Videogames and Violence

So I'm sure most of you have heard that the NRA has publicly blamed multiple forms of entertainment for the increase in school/public shootings over the years. I find this assertion interesting given that a vast amount of research has already been conducted into this, most of which largely discredits the claim. Regardless, I felt the topic was appropriate for a research study I have to conduct and was wondering if you guys wouldn't mind helping me out. In order for the results to mean anything though, you'll have to be honest.

http://edu.surveygizmo.com/s3/1121157/Videogames-and-Violence

EDIT: If you live in a country where M for Mature is not a rating designation, please use your best judgement in determining your country's equivalent rating. Essentially, Mature-rated games are reserved for those 18 or older and contain violence, blood, drug use, sexual themes etc.

Now aside from the survey, I wanted this thread to include a bit from you all on what you expect the results to show. In all honesty, do you think videogames can, not necessarily do, increase an individual's risk for violent behavior? As a videogame player, do you experience what you believe to be more violent thoughts throughout the day? Do you find yourself less sensitive to violence than your non-gamer peers? Basically things like that...we've all gone over this before and made it clear that we think blaming games for events like the Connecticut shooting is nonsense, and I agree, but it's an interesting topic to discuss nonetheless, especially as games continue to evolve in their realism. We KNOW witnessing real violence firsthand increases a person's predisposition to violent behavior, so is it possible for media like games and movies to eventually approach that realism to such an extent that the same phenomenon is observed? I expect the results of my study to show gamers are not at a significantly higher level of risk than non-gamers, as I'm sure most of you do, but what do you guys think?

Glad to help out.
 
Interesting what you said about witnessing real violence firsthand. I didn't know that was a confirmed fact.
 
Violence in games. Violence in movies. Violence in comics. I think as long as your perception of fantasy vs reality is intact, these are relatively harmless.

I wrote this in another similar thread but i think it echos my opinion pretty well on the topic... aka why you should stop talking about it:

The human nervous system consists of about 70 billions ( do note, it's just an approximation ), the number of possible synapses ( nervous impulse traveling from axons to dendrites/neurons body or from a neurons body directly to a dendrite/neuron body ) in an average human nervous system is about 500 trillions up to 2 quadrillion ( again, a matter that's up for debate as far as i know, but everyone will give you a number somewhere in between ).

Did i also say that we have millions of synapses happens daily in our brain... and each possible synapse will change us just a little bit.

Mind you, not each synapse can be 1 out of 1 quadrillion, because after a certain synapse happen you will only have a few billion combinations left and some synapses might almost never happen. Still you are left with a number of possibilities of "minds" so high that i cannot write a high enough power of 10 to show it to you.

And up until we can at least have a half-assed theory ( which we don't ) about how ALL of the brain works ( at the moment there are areas of the brain, whole damn areas, which we don't even surely know the purpose of ) nothing, and I do mean nothing, that anyone says about "comportment" changes due to " i don't give a fuck what" has ANY considerable scientific backing at all.

This studies are done by psychologist via tests and polls that could or could not be faked and could or could not be wrong.

So really "facts" about this don't exist. You can say " Games help relief stress, the encourage brain activity and they help kids learn" or you can say " Game encourage lack of empathy, laziness and make kids prefer to slip into their own reality and not consider the one we live in", both point are equally FUCKING VALID because there is no scientific backing for any of them.

You can take a liberal standpoint and say video games should be allowed because they are indeed a "from of expressing something" and in the end nothing more than lines upon lines of cod... much like a book.

You can take a conservative standpoint and say we were better of with them and not let you kids play them/discourage people from doing so.

You can take a conservative-socialist standpoint and say they should be banned because society was fine without them and they are bringing us down.

Or you can take a democratic stand point and say that if the majority agrees with them being "ok" up to certain limits or indeed up to no limits than the minority should accept what the majority says.

IN THE END NON IS 100% RIGHT AND NON IS 100% WRONG.

@Aterons: First of all, I'll say that I am a research psychology student so that should explain my stance well. You're stance is an interesting one, but I think you misunderstand the scope of science. Science is empirical, and psychology is included in that. The "surveys" you mentioned, are constructs created with the intent of measuring any trait, quality, characteristic, tendency, etc. When created, we are sure to measure every form of validity and reliability applicable, meaning that if high enough results are achieved, these constructs do demonstrate what they intend do, and are not subject to the flaws you described. It is up to the researcher to guarantee this, and demonstrate it, just as a lab researcher would have to demonstrate such things in his/her findings.

