"Interactive Effect of Moral Disengagement and Violent Video Games on Self-Control, Cheating, and Aggression", published in Social Psychological and Personality Science
(Paywalled, but if you're a student you may have access through your university)
Thought people here might be interested in seeing the tripe that gets passed off as evidence that violent video games make people more violent, immoral, etc. Here's the highlights of their flawed methodology.Originally Posted by Article Abstract
Violent video games glorify and reward immoral behaviors (e.g., murder, assault, rape, robbery, arson, motor vehicle theft). Based on the moral disengagement theory, we predicted that violent games would increase multiple immoral behaviors (i.e., lack of self-control, cheating, aggression), especially for people low in moral disengagement. High school students (N = 172) who had completed a measure of moral disengagement were randomly assigned to play one of the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) violent video games, or a nonviolent game. Self-control was measured using the weight of uneaten chocolates (i.e., M&M’s) in a bowl by the computer. After gameplay, participants could cheat on a test to win raffle tickets for attractive prizes (e.g., iPad). Aggression was measured using a competitive task in which participants could give an ostensible partner unpleasant noise blasts through headphones. Results showed that violent video games decreased self-control and increased cheating and aggression, especially for people high in moral disengagement.
1. The only violent video games they have anyone play are from the GTA franchise. They don't have anyone play a military shooter, or a beat-em-up action game, or anything else which involves violence (a tactical game like X-COM, for instance). Considering that the GTA games have many other elements that could potentially be a factor in the effect they noted. For instance, players immersing themselves in the character of someone casually committing criminal acts seems like a much more plausible influence on cheating behaviour than violence, particularly since that criminal behaviour in the game has no long term consequences. The authors of the article even note in their introduction that these games reward criminal acts! Why then lump everything together under the heading of "violent", which is such a broad term? For that matter, there are non-violent games out there which have you acting in a criminal manner and even encourage that behaviour (playing Tropico as a corrupt dictator sending tax dollars to your Swiss bank account, for instance), why weren't any of those included?
2. The non-violent games chosen to demonstrate their effect were Pinball 3D and Mini golf 3D. These two games which would not create the same level of interest in the participants as a massively high selling game franchise like GTA, nor would they be expected to raise respondents adrenaline levels. One of the claims frequently made about violent video games is that they're worse than [insert other media format here] before they're more involving. So by choosing low involvement titles as representatives of non-violent games, they're essentially stacking the deck against the much more involving violent games here. For this study to have had any credibility, the non-violent games should have included some high involvement, high adrenaline titles. Some high octane racing game from a popular franchise would've been a good start, one where crashing into your opponents isn't rewarded. Motions likes like Just Dance or Wii Sports (specifically, Tennis) would've also been good.
