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Post underneath with your point and a brief description.

[ALaraB]

Studies showing a correlation between media violence and aggression are invalid sources, as these studies suffer from various issues that render them unreliable.

In some cases, experimenters have manipulated disappointing results until they came up with at least one positive finding; then proclaimed that the experiment supported their hypothesis that media violence causes aggression.

For experiments that have yielded positive results, the explanation probably has more to do with the general arousal effect of violent entertainment than with viewers actually imitating violent acts. In almost all of the laboratory experiments conducted that showed a correlation between violent media and aggression the most obvious problem was that the violent and non-violent films that were shown were not equal in concerns to interest and arousal (the non-violent films shown was of content that wasn't interesting/as interesting as that of the violent films). It is well established that differences in arousal effects behaviour. People who are more aroused tend to perform activities more strongly than those who are less aroused.

Lab experiments don't measure real aggression, rather they look at other behaviors that the researchers consider "proxies" for real aggression, some of which are questionable and could be indicating motivations other than aggression (such as arousal, interests/preferences, etc.).
Examples: Stuart Fischoff, "Psychology's Quixotic Quest for the Media-Violence Connection," 4(4) Journal of Media Psychology (1999), http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/violence.html (accessed 9/20/02) (question about grant termination used as measure of aggression); Craig Anderson & Karen Dill, "Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life," 78(4) Journal of Personality& Social Psychology 772 (2000) (using as proxies noise blasts and recognizing "aggressive" words); Ellen Wolock, "Is There a Reasonable Approach to Handling Violence in Video Games?" Children's Software Revue, July/Aug. 2002 ("aggressivity" measured through "increase in heart rate and blood pressure, negative responses on questionnaires, toy choice, etc."); Craig Emes, "Is Mr. Pac Man Eating Our Children? A Review of the Effect of Video Games on Children," 42 Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 409, 413 (1997) (reliability and validity of procedures used to measure aggression "are questionable").

Laboratory experiments also suffer from "experimenter demand effect"-- subjects responding to what they think the researcher wants. They know that behaviour is permitted in the lab that would be unacceptable in the real world. Almost all experiments had strong demand factors that essentially gave subjects permission to behave aggressively or even instructed them to behave aggressively. According to Psychologist Jonathan L. Freedman, “When people are brought into a laboratory, they're very sensitive to what the experimenter does. If shown a film, the person will wonder why the film was chosen. If no good explanation is provided, they will assume that the experimenter has a reason. And if the film is a violent film, many, if not most, people will infer that the experimenter likes the film, or approves of violence, or wants them to behave aggressively. This interference will be strengthened when they are later given a chance to behave aggressively...Having drawn that inference, they will be more likely to behave aggressively (since that is apparently what the experimenter wants). In other words, simply because of demand pressures, subjects shown violent films are more likely to behave aggressively than those shown non-violent films. Psychologists are well aware of the problem of demand factors and usually make great efforts to eliminate or at least minimize them in laboratory research. Yet for some reason, in this group of experiments very little effort was made to do so.”
See Jonathan Freedman, Media Violence and Its Effect on Aggression
supra, pp. 49-51, 80-83; Guy Cumberbatch, "Video Violence: Villain or Victim?" (Video Standards Council, UK, 2001), www.videostandards.org.uk/video_violence.htm (accessed 9/13/02) (quoting "one shrewd four year-old who... was heard to whisper to her mother, ‘Look mummy! There's the doll we have to hit!"); Joanne Savage, "The Criminologist's Perspective," inViolence and the Media(Freedom Forum, 2001), p. 28 ("it is possible that showing subjects violent material [in the lab] creates an atmosphere of permissiveness and encourages them to be more aggressive")

Because of the weakness of laboratory experiments in predicting behaviour, psychologists have undertaken "field experiments" that more accurately replicate the real world. Freedman reported that the overwhelming majority of field experiments found no adverse effects on behaviour from exposure to media violence.

[ALaraB]

Freedman had looked at and examined all literature related to media violence in the 1980s, then did the same again in 2002.

[Racioppa48]

sorry had some stuff come up.

"Correlation does not mean Causation "

Gene Beresin, MD, director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency Training at Massachusetts General Hospital and director of the MGH Center for Mental Health and Media, and Steve Schlozman, MD, examine research that shows no causal relationship between violent games and violent behavior. They also offer advice for parents on TV watching and video game playing.

On December 21 the National Rifle Association (NRA) blamed the media for promoting violent video games and movies and then cited these phenomena as the primary causes of mass violence. The assertion that violent video games and movies cause violent behavior has not been demonstrated by scientific research. Youth who have aggressive traits and are stressed are more prone to delinquent and bullying behavior, and are also drawn to these games, but their behavior in real life is not predicted by playing the games. All youth are protected from violence in the world by close, supportive relationships with parents and peers. There are a small percentage of youth, perhaps 5% who are at risk of engaging in violent behavior.

There has been extensive research and writing on the impact of violent movies and videos on behavior in kids. But research is clearly lacking on a direct causal relationship between violent video games and youth violence. Analyses of school shooting incidents from the U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime do not support a link between violent games and real world attacks.

In 2004, a team of Mass General researchers led by Dr. Cheryl Olson studied 1,254 7th and 8th graders and 500 parents in South Carolina and Pennsylvania, looking at what kids were playing, how much time they played, and the possible relationship to delinquent behavior. They found that many of these kids played violent games; two-thirds of 14 year-old boys played at least one violent game often versus a quarter of the girls surveyed. The researchers also found that kids played games to cope with their emotions, to enjoy challenging situations, to keep up with peers playing similar games, to create their own worlds, and to relieve stress.

There were correlations between playing violent games and self-reported physical fights and delinquent behavior, particularly with greater amounts of time played. However, this was only true in a small percentage of children who already exhibited aggressive traits and a high stress level. They found that the traits of aggression and stress were predictive of delinquent behavior and bullying and not the playing of violent video games themselves.  Researchers also found that parent involvement and parent/peer support seemed to be protective of these negative behaviors.

However, there seems to be a relationship between about five to six percent of kids who get into trouble, sometimes violent, and the amount of time playing violent games. There were no causal relationships found between violent games and violent behavior, just correlations, and this could mean there are other things in life that may be involved.

Problems also exist in the research about violent movies. Most of the science is not very good. However, in the few sound studies, there was also an apparent relationship between the time watching violent TV or movies and aggressive acts in real life – but only for a small percentage of kids and young adults. There seems to be a greater effect on younger children who cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality.  It also appears that when violence is coupled with an attractive movie star and combined with sexuality, the impact appears to be stronger.

The bottom line is that for violent movies and video games, we just do not know the relationship between viewing or playing and aggression in the real world. Research to date does not inform us. But we should be concerned and wary of risks.

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