aggression

Violent video games and aggression: A cumulative effect?

Video games are the subject of so many studies, not to mention findings. Some suggest cognitive benefits, others behavioral issues that may or may not persist over time.

Many of these studies are small enough to require further investigation, and the journalists reporting on them often confuse correlation (when results happen in tandem) with causation (when one action is shown to result from another).

A new study out of Ohio State University suffers from a small sample size (70 participants), but its findings -- that people who play violent video games for three consecutive days show increases in aggression and hostility … Read more

One-fifth of third-graders own cell phones

Cell phone owners are getting younger and younger. According to a new study, 83 percent of middle schoolers, 39 percent of fifth-graders, and 20 percent of third-graders have a mobile device.

Stephanie Englander of Bridgewater University conducted the study (PDF) for the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center. Her research consisted of interviews with 20,766 Massachusetts students, in third through twelfth grades, with the goal of seeing whether readily available technology plays a role in cyberbullying.

The study shows that not only do younger kids have cell phones but also more than 90 percent of children are online by third grade. … Read more

Study finds perks of gaming for girls--if parent joins

When researchers at Brigham Young University's School of Family Life decided to investigate the role parents play in gaming with their adolescent kids, they discovered a statistically significant gender divide.

For boys, gaming with a parent did not have much of an effect on positive behavior, aggression, family connection, and mental health. But for girls, gaming with a parent resulted in as much as a 20 percent variation on those outcomes--specifically, improving positive behavior, mental health, and family connections.

The team studied 287 families with adolescents ages 11 to 16; the boys played Call of Duty, Wii Sports, and … Read more

Do you play and think about violent video games?

It reads a bit like a run-on Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy:

Men who play violent video games and are asked to think about them for a day exhibit greater aggression 24 hours later than: 1, men who play violent video games but don't think about them; 2, men who play nonviolent video games; and 3, women, even if they play violent video games, and even if they then think about those violent video games.

There is a certain "duh" factor involved in these findings, which were recently published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, … Read more