Data Visualization of Published Findings on Video Games and Aggression in Children 1984-1995

Data Visualization of Published Findings on Video Games and Aggression in Children 1984-1995
n = 13
That is, only 13 published studies, specifically on the relationship between video games and aggressive behavior, existed in that time frame. Subjects are mostly children and adolescents, with two studies testing undergraduates.

In 1982, Republicans Used Technology

In a Special to The New York Times, Warren Weaver, Jr., reported on a Republican “political challenge” to the Democrats, “unlikely to be confused by historians with the 1957 American response to Sputnik.” Democrat officials said they were not about to be “stampeded into a space race,” but would continue emphasizing policy “over public relations” (they didn’t have Clinton, yet).

Guidelines for 1984 Educational Software Development

Apologies for the bad lighting in the photo.

This comes from a 1984 David Savitsky article in Educational Technology, listing ten rules to follow when producing good educational software for children. It should have “NEW content,” must be “motivational and offer some challenges,” subjected to “rigorous field testing,” “provide a data trail,” and “free of personal abuse, sarcasm, and derogatory remarks.”

But it should absolutely not contain violence!

“A Publisher’s Guidelines for Educational Software Development” Educational Technology April 1984, 45

it continues: “… more traditional instructional materials, such as books, movies, magazines, and filmstrips.”

Apparently they weren’t using books like All Quiet on the Western Front or Roots way back in 1984.

We are currently seeing a “multiple-use wristwatch” craze — 1983

– Mind at Play: the Psychology of Video Games (1983) by Geoffrey R. Loftus and Elizabeth F. Loftus, 171, from a section on “special-purpose computers”

…a curious new psychiatric disorder that the authors terms ‘Space Invaders Obsession’

“The intrusion of video games into health related issues has not been restricted to physical maladies. In September 1982 the Journal of the American Medical Association reported a curious new psychiatric disorder that the authors terms ‘Space Invaders Obsession.’ The victims of this disorder were men about to be married, and it took the form of a fourfold (or greater) increase in the playing of Space Invaders in the few weeks preceding the marriage. One man insisted that the honeymoon be postponed for a few hours so that he could get in a few more games. The authors, researchers at the Duke University medical Center, asserted that the principal goal of the game – defending a home base against aliens – took on a special symbolic significance in the face of an impending marriage. (It also reported that, for whatever reason, gameplaying dropped dramatically following marriage.)

– Excerpt from Mind at Play: the Psychology of Video Games (1983) by Geoffrey R. Loftus and Elizabeth F. Loftus, 109

Anderson and Ford, 1986, Affect of the Game Player: Short-Term Effects of Highly and Mildly Aggressive Video Games

Anderson, C. A., and C. M. Ford. 1986. “Affect of the Game Player: Short-Term Effects of Highly and Mildly Aggressive Video Games.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 12 (4): 390-402.

The present research arose from the list of potential problems generated by opponents of video games during the late 1970s and early 1980s. These potential problems centered around the aggressive content of games, the style of problem solving, and the types of play and thinking prevented by games. Imagination, creative thinking, fantasy, development of social skills were thought to be impeded by the inclusion of video games in the lives of children. Adults were worried that children were spending their lunch money on playing games, stealing money from parents, or engaging in petty theft for quarters. Lastly, video games were thought to cause and promote addictive behavior. Up to this point (1986), little data had been collected on video games or their effects. The goal of the present research was to address short-term effects of video games on affective states.

The present research builds upon the findings of Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1961) that exposure to aggressive models can lead to subsequent aggressive behavior in children. The researchers emphasize the major difference in video games is that the aggression is largely symbolic rather than involving human-like characters. However, the researchers were compelled to emphasize Berkowitz’s cognitive-neoassociation theory that media effects form because of the priming of semantic categories (such as aggression).

Two experiments were done to examine the effects of playing different types of video games on short-term affective states. In the first, 55 undergraduate college students played 11 different video games and rated them (for extra credit in a class). Ratings (on a scale of 1-7) included ease of play, frustration, violent content, violent graphics, slow action, and long pauses in gameplay (393-395). Two of these games were selected for the second experiment, differing in level aggression (one highly aggressive, the other only mildly aggressive).

