J T wrote:
Actually, there is experimental research now that shows the line of causality to be from videogames to increased agression. We used to be able to play that chicken-or-the-egg game when the majority of gaming studies were correlational, but there are enough studies now where violent gaming is a randomly assigned, manipulated independent variable and we can see that violent gaming does affect aggression (at least slightly).
My current major qualm with the research on gaming and violence is either that they have not contolled for the competitiveness of the games or that they have weak operational definitions of aggression where the slight increase of aggression seen would have no practical significance.
I don't think we can any longer just say that violent kids are attracted to violent games. Besides, there have always been lots of non-violent kids attracted to violent games.
I don't think they have been extensive enough in this research yet, but that's just me. Just because violent or aggressive kids are more drawn to violent games doesn't mean you have to be a violent kid to like a violent game. Just as a kid who doesn't play games can be violent. I didn't mean to suggest that the correlation was exclusive.
You can also say not all kids who play violent or competitive games get more aggressive, they are just tendencies or percentage risk of it occurring, according to the studies.
But like you said, are these harmful levels of aggression? I have seen kids who are told no become agitated and moe aggressive. People also tend to be more aggressive when frustrated or stressed etc...
