The research attempts to examine whether playing violent video games results to corresponding aggressive behavior on children. While the number of American children playing video games has significantly increased, research show that there is need for concern since majority of video games played are violent. The hypothesis of the study is that participants who played the violent video games later developed more aggressive behavior than participants who did not play violent games. However, results from previous could not help determine whether this would produce similar effect for women and men. To produce valid results, the researchers recruited female and male college students who were not regular game players to analyze this phenomenon.
The study employed 43 undergraduate students, which included 22 men and 21 women aged between 18-23 years. The researchers contacted participants by phone inquiring about their video game playing habit, such a frequency of playing video games and the type of games they played. The study focused on participants who already played video games, but avoided habitual players of video games. The study found that the effects of playing violent video games on males were greater than for females. In addition, the study found that men who played violent games set higher noise levels than did men who played non-violent games. The study concluded that males are more likely to use more direct forms of aggression, while females are more likely to use indirect forms of aggression. In addition, the researchers attribute the differences in aggressive styles of females and males to the influence of sex roles in determination of the appropriate aggressive response. In conclusion, males who play violent video games are more aggressive than their female counterparts playing the similar game.
Evaluation of the Study
There are valid theoretical reasons to support the notion that violent video games lead to aggressive behaviors in children who play such games. The results from the study confirmed the hypothesis that playing violent video games resulted into more aggression than playing nonviolent game. Previous studies on the effects of violent video games have focused only on children as participants. This study however focuses on the effects of playing violent video games I adolescents and adults. Much of research have not focused on this age group, while a focus on this population would produce more conclusive results as the subjects can be studied easily. The participants included male and female students who were not habitual gamers as this could help in achieving the required research result.
The study method used by the researcher is relatively quick, cheap and easy to conduct. The participants were university students that were easily accessible through phone call to collect preliminary information on the participants. The phone call enabled the researcher to find participants who had previously played the games used in the experiment while avoiding habitual video game players. Materials used in the experiment included video games and computers which were readily available. Data on all variables in the study were only collected once, which saves time as well as ensuring accuracy in collection of results. The study used mixed-gender sample of adolescents and young adults, while avoiding habitual gamers, and selecting popular and realistic violent video game.
Conversely, the study had its shortcomings. First, the researcher selected a relatively small, a fact that could have limited the generalization of the results. A relatively small sample size reduces the power of the study and increases the margin error, which may render a study worthless. Second, the duration of the video game could have affected the results. The participants only played the videos for ten minutes, which may not have been long enough to produce the required effect on women. Increasing the time to 30 minutes could have provided enough time for the participants adapt to the game environment. Allowing only 10 minutes playing the video game was not enough for the participants to acclimatize with the experiment environment. Last, the confederate during the experiment was a female, a fact that could have impacted the aggression of males and females differently. According to the article, previous studies have suggested that people are conditioned to behave aggressively toward same-sex targets as compared to opposite-sex target.
New Study Design
The study was limited due to small sample group selected for the study. While the results from the experiment were significant, it is important to note that merely 2 percent of the student population participated in the study. A good study design would require including a larger number of students in the study, for instance 100 students. The participants should also complete consent forms before starting the experiment. Additionally, limitation could have occurred because of the limited range of participants in the study. The study could have included participants from different age groups, from children to adult, instead of including adolescents and young adults. According to Hollingdale " Greitemeyer (2013), large sample sizes are helpful since they provide more data for researchers to analyze, however, large samples require more financial and time commitments. For this study, I would select 50 males and 50 females to ensure equality in the selected sample population. The sample will be drawn from college students, lecturers and high school students.
The participants in the study only played the game for 10 minutes, which was relatively short duration for the violent game to have desired effect on females. A new study will allow the subjects to play the game for thirty minutes as this would allow for adequate interaction and possible effect on the subject. The video games were either played online or offline. In the offline condition, the participants could play against the computer characters, in regard to narrative of the video game. In the online condition, participants played against human opponents that they selected via the internet. The participants were requested to be patient as the computer selected the human opponent during online sessions. The participants in the study had played video games before and they included both habitual gamers and those who did not play computer games regularly.
Instead of using a confederate, this study would use computer opponent or human opponent. In this study, participants will play against the computer during offline session and play against human opponent during online sessions. This will help eliminate the impact that the female confederate had on the previous research. Playing against the computer or human opponents chosen randomly would make the participants more comfortable with the gaming environment. This study did not place emphasis on the gender of the target since the participants choose their opponents randomly online.
Using large population helps in arriving at more reliable results that can be analyzed to arrive at reliable study results. However, working with a large population is expensive and requires more time to complete a study. In addition, holding the participants to play the video game for longer hours may affect the results since some may feel bored and stop playing the video game. However, spending much time playing video game will ensure that the violent video game produce large effect on the subject (Ferguson " Rueda, 2010). With the growing popularity of video gaming, playing against human opponents has been found to heighten the experience of playing violent video games (Greitemeyer, 2014). The same study also found that online violent video games lead to more aggressive behavior than offline video games. Consequently, study on the effects of violent video games on aggression should use online video games as it enhances the experience of the subjects with the games.
References
Bartholow, B.D. " Anderson, C.A. (2002). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behaviour: potential sex differences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 283-290.
Ferguson, C. J. " Rueda, S. M. (2010). The Hitman study: Violent video game exposure effects on aggressive behavior, hostile feelings and depression. European Psychologist 15,99–108.
Greitemeyer, T. (2014). Intense acts of violence during video game play make daily life aggression appear innocuous: A new mechanism why violent video games increase aggression. Journal Of Experimental Social Psychology, 50, 52-56. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2013.09.004
Hollingdale J, " Greitemeyer, T. (2013). The changing face of aggression: The effect of personalized avatars in a violent video game on levels of aggressive behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 43, 1862–1868.