Sixty undergraduates participated in the second experiment and were randomly assigned to play Zaxxon (highly aggressive), Centipede (mildly aggressive), or no game at all. Hostility, anxiety, and depression were assessed just after the second experiment was concluded with the Multiple Affective Adjective Checklist (395-398). The researchers found that hostility increased after both types of aggressive games were played. Those that played the highly aggressive game were significantly more anxious than those who played the mild aggression game or no game (control group). No significant depressive affect was found. The researchers conclude that these findings “support some type of semantic priming theory” (398).

Jones, 1984, Video Games as Psychological Tests

Jones, Marshall B. 1984. “Video Games as Psychological Tests”. Simulation and Games. 15 (2): 131-57.

The concern of this article, as the title suggests, is with the use of video games as psychological tests. First, the author suggests five features that distinguish commercial video games (which he means console games) from earlier “computer-based” games: 1. Video games are not educational (excepting a rare few); 2. The reinforcements for playing the games well and learning to play them better are internal, and these reinforcements are strong; 3. Games are fast, which accounts for some of their novelty; 4. The rules are not presented in the form of instructions, but written into the game program; 5. Most video games do not model familiar physical systems, instead they create their own world with its own laws of motion.

Video games, Jones writes, lend themselves well to psychological testing because they are robust, inexpensive, small, light, and portable. Scoring is objective, and the rules of the game are similar for every player (135). They are problematic because the programs are inaccessible, and it takes time for the tests to stabilize (stabilization here is taken to mean when the player no longer shows a tendency to improve with practice, 140). Even a good game “generally requires 20-30 minutes of playing time before individual differences in performance become acceptably reliable” (136). In any case, video game tests lend themselves to individualization.

Stabilization produces a learning curve, however it is only descriptive. Different individuals follow different courses (such as starting out with high or low performances), but Jones hypothesizes that the pace of improvement eventually becomes uniform with practice. The significance is that until stabilization occurs, individual performances on different trials do not represent the same test (139). The issue lies in when to determine when stabilization takes place (140).

Do video games have predictive power in determining performance? This evidence is “still skimpy” (142). The two research findings that showed encouraging findings were based on Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM) and job simulation. These were highly specific to the task, however. For example, ACM showed that video games may have predictive power in pilot performance.

In other ways, video games could be useful testing tools: assessing cognitive function at high altitudes (or other extreme conditions), differences between individual performances, or retention of hand-eye coordinated skills. In conclusion, Jones believes in a promising future of video game tests in applied psychology. They allow psychologists to pursue individual differences and experimental manipulations in a technical context, easily and objectively (155).

Cooper and Mackie, 1986, Video Games and Aggression in Children

Cooper, Joel, and Diane Mackie. 1986. “Video Games and Aggression in Children.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 16 (8): 726-744.

This study examined the effect of playing an aggressive or nonaggressive video game on fifth-graders’ free play. Twenty-two pairs of boys and 20 pairs of girls were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. One of the children in each pair played a video game rated by peers as aggressive, a video game with little aggression, or a non-video maze-solving game for 8 minutes. The other child watched. Each child was then left individually to engage in free play in a separate room for 8 minutes, and also given the opportunity to deliver rewards and punishments to another child. The results were similar for both players and observers. Girls shoed significantly more general activity and aggressive free play after playing the aggressive video game, but they perceived Missle Command as only slightly more violent than Pac-Man. Girls’activity decreased and their quiet play slightly increased after playing the low aggressive game compared to the control group. Differences in boy’s vs. girls’ activity may be a function of socialization in appropriate boy/girl behavior. Neither video game had any significant effect on boys’ free play. Video games did not affect boys’ or girls’ behavior on the intepersonal measure of aggression (ie. neither girls nor boys gave significantly more punishments or rewards after playing any of the games). According to the authors, these results suggest that video game effects are not parallel with violent television effects.