How about another approach? The psychology looks at the behavior of individuals. Let’s get big-picture. If a poisonous media environment to which games contribute is really the driving force behind gun violence, then it would be reasonable to assume populations that play more games would be more violent. Sure would be nice to have some numbers about that. Oh, there [...]

But here’s where I extend the most possible benefit of the doubt to Anderson and Bushman. I think it would go too far to say that violent games or media have zero short-term psychological effect. In fact, a form of Anderson and Bushman’s hypothesis makes some sense to me, anecdotally. I’ve totally watched Starship Troopers on TV and been put in the [...]

Getting back to Ferguson’s results, he concludes that players of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault were not significantly more aggressive in the CRT than players of Myst III, but there were other factors that did seem to matter. Interestingly, this experiment included a group that was given the open to choose they game they would play, offering insight into how [...]

Even before I get to the professional criticism of Anderson and Bushman’s work, I can find some holes in the conclusions on my own. Bushman cites a joint statement made by the American Academy for Pediatrics, leaving out what looks to me to be a very important part: “We in no way mean to imply that entertainment violence is the [...]

Last week, we explored Anderson’s first experiment; this week, we delve deeper into the experiments conducted to answer that age-old question: do video games cause violence? The second experiment in the study used Competitive Reaction Time, a technique that is frequently employed to measure hostility and aggression for psychology studies. Subjects again played video games and were then put into [...]

  Last week, we took a look at some examples that Anderson gave on video games’ adverse effects on children. This week, we’ll look at an experiment conducted by Anderson himself. The experimental results in Anderson and Bushman’s studies are legitimately interesting. Much of the work revolves around measurements of aggression. The idea is to sit subjects down in front [...]

Last week, we took a closer look at the debate. Today, we’d like to discuss Dr. Anderson’s research and cases of violence and video games. I’m not a psychologist, but I am qualified to note academically suspicious habits of Anderson that I don’t seem to find with Ferguson (or, to be fair, with Bushman). In that CNN interview, he neglects [...]

Last week, we started our series on the controversy between violence and video games. Today, we’d like to frame out the debate and provide further insight to what is going on. There’s a phenomenon going on here with gun violence, and everyone’s got an opinion about how to address it. LaPierre, Lieberman, and Rockefeller have their explanation: violent video games [...]

NRA Execute Vice President Wayne LaPierre has a problem on his hands right now. You see, the right-to-bear-arms crowd’s PR department is on the NRA’s heels. Despite incomplete data for overall gun homicide and non-fatal assault in the last two years (the most recent CDC numbers are from 2010, but here’s a handy fact sheet from FactCheck.org), 2012 was an [...]