Smackdown
Violent Video Games and Real-World Violence: Rhetoric Versus Data
Patrick Markey, Charlotte Markey & Juliana French
Psychology of Popular Media Culture, forthcoming
Abstract:
Laboratory and correlational studies often find a link between violent video games and minor or benign forms of aggressive behaviors (e.g., exposing an opponent to an unpleasant noise). Based on these studies, the media, lawmakers, and researchers often imply a link between violent video games and violent criminal behavior. Using a similar methodology employed by researchers to examine predictors of severe violent behaviors (Anderson et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73: 1213–1223, 1997), 4 time-series analyses investigated the associations among violent crime (homicides and aggravated assaults), video game sales, Internet keyword searches for violent video game guides, and the release dates of popular violent video games (both annually and monthly). Contrary to the claims that violent video games are linked to aggressive assaults and homicides, no evidence was found to suggest that this medium was positively related to real-world violence in the United States. Unexpectedly, many of the results were suggestive of a decrease in violent crime in response to violent video games. Possible explanations for these unforeseen findings are discussed and researchers are cautioned about generalizing the results from laboratory and correlational studies to severe forms of violent behavior.
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Daniel Fessler & Colin Holbrook
Biology Letters, August 2014
Abstract:
Paralleling behaviours in other species, synchronized movement is central to institutionalized collective human activities thought to enhance cooperation, and experiments demonstrate that synchrony has this effect. The influence of synchrony on cooperation may derive from an evolutionary history wherein such actions served to signal coalitional strength to both participants and observers — including adversaries. If so, then synchronous movement should diminish individuals' estimations of a foe's formidability. Envisioned physical size and strength constitute the dimensions of a representation that summarizes relative fighting capacity. Experiencing synchrony should therefore lead individuals to conceptualize an antagonist as smaller and weaker. We found that men who walked synchronously with a male confederate indeed envisioned a purported criminal as less physically formidable than did men who engaged in this task without synchronizing.
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Lisa Yarnell et al.
Journal of Youth and Adolescence, September 2014, Pages 1465-1485
Abstract:
A social multiplier effect is a social interaction in which the behavior of a person in a social network varies with the normative behavior of others in the network, also known as an endogenous interaction. Policies and intervention efforts can harness social multiplier effects because, in theory, interventions on a subset of individuals will have “spillover effects” on other individuals in the network. This study investigates potential social multiplier effects for violence in middle schools, and whether there is evidence for a social multiplier effect transmitted from girls to boys. Three years of longitudinal data (2003–2005) from Project Northland Chicago were used to investigate this question, with a sample consisting of youth in Grades 6 through 8 in 61 Chicago Public Schools (N = 4,233 at Grade 6, N = 3,771 at Grade 7, and N = 3,793 at Grade 8). The sample was 49.3 % female, and primarily African American (41.9 %) and Latino/a (28.7 %), with smaller proportions of whites (12.9 %), Asians (5.2 %) and other ethnicities. Results from two sets of regression models estimating the effects of 20th (low), 50th (average), and 80th (high) percentile scores for girls and boys on levels of violence in each gender group revealed evidence for social multiplier effects. Specifically, boys and girls were both influenced by social multiplier effects within their own gender group, and boys were also affected by normative violence scores among girls, typically those of the best-behaved (20th percentile) girls. The finding that girls may have positive social influence on boys’ levels of violent behavior extends prior findings of beneficial social effects of girls on boys in the domains of education and risky driving. Further, this social normative effect presents a potential opportunity to improve school-based intervention efforts for reducing violence among youth by leveraging girls as carriers of a social multiplier effect for reduced violence in the middle school environmental context, particularly among boys, who are at greater risk.
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Just "Harmless Entertainment"? Effects of Surveillance Reality TV on Physical Aggression
Bryan Gibson et al.
Psychology of Popular Media Culture, forthcoming
Abstract:
Reality TV programs are extremely popular, though little research has examined how they affect viewers. In particular, many reality TV programs contain acts of aggression, mainly verbal or relational forms of aggression. The current study evaluates how different content within reality TV affected viewer aggression. Participants watched a surveillance reality program containing verbal and relational aggression, a surveillance reality program containing supportive family interactions, or a violent crime drama. To see whether surveillance reality programs increase aggression by increasing narcissistic responding, half the participants received an ego threat. Aggression was measured using the intensity and duration of noise administered to an ostensible opponent on a competitive reaction time task. Surveillance reality viewers exposed to relational aggression were more aggressive than those watching either a supportive family surveillance reality program or a violent crime drama. Viewers of the violent crime drama were also more aggressive than those watching the family themed surveillance reality program. Ego threat did not moderate the increase in aggression seen in negative surveillance reality program viewers, suggesting that these programs did not increase narcissistic responding. This is one of the first studies to use an experimental method to document causal effects of reality TV viewing on viewers of these programs. Surveillance reality programs that include relational aggression are not simply “harmless entertainment” — they increase physical aggression.