You mention facts not existing in this realm and how that is a bad thing. Well "facts" as obtained by the results of a study, are never the goal of scientific research. We aim to create theories, and then we aim to prove them wrong. Until we are able to prove a theory wrong, we only give it support and strength. We never claim the results of a study to be "factual" in nature.

This study, for instance, is correlational. I will find if there is a significant correlation between risk of violence and interaction with violent videogames, but that is not to say one causes the other. This is the whole, correlation does not imply causation saying. It seems you take issue with any attempt to explain the brain, and that is not what all psychology does. Behavioral psychology, for instance, seeks to explain human behavior. Sure, this originates in the brain, I completely agree, but that origin is not always a relavant factor. I don't need to tell you how a CPU works to tell you that my computer has a virus. There is actually quite a bit of science regarding this debate, and it seems you've ignored or dismissed most of it. Psychology is one of the most disciplined sciences in regards to empirical study, and I would urge you to do a bit more research into the topic before dismissing the science completely. I have two degrees, one in human biology and the other a B.S. in psychology, and I can assure you that the requirements for research in either field are virtually identical. You don't need a degree in neuroscience to make observations of how a liver functions. Sure, complete understanding of the brain is necessary for a complete description of liver function, but we are not going for a complete description right now, because that information is not available yet. The mind is not the brain, it is a product of part of the brain. Behavior is a product of biology and environment, and, my friend, you're ignoring the environmental aspect completely.

@SpartyOn: To me the tendency, after tragedies tragedies like Sandy Hook, for people to suddenly seek to examine the relationship between pop culture and a propensity to violence shows that psychology is less empirically disciplined than you claim. Where instead are the studies examining the correlation between violent tragedy and the desire to isolate an environmental variable which provokes them, as if it's a magic bullet that can be used to remove a risk which has existed since the dawn of civilisation? To me, it should be self-evident that the latter kind of research is much more likely to approach any kind of proof about human psychology, rather than questions like 'Do you think videogames can make you violent?' The fact that it's always the latter kind of question that gets asked at times like this suggests to me that your field is systemically biased, due to the emotionally charged atmosphere that these shootings create.

Of course videogames can provoke an at-risk individual to violence. So can a book, or a conversation, or an unfortunately placed dog turd. What practical application can these kind of woolly questions possibly have?

@Laivasse: Most of us aren't looking to blame something, we're looking to stop people from doing exactly what you're blaming psychology for. For example, if the NRA seeks to blame one form of media for a specific type of behavior, psychology allows us to demonstrate that that claim is false. Psychology is, in fact, very "empirically disciplined" whereas most media and political figureheads are not. Science has shown that evolution is most likely true, yet religious groups the world over attempt to discredit the theory. In that situation you blame the religious groups for ignoring scientific evidence, so why don't you say the same for politicians or the media for ignoring psychological evidence? Unfortunately it isn't my field that is systematically biased, it is the people who ignore the its findings. The frustrating aspect for psychologists is posts like yours here (no offense of course). You blame psychology for asking the question, yet we only ask it in response to unverified claims from the media or people of authority. Again an example, someone says B IS RESPONSIBLE FOR A!!!!, psychologists ask whether or not this is true. In times that are, as you say, charged emotionally, psychologists seek to reduce claims to questions, to find the most likely truth. We force claims into the realm of science, and if those results are ignored, that isn't our fault, now is it?

@SpartyOn: The problem I have with what you're saying is that I agree with Aterons, in the sense that our understanding of the brain is still too primitive to come up with a comprehensive model of how one environmental factor, amid the countless factors we encounter, can affect human behaviour. I don't agree with your earlier statement about the mind being a 'product' of the brain any more than the renal system is a product of the kidneys - point being, you still need to have essentially reverse-engineered the organ in question to be able to reach empirical conclusions about it. As such, at our current level of understanding, you can no more conclusively disprove that video games are a factor any more than you prove that they are.

