Are the video games your friends play affecting you?
The large majority of research on violent video games focuses on the impacts of the user -- the individual who is actually playing the game. Does playing violent video games make you more aggressive? Does doing so make you more likely to commit violent crimes? What's the connection? The long-standing debate over whether violent video game exposure can lead to violence in the real-world rages onward as some scientific research shows clear links between the two forms of violence and other research demonstrates weak, inconsistent, or nonexistent links.
Are violent video games good, bad, or irrelevant?
Today's Article
Greitemeyer, T. (2018). The spreading impact of playing violent video games on aggression. Computers in Human Behavior, 80, 216-219.
The Bottom Line:
Playing violent video games is:
The Methods:
998 individuals, half of whom were female and half of whom were male, answered questions about how often they played violent video games where the goal of the game was to harm other characters in the game. These participants also reported how often five close friends played violent video games, how often they engaged in aggressive behaviors (like hitting someone or saying harsh words behind someone's back), and how often their friends behaved aggressively.
The Harmful:
This research suggests that aggressive behavior stemming from violent video game exposure may have a ripple effect on the social networks (e.g. friends) of those playing these games.
The Harmless:
The results do not support the idea that playing violent video games is harmless.
The Controversial:
This study is not longitudinal. Thus, as a single study, it does not prove that violent video game exposure causes aggressive behavior in the person playing the game. It only proves that those who play violent video games are also more aggressive. Another possible explanation for the results would be that those who play violent video games are already predisposed to more aggressive behavior than those who do not play these games.
Some might argue that the participants in this study might naturally report that their friends' behaviors were similar to theirs and that the ripple effect of aggressive behavior into the social network is simply a result of the survey participants being biased in their responses. In statistical analyses, however, the author accounted for this possibility and found that the results remained consistent in spite of self reporting bias. Therefore, it is more likely than not that the author's conclusions are correct and that aggressive tendencies ripple outward into the social/friends network of the individual who plays and is exposed to violent video games.
About this Series:
In this series, we examine one piece of research at a time in an attempt to understand which way the pendulum is truly swinging -- toward the harmless or the harmful with regard to the impact of violent video game exposure on individuals who choose to play such games on a regular basis.
About the Author:
Denise Wilson is managing director for Coming Alongside Environmental Services and also serves as a faculty member in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington.
Are violent video games good, bad, or irrelevant?
Today's article focuses not so much on the individual who is actually playing violent video games but on the friends (and social network) of that individual. Do friends suffer consequences of their friends' choices to play violent video games?
Let's Take a Look....
Today's Article
The Bottom Line:
Playing violent video games is:
The Greitemeyer (2018) research study proves that:
Those who play violent video games report acting aggressively more frequently than those who do not play these games. Further, those who play violent video games report that their friends also act more aggressively, whether or not those friends play violent video games. This suggests that aggressive behavior that is linked to violent video game exposure affects not only the person playing the game but also his or her friends.
The Methods:
998 individuals, half of whom were female and half of whom were male, answered questions about how often they played violent video games where the goal of the game was to harm other characters in the game. These participants also reported how often five close friends played violent video games, how often they engaged in aggressive behaviors (like hitting someone or saying harsh words behind someone's back), and how often their friends behaved aggressively.
The Harmful:
This research suggests that aggressive behavior stemming from violent video game exposure may have a ripple effect on the social networks (e.g. friends) of those playing these games.
The Harmless:
The results do not support the idea that playing violent video games is harmless.
The Controversial:
This study is not longitudinal. Thus, as a single study, it does not prove that violent video game exposure causes aggressive behavior in the person playing the game. It only proves that those who play violent video games are also more aggressive. Another possible explanation for the results would be that those who play violent video games are already predisposed to more aggressive behavior than those who do not play these games.
Some might argue that the participants in this study might naturally report that their friends' behaviors were similar to theirs and that the ripple effect of aggressive behavior into the social network is simply a result of the survey participants being biased in their responses. In statistical analyses, however, the author accounted for this possibility and found that the results remained consistent in spite of self reporting bias. Therefore, it is more likely than not that the author's conclusions are correct and that aggressive tendencies ripple outward into the social/friends network of the individual who plays and is exposed to violent video games.
About this Series:
In this series, we examine one piece of research at a time in an attempt to understand which way the pendulum is truly swinging -- toward the harmless or the harmful with regard to the impact of violent video game exposure on individuals who choose to play such games on a regular basis.
About the Author:
Denise Wilson is managing director for Coming Alongside Environmental Services and also serves as a faculty member in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington.
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