Stop the Madness
Correlation Tests of Video Game Violence Effects
Pilot Study
Goal: Anderson and Dill wanted to find video games that differ in the level of violence to test for the long-term effects of violent video games.
Method:
Anderson and Dill collected a sample size of 32, which included 18 females and 14 males. All of these students came from an introduction to psychology course in a Midwestern college. The participants were asked to play a series of games, two being violent video games (Wolfenstein 3D and Marathon) and the other two non-violent (Tetris and Myst). During every interaction with each particular game, Anderson and Dill measured the student's heart rate and blood pressure. Upon completion of each game, the students were asked to fill out a "Video Game Rating Sheet". This sheet consisted of a seven point unipolar scale and asked "how difficult, enjoyable, frustrating, and exciting the games were as well as how fast the action was and how violent the content and graphics of the game were" (Anderson and Dill 783).
Result:
Anderson and Dill found a significant difference in heart rate and blood pressure readings between exposures to violent video games versus non-violent video games.
Main Experiment
Goal: Anderson and Dill wanted to find the "effects of violent video game play on aggressive thoughts" (783).
Participants:
As part of a test, students in an introduction to psychology course took an irritability questionnaire. The 210 participants (104 females and 106 males) were hand selected based on their results to this questionnaire. Students from both high and low irritability rankings were chosen to participate in this experiment.
Method/Procedure:
Each participant was assigned to a certain video game and asked to play it three separate times. The first time Anderson and Dill were testing the student's world views after playing a violent video game, the second they measured cognitive changes, and the third time they measured the students behavioral changes.
Lab Session 1: Two students were placed in side by side cubicles. A female acted as an instructor and read a cover story to the participants that suggested the study was to determine learning mechanisms and cognitive processes. After fifteen minutes of play, the participants were asked to answer 35 statements with how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the statement. For example, if one statement said "I feel angry" the student would mark (1) for strongly disagree, (2) for disagree, (3) for neutral, (4) for agree, and (5) for strongly agree. Next, the participants were asked to play for fifteen more minutes. After fifteen minutes, Anderson and Dill wanted to measure their cognitive processes. To do this, they set up 192 trials of a reading reaction test. Aggressive words and three control words would be displayed on a screen. The students were asked to read as many words as they could as fast as possible.
Lab Session 2: One week after the first session, students were asked to come back to the laboratory alone. However, they were unaware that there was no one occupying the second cubicle. For all they knew, another student was in the other cubicle. After fifteen minutes of gaming, the participants were asked to push a button as fast as they could. This was a game designed to test levels of aggression. The goal was to push the button faster than their opponent. If the student's opponent won, then they would receive a noise blast (the decibel level and length was to the opponent's discretion). If the student won, they were given the same courtesy. There were twenty-five trials, and Anderson and Dill set it up so that the student would win 13 and would lose 12 (this was the same for each participant).
Results:
According to the data collected, Anderson and Dill concluded that violent video games increases aggressive thoughts. Irritability had a .96 positive correlation to the amount of time one spends playing video games. As for the noise blast portion of the experiment, Anderson and Dill found that those assigned to play Wolfenstein 3D delivered longer and louder noise blasts to their opponents. Since Anderson and Dill's study showed positive correlation between violent video games and aggression, it is safe to assume that violent video games are a danger to children and the like. Furthermore, due to their findings, Anderson and Dill "believe that parents should be concerned about the prevalence of violent video games in modern society, especially given recent advances in realism of video game violence" (787).
*This entire experiment is derived from Anderson and Dill's article called, "Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life," which can be found in the American Psychological Association Journal.