I know conclusive proof is not necessarily what you're seeking, and simply gathering info is valuable (so likewise, no offence). However, the questions you appear to be asking in this thread are the kind which are likely to produce weak data in a time of strong emotions, and IMO that is always politically risky. Furthermore you don't speak for all psychologists or all scientists. There are those who, even unconsciously, place career advancement at a higher importance than producing conclusions of veracity - either that or you might be clashign with others in your field whose moral convictions predispose them towards conclusions of a certain kind. The conclusion 'we didn't find anything' is a far less sexy claim to bring to the attention of policy-makers than 'actually we think we discovered this thing, you should DEFINITELY listen to us'. So I absolutely question the worth of encouraging this discourse.

Unfortunately I have to rush out now, excuse any typos.

@BombKareshi said:

Glad to help out. Interesting what you said about witnessing real violence firsthand. I didn't know that was a confirmed fact. Violence in games. Violence in movies. Violence in comics. I think as long as your perception of fantasy vs reality is intact, these are relatively harmless.

Yeah, this is the thing. I think this should really be the case for grown adults. For kids, parents either need to teach their kids the difference between real life and fantasy or just not allow them to have access to violence in games, movies, etc. Nobody really talked about it before the Connecticut school shooting at work but people were talking about violent video games. Most people think of me as one of, if not the nicest guys at the store. I've actually had some people joking with me telling me to stop smiling because I smile too much. Then that conversation came up and quite a few people know I like my video games. I brought up some of the gruesome games I've played and some of the awesome ways I've killed people in games and they were shocked to hear it coming from me. Then after their initial shock of how violent the video games I've played are, I asked them if for even a second, if any of them could possibly see me shooting anybody. It definitely did click for a few people that violence in video games isn't to blame when I made that point, but some people are really stubborn.

Thing is people who are going to run go on shooting sprees don't do it because they saw it in a movie or in a game, they do it because they're mentally unstable or for hatred. People like to place blame on video games or movies because they have no interest in those forms of entertainment. It goes way back in history that humans like to try to mold others to be like themselves. There are plenty of examples, such as religion, but I won't get involved there because I don't want to get involved in a flame war. It's tough to blame parents in all cases because it might be a mental illness but I think parents need to take it upon themselves to address those needs when they arise too.

@SpartyOn said:

@Aterons: First of all, I'll say that I am a research psychology student so that should explain my stance well. You're stance is an interesting one, but I think you misunderstand the scope of science. Science is empirical, and psychology is included in that. The "surveys" you mentioned, are constructs created with the intent of measuring any trait, quality, characteristic, tendency, etc. When created, we are sure to measure every form of validity and reliability applicable, meaning that if high enough results are achieved, these constructs do demonstrate what they intend do, and are not subject to the flaws you described. It is up to the researcher to guarantee this, and demonstrate it, just as a lab researcher would have to demonstrate such things in his/her findings.

You mention facts not existing in this realm and how that is a bad thing. Well "facts" as obtained by the results of a study, are never the goal of scientific research. We aim to create theories, and then we aim to prove them wrong. Until we are able to prove a theory wrong, we only give it support and strength. We never claim the results of a study to be "factual" in nature.

This study, for instance, is correlational. I will find if there is a significant correlation between risk of violence and interaction with violent videogames, but that is not to say one causes the other. This is the whole, correlation does not imply causation saying. It seems you take issue with any attempt to explain the brain, and that is not what all psychology does. Behavioral psychology, for instance, seeks to explain human behavior. Sure, this originates in the brain, I completely agree, but that origin is not always a relavant factor. I don't need to tell you how a CPU works to tell you that my computer has a virus. There is actually quite a bit of science regarding this debate, and it seems you've ignored or dismissed most of it. Psychology is one of the most disciplined sciences in regards to empirical study, and I would urge you to do a bit more research into the topic before dismissing the science completely. I have two degrees, one in human biology and the other a B.S. in psychology, and I can assure you that the requirements for research in either field are virtually identical. You don't need a degree in neuroscience to make observations of how a liver functions. Sure, complete understanding of the brain is necessary for a complete description of liver function, but we are not going for a complete description right now, because that information is not available yet. The mind is not the brain, it is a product of part of the brain. Behavior is a product of biology and environment, and, my friend, you're ignoring the environmental aspect completely.

You say science is empirical, but i don't really know what "science" you are referring to.'

