Stop the Madness

With any study, a subject group must be defined. In this particular study, Anderson and Bushman targeted undergraduate students. They took 224 students who enrolled in an introduction to psychology course. Among the participants were 112 men and 112 women. 

 

Procedure: 

      Each student was tested individually and randomly assigned to play one of four violent video games (Carmageddon, Duke Nukem, Mortal Combat, or Future Cop) or to play one of four non-violent video games (Glider Pro, 3D Pinball, Austin Powers, or Tetra Madness). Once assigned to their specific game, each student engaged in twenty minutes of playtime. Directly after their exposure to their specific game, three stories were read to them. The instructor stopped reading the story and asked "'What happens next?' Participants indicate what the main characters will do or say, think, and feel as the story continues" (Bushman and Anderson 1681).

 

Hypothesis: 

      Both Anderson and Bushman believed that those students who were assigned to play a violent video game would expect more violent outcomes/endings to the stories read to them. They also suggested that more aggressive words would be used to describe "what happens next" in the responses of the participants who were exposed to one of the violent video games.

 

Results:

      As it turns out, Anderson and Bushman's prediction was correct. Their results showed little variation between the responses among the group who played violent video games. Similarly, there did not seem to be a significant difference between the student's expectations who played non-violent video games. However, when Anderson and Bushman compared the responses of those who played violent video games to those who engaged in non-violent video games, they found unequal variances. Their data produced the graph below: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion:

      From the results above, Anderson and Bushman concluded, "Playing a video game for just 20 minutes produced significant increases in expectations that potential conflict situations would be handled aggressively" (1683).

 

Our View:

      If twenty minutes is all it takes to develop aggressive thoughts, what does that say for prolonged exposure? This study emphasizes our point as it illustrates the negative effects of violent video games. Though this study was conducted on college students, whose minds are supposed to be nearly developed, it is relevant to younger children. If older students are effected in such a way as this experiment suggests, then the aggression rates of children will be much higher as their brains are still in the early stages of development and learning. This evidence shows that parents need to monitor their child’s exposure to violent video games to prevent them from learning to deal with conflict aggressively.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*This entire study is derived from Anderson and Bushman's article called "Violent Video Games and Hostile Expectations: A Test of General Aggression Model," which can be found in the scholarly journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.