Ladies and gentleman, fellow students, I wish to speak to you today on the topic of violent video games and aggression. I will put forward the argument that psychological evidence does demonstrate the link between violent video games and aggression. Bushman and Anderson (2001), who are supporters of this argument, define ‘violence’ as being aggressive with a goal to cause extreme physical harm, including injury or death; therefore, because they have defined violence as being aggressive, violence in any form (such as within video games) will always cause aggression. I am going to introduce real life examples, a meta-analysis, an experimental study and also a questionnaire that proves this link.
In April 1999 Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who attended Columbine High School, murdered 13 people and wounded 23 before killing themselves. It was found after the incident that the boys enjoyed playing the bloody video game ‘Doom’ and the way that they carried out the shooting is remarkably similar to the video game. Lawrence and Birkland (2004) found that media violence (such as the game ‘Doom’) is the second most discussed cause of the shooting. Other factors discussed as a cause for the boys’ actions included dispositional and situational factors. There are many other real life examples supporting this link between violent video games and aggression; one being the case of Jared Loughner who went on a shooting rampage in a supermarket parking lot in Arizona. He killed six people and injured 13. Before the shooting, he had frequently played the violent video game ‘Earth Empires’ which involves taking control of your nations military and economy, whereby you have to command your country’s military to attack your enemies. This violent video game is seen as the cause of the aggression portrayed by Loughner. Anderson (2004) began a meta-analytic review, with a discussion of shootings that have been linked to playing violent video games.
The meta-analytic procedures were used to test the effects of violent video games on aggressive behaviour, aggressive effect, aggressive cognition, empathy, desensitisation, physiological arousal and prosocial behaviour. The meta-analysis found significant effects for all variables, with the evidence strongly suggesting that exposure to violent video games has a causal link with increased aggressive behaviour, aggressive affect and aggressive cognition. There was also a causal link with decreased prosocial behaviour and empathy.
In the light of the Columbine shootings, Anderson and Dill (2000) conducted several studies investigating this relationship. In the first study they measured how much exposure college students had experienced to video game violence and how long participants had played video games for through a questionnaire method. The participants’ academic achievements were also measured as prior to this research, longitudinal work on this concept showed a negative relation between exposure to media violence and academic performance later in life (Huesmann, 1986). They found that exposure to violent video games is a significant predictor of aggressive behaviour, and the relationship was stronger for males and those who had a pre-existing ‘aggressive personality’. And, in the second study they randomly assigned participants to play either a violent or a nonviolent video game. After this, they played a competitive reaction time game where they could punish their opponent by administering a blast of noise. The amount of noise administered related to the laboratory measure of aggression. They found that people who played the violent game were significantly more aggressive. These studies have shown that exposure to violent video games increases aggression in short and long-term. Exposure to violent video games has been shown to increase aggression both in the short and long term by these studies.
My opponent may argue that this link is not as straightforward as anticipated and may introduce Fergusons (2008) argument, who stated that experimental research into the effects of violent video games lacks ecological validity. The experiments are carried out in a set up laboratory and therefore it can be argued that the participants may not have acted naturally. However, so many studies have been carried out experimentally in a laboratory and have found the same results. Also, this isn’t the only research method that has been used to study this link: questionnaires, observations and real life examples have confirmed this link.
In conclusion, the evidence has shown that there is a causal link between playing violent video games and aggression. This link has been studied for over 2 decades now and is one of the most researched topic in the field. Although this link has not yet been confirmed, there is enough evidence to back up the fact that there is a relation between them.
Second Speaker
Ladies and gentleman, fellow students, in opposition to my opponent I will argue that psychological evidence does not demonstrate that playing violent video games causes aggression. Ferguson and Beaver (2009) who are members of the opposing argument, defined aggression as the intent to increase one’s own position in a dominance hierarchy at the expense of another person; therefore, aggression is not due to a stimulus (such as a video game) it is due to social situations. I am going to argue against this notion because as youth violence has decreased, violent video game use has increased (Ferguson, 2008).
I am going to challenge the previous argument, which supports the link, by stating that there may be many other factors that contributed to the results. This is an example of post hoc fallacy; just because behaviour may come after an event, it doesn’t mean the event caused the behaviour, other factors need to be taken into account. For example, with the Columbine shootings there are many explanations that may have caused this aggressive behaviour. Dispositional factors may have contributed, it has been said that the boys have disturbed personality characteristics causing them to be narcissistic and antisocial. Also, situational factors may have caused their behaviour, such as the boys being bullied at school. Likewise, with the example of Loughner, as well as playing violent video games he also abused alcohol and drugs and was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. These factors will certainly have affected his behaviour and most likely be the causes of his behaviour. In addition, the experiments lack ecological validity as they do not depict what environment the participants would usually play video games in; this could have caused the participants to act differently to how they would in their natural environment. Ferguson (2008) supported this by arguing that research that has been carried out investigating this link lack ‘real-world’ validity. Lastly the questionnaire method is unreliable, the participants may have got bored and randomly answered the questions or may have lied displaying the social desirability effect whereby participants report inaccurately to depict themselves in the best light (Fisher, 1993). I am therefore going to discuss other factors that I think are more associated with aggression, than violence within video games. These factors are: competitiveness, frustration and dispositional factors.
There are several theories explaining why competition may be associated with increased aggressive behaviour. The excitation transfer theory (Zillmann, 1983) states that the transfer of physiological arousal (from a stimulus, for example a violent video game) may be a mechanism causing competition to lead to aggression. Physiological arousal from playing a violent video game can linger after you have stopped playing the game and can transfer to a future encounter, increasing the possibility of aggressive behaviour. Adachi and Willoughby (2011) carried out a study to see the effect of video game violence and competitiveness on aggressive behaviour. A violent and non-violent video game were matched on their level of difficulty, competitiveness, pace of action, and the effect that each game had on aggressive behaviour. The two games had the same effect on aggressive behaviour and therefore they concluded that video game violence alone does not cause aggression.
Frustration is thought to cause aggression more so than the violence within video games; Przybylski (2014) conducted a study whereby participants had to play either Tetris or a modified form of Tetris whereby the shapes wouldn’t fit together. Before this they had to put their hand in freezing water for 25 seconds. After playing the game they were asked how long the next participant should hold their hand in the water for. The participants who played the modified game of Tetris said that the next participant should hold their hand in water for 7 seconds longer on average than participants who played Tetris. This is due to the frustration caused upon these participants during the game, which resulted in aggression. This supports to frustration-aggression hypothesis.
Lastly, dispositional factors are thought to relate to aggression. Markey and Markey (2010) investigated whether certain personality traits made individuals more vulnerable to aggression. They looked at the Five-Factor Model which includes five personality dimensions: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness. They looked at the interaction between the Five-Factor Model and levels of hostility after playing a violent and non-violent video game. They found that the people who became aggressive from playing the violent video game had low agreeableness and conscientiousness scores, yet high neuroticism scores; thus supporting that dispositional factors are what causes aggression as oppose to the violence within the video games.
In conclusion, all this evidence suggests that there are many other factors that need to be taken into consideration that cause aggression, it is not just due to the violence within video games. The link between violent video games and aggression has been studied for decades and a conclusion still hasn’t been found, therefore, there is no such link.