The quantum physics model is empirical, because it's not absolute... it's not a theory that explain everything but rather a model that derived from observation of the world and observation of other ( also empirical in nature ) models, however it has a theory behind it that is 100% proven within the boundaries this model has. ( aka: It explains the interaction of matter on earth and in space, it explains the concept of radiation, it explains the concept of matter, it explains the concept of particle, it has empirical factor to it such as : gravity which is not explained by this model, it's only "accepted" as something that exist and the model is tailored around the existence of gravity, not as a "field" or a "radiation" which are explained by the model but as a constant thing when talking about interaction between any 2 corpses that have a mass).

To say psychology was empirical in the same way physics or chemistry is you would have to look at a situation like the following:

-every healthily developed baby will cries within a few seconds of birth, because out of the babies that don't cry 100% ( with a margin of error that is irrelevant ) will die within the first few months

-thus we conclude that a person who doesn't cry within the first few seconds of birth has not developed healthily

This is empirical science because we didn't saw any case of a baby that cried and didn't die within the first few months, much like we saw that all objects "accept" the law of gravity.

That makes it a SCIENTIFIC FACT within the boundaries, if it's only applied to human babies born on Earth.

Than if you tailor a theory around this, and everything in that theory is actually backed up theoretically and the only "empirical" thing that you have in your theory is this 100% proven fact that babies cry ( or maybe you have more empirical facts, the only requirement is that they be proven trough intense study and repeat 100% ).

But psychology ( as of 2000 at least, 20 years from 2day who knows ) doesn't have any real fucking theory, it's based only on correlation means causation and it's theory it's based purely on empirical evidence, rather than having an empirical foundation of 100% accuracy and than building upon that with certain facts it simply build a theory based on observations that are not even close to 100% in truth.

It's silly to say psychology is a science, it's borderline to say biology is a science compared to how accurate physics and chemistry 2day are and biology doesn't go into the correlation causes causation trap 99% of the time.

Just look at your damn survey, it's done on a gaming site, do you take that in account ? Do you take in account that generally the people frequenting a gaming site might represent only a certain part of the video game community, even more so... that people visiting this site are different from people visiting IGN or TL or gamespot ? Do you do a survey on each site proportional to the user-base ? and do you do a survey on people who don't frequent game site ? Even more so, does your survey include the fact that a lot of people answering aren't from the USA ? There are so many variables, each maybe influences the result by 5-10% only, combine them and whatever you have in this study is worth nothing more than " The average frequency of fights and verbal abuse of 100 random guys i found on 5 random forums that play M rated video games for X number of hours a week".

@Aterons: Yes, I actually take that into account. I have separate data sets for each gaming website I visited, as well as religious websites, public schools, universities, NRA websites, etc, meaning the data is complied with all of that in mind. You quote physics and chemistry as if you understand them, but your knowledge of science is concerning. These constructs, or surveys, that you have insulted twice now, are created with all of your criticisms in mind. The mathematical analysis I will conduct on my data will demonstrate this, so I appreciate your criticisms, however incorrect they may be. I am a graduate student my friend, not a high school student. They are shown to be reliable and valid through deep statistical analysis. Your argument is basically, "that doesn't sound right to me" or "I don't agree", and quite frankly, you're opinions are about as worthless to science as anything can be. Psychologists work hard to make results reliable and valid, and assuming they don't in order to criticize the studies makes you sound very uneducated on the subject. For psychology, a standard error is less than 5% for small studies, and less than 1% for large studies. This means that less than 1% (or 5%) of the results shown can be attributed to random chance or extraneous factors. If you discredit a properly done psychology study, then you must discredit the physics and chemistry you quote because they use the same mathematics.

I'm afraid all of your arguments so far, have been completely unfounded in any reasonable or valid form of logic. You're comparing one field of science to another, and basing your quality of each field on that comparison? Really? Physics, for as accurate and astounding as it is, fails to account for what gravity really is, which is one of it's 4 fundamental laws.....so let's take that into consideration when referring to you're belief that psychology is useless unless we understand the brain completely. I'm afraid it's difficult to impossible to have a reasonable discussion regarding the merits of science with someone who fails to grasp what science truly is, such as yourself. Even your baby crying theory is incorrect. Scientific "fact" is not derived from correlational studies, which the fake study you created would qualify as. Scientific fact is based on experiment and observation....or empirical study. Psychology is no different.

