that it would use the same definition of aggression as previous studies. More than likely the kids were more accepting of violence or were just more aggressive.
We've been saying this for over a decade but of course those at the PTC and NIMF will ignore it.
@Lazy

Not sure, the study is in Psychology, Crime and Law, but that isn't available for free. Any psych students have libraries that subscribe to PCL?
[...] [Michael Fahey@kotaku. com: source via GamePolitics] [...]
How did they measure the aggression in this study?
Duh.

And UNstable kids, if it wasn't games, it would be something else that would set them off, even in Jack's sterilized utopia. There have been killers who have blamed their violence on the Bible.
[...] Apparently, stable, non-aggressive kids aren’t likely to become more aggressive after playing violent videogames.  Who’d have thought?  [...]
Imagine that it came from the country whose OFL banned GTA, oy.
[...] Source GamePolitics [...]
You just know that someone is gonna be releasing a press release today.

"Game industry buys university, uses money to get phoney study"

Oh I can see it now . The ranting of a losing man.
It says most children but you know that the media will cling to the minority of kids being affected.
Well, that's what they do best. A hand full of gamers out millions do something stupid like Columbine and it's automatically blamed on video games. How the hell did that ever make sense anyway?

I mean lets forget that practically all of these kids were screwed up to begin with from years of a crappy home life or bullying and just go on a witch hunt ignoring the real problem. What's the point? See, these people fooling themselves into thinking they're helping the kids are actually hurting them because they ignore their real problems and focus on what they're playing in a video game.
Well DUH haha
Finally, a study to confirm what level-headed message board go-ers have been saying for quite some time: it's the kid, not the game.
In the words of PacMan in a Penny Arcade commic: That kid was messed up before I met him
I'm glad to see a study take this on. Most studies seem to try to look at the aggregate rather than breaking things down and establishing who's affected and how much and what separates them from those who aren't. Once you've established an aggregate effect, this is the next logical step.
@Wolf: Not necessarily so if the 120 is properly chosen. If a good random method is used to select subject candidates and most of those candidates agree to participate you don't need that many - according to my professor, the population of the entire United States can be accurated represented by a good random sampling of a few thousand people.

(Sometimes studies fail because their sampling is not random. The famous example of this is the "Dewey Defeats Truman" scenario - polls predicted Dewey in a landslide because their randomizing method was selecting random phone numbers from the phone book. This was when phone use was not widespread and those with phones were predominantly wealthy and Republican but the population as a whole preferred Truman. Your daily dose of useless trivia, folks.)
Thank you and good night!
Now why not expand it far beyond 120 kids. Then it can be even more useful as a defense.
In other news today, sky is blue and grass is green.

Stay tuned for more of this breaking news, including the new Earth is not flat scandal.
breaking news: the earth revolves around the sun!
"The majority of people did not increase in aggression at all and we're not the first people to find that."

Out of curiosity, who else has come to this conclusion?
Yahoo! Another study for our side.
@musashi1600: Anybody else who's played a video game and not gone on a shooting rampage. It's common knowledge that somehow went out of vogue after columbine. The base fact is, humans like blaming things, and blaming an individual for their actions is hard to do, as we like making stereotypes at the drop of hat.. One 'gamer' type turns out bad, and people start getting all shifty eyed and wary about gamers.

Then the media picks up on a story, runs it to death, lawyers start finding new 'ambulances' to chase and ramp things up.. And suddenly a minor issue becomes something absolutely huge. I mean come on, we'd blame everything a person does for their actions rather than face up and individualize the person and say "What that person did was wrong"...

Dungeons and Dragons used to be a 'hot topic' of violence and anti-Christian development in youths.. But it's not the business that's pulling down the billions and will dole out big bucks for class action suits. Games are just the new 'pop target', and I dare say until somebody develops a significantly improved method of providing entertainment which garners an even larger amount of income, it will remain so, as stupid as that sounds.
This is nothing new-- I've met hundreds of gamers who play violent video games (God of War series for the win) and have no violent tendencies.
Welcome to the world of Common Sense.

Population: Sadly, not a whole freaking lot.

Here's to hoping anti-gaming fools will get their heads out of their nether regions and realize that not all gamers are crazed psychopaths out for blood.

Really, you can also blame ignorant parents for buying their children violent videogames at the ripe age of 11-15.

Seriously.
i like this website it helps me out on this paper i am writing
Links...

How much does it cost links on your blog (Blogroll)?...
Of course after 20 minutes they won't be affected. If you want accurate stats from a study like this it has to be a longer period of time like 20 minutes a day for a month or even more. Idiots.

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