The Wild West of Assessment

The issue of violent video game and their potential influence on young and adult players has been a “hot” topic in the public arena (Thompson, 2007) as well as scientific discourse (Kutner & Olson, 2008). However as Ioannidis (2005) has noted, research fields that are new or “hot” are particularly prone to a variety of biases including publication bias, citation bias and poor methodology that can result in misleading conclusions that prove unreliable over time. Increasingly these issues are becoming apparent in video game violence studies wherein conclusive statements about causal links between video game violence exposure and acts of aggression or violence on the part of players may have greatly preceded evidence available to support such claims, which remains in short supply (Ferguson, 2008; Grimes, Anderson & Bergen, 2008; Olson, 2004). Among the issues identified as problematic in video game violence studies is the issue of assessment. As noted by Ferguson (2007), and at the risk of some hyperbole, assessments in the realm of video game violence studies have too often been shockingly and embarrassingly poor, with common use of unstandardized, and poorly validated measures, upon which unscientific claims of generalizability to real world acts of extreme violence are made. The current chapter reviews the issue of assessments in violent video game studies and offers suggestions for improvements in this realm.

[1]  J. M. Smith.  Group Selection and Kin Selection , 1964, Nature.

[2]  J. Savage.  Does viewing violent media really cause criminal violence? A methodological review , 2004 .

[3]  Cheryl K. Olson.  Media Violence Research and Youth Violence Data: Why Do They Conflict? , 2004, Academic psychiatry : the journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry.

[4]  K. Durkin,et al.  Not so doomed: computer game play and positive adolescent development , 2002 .

[5]  C. Ferguson,et al.  The Hitman Study Violent Video Game Exposure Effects on Aggressive Behavior, Hostile Feelings, and Depression , 2010 .

[6]  T. Little,et al.  Aggression and adaptation: The bright side to bad behavior. , 2007 .

[7]  Dmitri Williams,et al.  Internet Fantasy Violence: A Test of Aggression in an Online Game , 2005 .

[8]  L. R. Huesmann,et al.  The impact of electronic media violence: scientific theory and research. , 2007, The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine.

[9]  C. Ferguson,et al.  Examining the validity of the modified Taylor competitive reaction time test of aggression , 2009 .

[10]  C. Anderson,et al.  Affect of the Game Player , 1986 .

[11]  C. Ferguson,et al.  A multivariate analysis of youth violence and aggression: the influence of family, peers, depression, and media violence. , 2009, The Journal of pediatrics.

[12]  C. Anderson,et al.  The Effects of Reward and Punishment in Violent Video Games on Aggressive Affect, Cognition, and Behavior , 2005, Psychological science.

[13]  C. Anderson.  An update on the effects of playing violent video games. , 2004, Journal of adolescence.

[14]  C. Ferguson.  The school shooting/violent video game link: causal relationship or moral panic? , 2008 .

[15]  Steven J. Kirsh.  Seeing the World Through Mortal Kombat-colored Glasses , 1998 .

[16]  Cheryl K. Olson.  Children's Motivations for Video Game Play in the Context of Normal Development , 2010 .

[17]  C. Anderson,et al.  Violent Video Games and Aggressive Behavior in Young Women. , 2003 .

[18]  E. Krug,et al.  The world report on violence and health , 2002, The Lancet.

[19]  D. Henry,et al.  Associations between Peer Nominations, Teacher Ratings, Self-Reports, and Observations of Malicious and Disruptive Behavior , 2006, Assessment.

[20]  Christopher J. Ferguson,et al.  Media Violence Effects: Confirmed Truth or Just Another X-File? , 2009 .

[21]  Jeanne B. Funk,et al.  Aggression and psychopathology in adolescents with a preference for violent electronic games , 2002 .

[22]  C. Anderson,et al.  Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature , 2001, Psychological science.

[23]  Joseph R. Dominick.  Videogames, Television Violence, and Aggression in Teenagers , 1984 .

[24]  Karen E. Dill,et al.  Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[25]  D. Gentile,et al.  The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance. , 2004, Journal of adolescence.

[26]  J. Ioannidis.  Why Most Published Research Findings Are False , 2005, PLoS medicine.

[27]  J. Cooper,et al.  Video Games and Aggression in Children , 1986 .

[28]  P. Suedfeld,et al.  Psychology and Social Policy , 1992 .

[29]  J. Tedeschi,et al.  Limitations of laboratory paradigms for studying aggression , 1996 .

[30]  T. Ward,et al.  The effect of playing violent video games on adolescents: Should parents be quaking in their boots? , 2007 .

[31]  B. Bushman,et al.  I wish I were a warrior: the role of wishful identification in the effects of violent video games on aggression in adolescent boys. , 2007, Developmental psychology.

[32]  Dominik Ritter,et al.  Hot sauce, toy guns, and graffiti: A critical account of current laboratory aggression paradigms , 2005 .

[33]  James A. Anderson,et al.  Media Violence and Aggression: Science and Ideology , 2007 .

[34]  Kevin M. Beaver,et al.  Natural born killers: The genetic origins of extreme violence , 2009 .

[35]  Cheryl K. Olson,et al.  Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do , 2008 .

[36]  Christopher P. Barlett,et al.  Violent Video Games and Public Policy , 2009 .

[37]  E. V. Schie,et al.  Children and Videogames: Leisure Activities, Aggression, Social Integration, and School Performance , 1997 .

[38]  J. Colwell,et al.  Investigation of the relationship between social isolation, self-esteem, aggression and computer game play in Japanese adolescents. , 2003 .

[39]  C. Ferguson.  Evidence for publication bias in video game violence effects literature: A meta-analytic review , 2007 .

[40]  C. Ferguson,et al.  The public health risks of media violence: a meta-analytic review. , 2009, The Journal of pediatrics.

[41]  B. Bushman,et al.  Chronic violent video game exposure and desensitization to violence: Behavioral and event-related brain potential data. , 2006 .

[42]  Peter K. Smith,et al.  Why has aggression been thought of as maladaptive , 2007 .

[43]  D. Grossman.  On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society , 1996 .

[44]  K. M. Thompson,et al.  Violence in E-rated video games. , 2001, JAMA.

[45]  J. Tedeschi,et al.  A further comment on the construct validity of laboratory aggression paradigms: A response to giancola and chermack , 2000 .

[46]  S. Silvern,et al.  The effects of video game play on young children's aggression, fantasy, and prosocial behavior , 1987 .

[47]  B. Vaughn,et al.  Aggression and Adaptive Functioning: The Bright Side to Bad Behavior , 2003 .

[48]  C. Ferguson,et al.  Social Isolation, Impulsivity and Depression as Predictors of Aggression in a Psychiatric Inpatient Population , 2005, Psychiatric Quarterly.