Now I apologize for using Wikipedia here, but it isn't to show fact, just support a claim...Here are some popular psychological theories used today. I don't mean to be offensive here (which is a courtesy considering the fact that you're posts are agressive, condescending, and full of unnecessary cuss words...) but you're arguments are based off of the following assumptions:

1. Psychology is prone to error it can't get around---->false, psychology uses statistical analysis and experimental control, following the same scientific method as physics and chemistry, to promote valid and reliable research.

2. Psychology is useless because we don't fully understand the brain yet--->false, the studies conducted have garnered support for a reason....they are empirical and show reliability between tests and experiments. We don't need a full understanding of the brain's physiology to understand how the mind manifests. Psychology has even led to increased understanding of physical ailments, which is why psych consultations are standard practice in cases of brain damage....this means neurologists request the opinions of a psychologist.

3. Physics and Chemistry know more, don't make mistakes, and have everything answered (I think this is insane and obviously so, but it is the only way to interpret what you're saying) so because psychology doesn't, it sucks---> Again, apologies for wikipedia, here is a list of a few of the unsolved problems in physics. No science is perfect, and they perfect themselves over time. Physics once believed the Earth to be flat and the center of the universe. It once thought electricity flowed like a fluid. It once thought the Universe was eternal. Physics was, and continues to be, one of the most corrected and rewritten fields of science. Insulting another field because it is currently in its infancy is lunacy, and completely against the principles on which science was founded.

I could list more, but I'm actually pretty busy today, so i'll just conclude: you're wrong. I am not one to call opinions wrong, but we're talking about science so I'm afforded the luxury. Science has 4 major branches, and psychology falls under the "social science" branch. Clearly, you have a disdain for that branch, which is unfortunate, as science is a cumulative study, meaning you'll never be a complete scientist (you'll also have to correct you're language, spelling errors, logical fallacies, assumptions, etc.).

@Laivasse: You're making the same mistakes he is, and assuming everything is causality. The brain controls every aspect of the human body, so don't take any medication until we understand the brain completely. Don't go in for surgery either. You know, just stop seeing your doctor, because he, according to you, can't know what he's talking about. The mind is a product of the brain, that isn't a claim, question, or assumption, so I'm not sure how you could claim that isn't true. Not every brain gives birth to a mind, but there is no mind without a brain to give birth to it (I use that language because one day that "brain" could be mechanical or virtual.) The thing is, we can show things like games to be a factor in violence. We have studies, constructs and procedures that allow us to do just that. By dismissing that, you're dismissing statistics, the scientific method, other forms of mathematics, observational study, experimentation, etc. You're picking and choosing what you like or don't based on some gut feeling or assumption, and that isn't something that any scientist, psychologist or otherwise, should respond to, because it's worthless to science (again no offense), because you're "feelings" don't matter to science.

Finally to your last point, there is corruption in all forms of science, as well as every other field, and I cannot tolerate an attack on one field of science because it is subject to the same failures as every other field. Do you discredit chemistry, physics, biology, zoology, etc. because of the same concerns? I doubt it. I enjoy lively debate, but this is difficult to participate in. Science seeks to answer questions and provide explanations for phenomena. It is broken into fields so that each question can be categorized and researched appropriately. Studying behavior and cognition is reserved for psychology, so why is there an issue with you two, with psychology seeking to answer and explain behavioral and cognitive phenomena? I would strongly urge both of you go read any legitimate source regarding some psychology research and then return before responding, because you two do not have very much information on the field you're critiquing.

Until then, Happy Holidays and it was a pleasure debating with the two of you!

@SpartyOn said:

@Aterons: Yes, I actually take that into account. I have separate data sets for each gaming website I visited, as well as religious websites, public schools, universities, NRA websites, etc, meaning the data is complied with all of that in mind. You quote physics and chemistry as if you understand them, but your knowledge of science is concerning. These constructs, or surveys, that you have insulted twice now, are created with all of your criticisms in mind. The mathematical analysis I will conduct on my data will demonstrate this, so I appreciate your criticisms, however incorrect they may be. I am a graduate student my friend, not a high school student. They are shown to be reliable and valid through deep statistical analysis. Your argument is basically, "that doesn't sound right to me" or "I don't agree", and quite frankly, you're opinions are about as worthless to science as anything can be. Psychologists work hard to make results reliable and valid, and assuming they don't in order to criticize the studies makes you sound very uneducated on the subject. For psychology, a standard error is less than 5% for small studies, and less than 1% for large studies. This means that less than 1% (or 5%) of the results shown can be attributed to random chance or extraneous factors. If you discredit a properly done psychology study, then you must discredit the physics and chemistry you quote because they use the same mathematics.