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Reactions to Media Violence: It’s in the Brain of the Beholder
Nelly Alia-Klein et al.
PLoS ONE, September 2014
Abstract:
Media portraying violence is part of daily exposures. The extent to which violent media exposure impacts brain and behavior has been debated. Yet there is not enough experimental data to inform this debate. We hypothesize that reaction to violent media is critically dependent on personality/trait differences between viewers, where those with the propensity for physical assault will respond to the media differently than controls. The source of the variability, we further hypothesize, is reflected in autonomic response and brain functioning that differentiate those with aggression tendencies from others. To test this hypothesis we pre-selected a group of aggressive individuals and non-aggressive controls from the normal healthy population; we documented brain, blood-pressure, and behavioral responses during resting baseline and while the groups were watching media violence and emotional media that did not portray violence. Positron Emission Tomography was used with [18F]fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG) to image brain metabolic activity, a marker of brain function, during rest and during film viewing while blood-pressure and mood ratings were intermittently collected. Results pointed to robust resting baseline differences between groups. Aggressive individuals had lower relative glucose metabolism in the medial orbitofrontal cortex correlating with poor self-control and greater glucose metabolism in other regions of the default-mode network (DMN) where precuneus correlated with negative emotionality. These brain results were similar while watching the violent media, during which aggressive viewers reported being more Inspired and Determined and less Upset and Nervous, and also showed a progressive decline in systolic blood-pressure compared to controls. Furthermore, the blood-pressure and brain activation in orbitofrontal cortex and precuneus were differentially coupled between the groups. These results demonstrate that individual differences in trait aggression strongly couple with brain, behavioral, and autonomic reactivity to media violence which should factor into debates about the impact of media violence on the public.
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Men’s Physical Strength Moderates Conceptualizations of Prospective Foes in Two Disparate Societies
Daniel Fessler, Colin Holbrook & Matthew Gervais
Human Nature, September 2014, Pages 393-409
Abstract:
Across taxa, strength and size are elementary determinants of relative fighting capacity; in species with complex behavioral repertoires, numerous additional factors also contribute. When many factors must be considered simultaneously, decision-making in agonistic contexts can be facilitated through the use of a summary representation. Size and strength may constitute the dimensions used to form such a representation, such that tactical advantages or liabilities influence the conceptualized size and muscularity of an antagonist. If so, and given the continued importance of physical strength in human male-male conflicts, a man’s own strength will influence his conceptualization of the absolute size and strength of an opponent. In the research reported here, male participants’ chest compression strength was compared with their estimates of the size and muscularity of an unfamiliar potential antagonist, presented either as a supporter of a rival sports team (Study 1, conducted in urban California, and Study 2, conducted in rural Fiji) or as a man armed with a handgun (Study 3, conducted in rural Fiji). Consistent with predictions, composite measures of male participants’ estimates of the size/strength of a potential antagonist were inversely correlated with the participant’s own strength. Therefore, consonant with a history wherein violent intrasexual selection has acted on human males, a man’s own physical strength influences his representations of potential antagonists.
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Expertise in video game playing is associated with reduced valence-concordant emotional expressivity
André Weinreich, Tilo Strobach & Torsten Schubert
Psychophysiology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In carefully selected groups of video game playing (VGP) experts and nonexperts, we examined valence-concordant emotional expressivity. We measured electromyographic (EMG) activity over the corrugator supercilii muscle while participants viewed pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures. Potential group differences concerning valence-concordant expressivity may arise from differences concerning the participants' emotional reactivity. To control for such differences, we concomitantly measured skin conductance response (SCR) and, in a separate affect misattribution procedure (AMP), valence transfer from the same set of stimuli. Importantly, we found attenuated valence-concordant EMG activity over the corrugator supercilii muscle in VGP experts compared to nonexperts, but no differences were evident concerning SCR or valence transfer in the AMP. The findings suggest that expertise in VGP is particularly associated with reduced valence-concordant emotional expressivity.
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Patrícia Arriaga et al.
Psychology of Violence, forthcoming
Objective: The present experiment analyzed the effects of playing a violent video game on player’s sensitivity to victimized people by measuring the involuntary pupil dilation responses (PDRs) during a passive picture viewing paradigm and examining the mediating role of PDR on aggression.
Method: Participants (N = 135) were randomly assigned to play a violent video game or a nonviolent video game. The participants’ PDRs were then recorded while they were exposed to pictures of alleged victims of violence displayed in negative, neutral, and positive contexts. A competitive reaction time task was also used to measure aggression.
Results: Participants in the violent game condition demonstrated both a lower PDR to the victims of violence in a negative circumstances and greater aggression than participants in the nonviolent game condition. Lower PDR to victims displayed in negative context mediated the relationship between violent game play and aggression.
Conclusion: The negative effects of playing violent games are a societal concern. Our results indicate that a single violent gaming session can reduce the player’s involuntary PDRs to pictures of victimized people in negative context and increase participant aggression, a new relevant finding that should encourage further research in this area.