The Effect of Violent Video Games on Aggression

I have always personally felt that there was no link between video games and violence. I even watched the Penn and Teller: Bullsh!t episode (which can be found here) and agreed with them. Yet what exactly does the research say?

I conducted a brief search on ScienceDirect and found the following:

Gentile, Lynch, Linder and Walsh (2004) assessed the link between video games and violence on 607 8th and 9th grade students. They found that those exposed to more violence were more likely to get into arguments with teachers, be involved in fights, and have lower grades at school. The article appeared in a special edition of the Journal of Adolescence published in 2004 which focused on violent video games. Many other articles also claimed to find a link between violent video games and aggression (see Journal of Adolescence).

However, Ferguson, San Miguel, Garza and Jerabeck (2012) state that in 2011 the US Supreme Court found that previous research had been flawed. Furthermore, they conducted a longitudinal study over 3 years with 165 participants. They found that there was no link between violent video games and aggression. In contrast, they maintain that depression, antisocial personality traits, family violence and peer influence were the most likely predictors of violence. Simiarly, Valadez and Ferguson (2012) also found there was no relationship between violence or depression and video games or the length of time spent playing them.

Although recent evidence suggests that there may not be a link between video games and observed violent behaviour, Engelhardt, Bartholow, Kerr and Bushman (2011) suggest that video games may result in neuronal desensitisation. Engelhardt et al (2011) observed the brain activity of participants whilst they played violent or non-violent video games then viewed violent or non-violent photos. They found that:

Participants low in previous exposure to video game violence who played a violent (relative to a nonviolent) game showed a reduction in the P3 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) to violent images (indicating physiological desensitization), and this brain response mediated the effect of video game content on subsequent aggressive behavior.

Clearly there needs to be further research assessing the relationship between brain activity and actual observed violent behaviour.


References:

Engelhardt C.R., Bartholow B.D., Kerr G.T. & Bushman B.J. (2011). This is your brain on violent video games: Neural desensitization to violence predicts increased aggression following violent video game exposure, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47 (5) 1033-1036. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.03.027
 
Ferguson C.J., San Miguel C., Garza A. & Jerabeck J.M. (2012). A longitudinal test of video game violence influences on dating and aggression: A 3-year longitudinal study of adolescents, Journal of Psychiatric Research, 46 (2) 141-146. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2011.10.014

Gentile D.A., Lynch P.J., Linder J.R. & Walsh D.A. (2004). The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance, Journal of Adolescence, 27 (1) 5-22. DOI: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2003.10.002  

Valadez J.J. & Ferguson C.J. (2012). Just a game after all: Violent video game exposure and time spent playing effects on hostile feelings, depression, and visuospatial cognition, Computers in Human Behavior, 28 (2) 608-616. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.11.006