So what are the filters you use than ? Do you have a magic box that has the answer of how many people lie on each website you visit ? Do you have a magic box that accounts for the survey being answer by people of certain mentalities because not everyone will bother reading/completing it ( even if it take about 2-6 minutes like yours dose ) ?

You come here telling me that psychology studies have a 1 to 5% error margin, you don't come here telling me how that error margin was measured. You bring random facts in the discussion such as "neurologist and other type of doctor will in some cases direct the patient to a psychologists", does that justify psychology as being more "true" ? If i remember well the same doctor prescribed about 10% of the kids they consulted in 2008 to take speed due to "ADHD".

I can appreciate you passive aggressive speech and I understand that i come here calling the subject you dedicated 4 years of your life ( at least ) to as being fundamentally flawed in many cases thus being very aggressive myself to someone like you. But as long as you can't provide a proof that the filters you use actually yield results that actually only have a 1-5% error than you haven't done much more than simply said "What you are saying isn't true", which is enough if you consider the fact that you are better informed than me in this field of study but also not enough for me if i consider the fact that a psychologist might be as bias toward psychology as a priest and his religion... and i believe psychology itself backs me up when i say that you are likely to be bias toward something if you spent a lot of time believing that something and learning the same point as you are preaching about something ( in your case the validity of a study done in a similar manner to this one ).

Non the less, if you are busy i do not require an answer, for as you said it yourself I am not an expert in nether physics or chemistry as much as I am not in neurology or psychology, I do not even master English at a high enough level to have a conversation with you. So as far as i am concerned, good luck with your study even tho i disagree with it.

@SpartyOn: What's bizarre to me is that you're using the language of empiricism and rationality to rail against what we've pointed out as the flaws in your approach, yet making further unscientific assertions along the way. My position is not the one clouded by feelings; inasmuch as feelings come into it at all, I'm only emotional about the fact that your method lacks any rigour. Ironically, your study would likely not even have begun in this direction if not for the strong feelings that you and everyone else has felt in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting. As I've said, a far more interesting question to ask, psychologically speaking, is why you're asking these questions, at this point in time.

You assert that it's simply a FACT that 'a brain produces a mind, although some don't' yet give no scientific definition for what a 'mind' is, or what the threshold of complexity is for a brain that produces a mind, or when a mind stops being a mind, or whether non-human brains produce minds, or all the terms that need to be defined when you lapse into intangibles concerning the nature of consciousness. At best you can produce a definition of a 'mind' which might work for an interesting philosophical discussion, but which still wouldn't be science of the kind you're claiming it to be. You've done this so that you can justify researching the brain's 'product' without requiring an empirical understanding of the brain itself, which is why your comparison to general medicine is invalid because this doesn't occur with other organs of the body. A better comparison than the one you drew, to medicine, would be the fact that I certainly NEVER would submit to brain surgery that was intended to alter my behaviour, for obvious reasons. Other than lobotomy and ECT, with their justified reputation, I'm not sure such a thing exists.

I'm not saying I believe Psychology to be valueless. It can describe some correlative and causative factors in human behaviours, but it certainly isn't empirical in the way you depict it. And even for it to be useful in the manner I believe it can be, the research needs to be rigorous in a way that questions like 'Do you think videogames cause violence?' can't possibly be. Perhaps with questions much more insightful than the ones you've presented here, you could describe a probabilistic spread of behaviours related to some form of interaction with video games, which would still be kind of a systemically questionable, emotionally parasitic study riding on the back of the school massacre. As it is, I think you're just participating in the cloud of sensationalism surrounding this event and inadvertently legitimising a baseless fear-reaction, even as you think you're dispelling it.

Also, it wasn't directed at me but I can't resist...

you'll never be a complete scientist (you'll also have to correct you're language, spelling errors...)

Come come, professor SpartyOn, this simply won't do *puffs pipe disapprovingly*

Merry Christmas, though.