Games Do Cause Violent Behavior (But Not Much)

Do violent video games make players aggressive? According to Professor Patrick Markey, they do. But he also thinks the effects have been taken out of context

by Colin Campbell

He says, “When you look at the research there’s no question at all. Violent video games do cause aggression. It’s so clear. You have to be dishonest not to see it. However, and this is a huge however, the effect is very, very small.

“It’s not as if this is a light switch that either video games do or do not cause aggression. You have to think about the strength of that effect. Most people assume it has a really big effect, but what we find from research is it actually has a very tiny effect.”

Markey conducted his research with Gary Giumetti at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. 167 university undergraduates, participated in the study. They completed a demographics form and additional questionnaires that were used to hide the true purpose of the study. Then they played some games. Finally they completed a measure of aggression as well as other unrelated questionnaires in order to maintain the cover story.

Two groups separately played violent and non-violent games (Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance; Doom 3; or Return to Castle Wolfenstein against Tetris Worlds; Top Spin Tennis and Project Gotham Racing).

Then they were presented with three story stems presenting a brief scenario that involved a negative outcome for the main character (e.g., getting into a car accident). After reading a story stem participants were asked to write down 20 unique things they thought the main character might do, think, or feel. These stories had been used before in successful studies measuring aggression-levels at different temperatures. A panel of judges provided an aggressiveness score for each participant.

Aggressive Responses

Overall, players of the violent video games produced significantly more aggressive responses than the non-violent games players. The mean number of aggressive responses for the three non-violent video games did not differ from each other. Nor did the mean number of aggressive responses for the three violent video games.

This all looks like a clear case against violent games. However, when the results were compared against the initial questionnaires, it turned out that mild-mannered people were affected the least by the games while ‘angry people’ were affected the most.

Also, the effect size between violent video games and aggression that was found in the current study is similar to the effect sizes reported other studies of media-related aggression.

Markey says, “Their personality made a big difference. People who are extremely angry tend to be much more affected by violent videogames than people who are not angry and of course the opposite is true that people who are not angry are virtually unaffected by violent videogames. So it’s both the person and, in essence, the situation."

He believes his studies correlate with a lot of work in this area that has gone before, which has often found a small correlation between violent games and immediate subsequent behavior. But he says the media and politicians are wrong to seize on this as wildly significant because of the size of the effect, its context and the fact that the same results come out when people are exposed to other forms of violent media.

“The researchers are doing good work but that research is later used by media outlets and politicians and there is a miscommunication. For example, the general consensus among researchers is that the effect size is small, and we’ve accepted that. But in the media it’s difficult to say ‘oh yeah, video games cause aggression but the effect is small’. No one want to hear that, it’s not sexy enough. It doesn’t sell newspapers. And so we only hear the front end of that, which is that video games cause aggression.”

In the media it’s difficult to say ‘oh yeah, video games cause aggression but the effect is small’

The specialist press’ response to the studies is equally self-serving. “The gaming publications are very quick to defend themselves, to say no there’s no cause, and they’ll criticize research.