Do Video Games Lead to Violence? (Annotated Bibliography Sample)

Do Video Games Lead to Violence? Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Course Professor Date Annotated Bibliography Research Question: Do Video Games Lead to Violence? Greitemeyer, T. (2019). The contagious impact of playing violent video games on aggression: Longitudinal evidence. Aggressive Behavior, 45(6), 635–642. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21857. The main purpose of this longitudinal study was to investigate the notion that the contagious effects of aggression from playing violent video games (VVGs) affect players and their social networks, implying widespread concern about the negative impact of violent games on society is justified. The key question that the author aimed to answer was whether or not the effects of a VVG play on an individual can affect others within the player's social network. The main conclusion of this article is that increased aggression among violent game players impacts how these gamers interact with their families, friends, and peers. Participants of this study were 2,502 Americans who participated in the Amazon Mechanical Turk. The authors used two sets of questionnaires to collect data. Moreover, the researcher employed the General Aggression Model (GAM) to explain how various interpersonal and environmental variables influence gamers' violent behavior. This study has three limitations: relying on the subject's view of their friends is a key weakness of the current egocentric network data, allowing the potential that respondents did not properly perceive people within their social networks; the researcher did not investigate whether the respondents and their friends were playing the games cooperatively or competitively; the employment of self-report approach to assess aggressive conduct could allow participants to rate themselves favorably, leading to biased findings. Future research should include geographically diverse sample populations to improve the findings' generalizability and examine whether the respondents play alone, collaboratively, or competitively. Yao, M., Zhou, Y., Li, J., & Gao, X. (2019). Violent video games exposure and aggression: The role of moral disengagement, anger, hostility, and disinhibition. Aggressive Behavior, 45(6), 662–670. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21860.  The main purpose of these researchers was to assess how individuals’ feelings or attitudes are influenced by exposure to VVG, leading to the development of aggression and antisocial behavior. The key concept that the authors focused on was the GAM and establishing proof that personal variables such as anger and moral disengagement exacerbate aggressive behavior following constant exposure to VVGs. The authors concluded that people with pre-existing hostility and antisocial behaviors, when exposed to VVGs, experience a significant surge in their levels of aggressiveness. The researchers used a convenient cluster sampling technique to recruit 547 undergraduate students (265 males and 282 females) from five Chinese Universities. The authors used a self-report approach to collect data through surveys and questionnaires. Consequently, the Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) version 22.0, PROCESS macro, and the bootstrapping method were used to analyze the data. This study had three limitations: the information was gathered using cross-sectional techniques, which restricts the ability to draw causal correlations; the employment of the self-report technique to collect data exposed the study to risks of bias; the use of a small sample size could impact the accuracy of the research findings. Future research should gather information from numerous sources and investigate the impacts of mediation and moderation through experimental studies. Zhang, Q., Cao, Y., & Tian, J. J. (2021). Effects of violent video games on aggressive cognition and aggressive behavior. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 24(1), 5–10. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2019.0676. The main purpose of this article was to evaluate how playing VVGs influences aggressive thinking and conduct. In this study, the researchers aimed to investigate key issues arising from GAM, including how VVGs alter violent thoughts and actions and how aggressive cognition controls the effects of VVGs on people. The authors concluded that personal and situational factors play a significant role in promoting aggressive behavior. This study employed the observation technique to collect data. The researchers randomly sampled 300 children from four kindergartens in China. Consequently, a competitive reaction time (CRT) and simple effects analysis was utilized to analyze the collected data. This study had four limitations: given that the datasets are from a single age cohort, the findings may not apply to a different age group; the authors failed to analyze how playing VVGs impacts youngsters and their friends since most of them play jointly or competitively with their peers; the authors discovered a boy moderation effect but no substantial main sex impact, which was caused by a lack of strength and the effect only working on select violent boys; whereas earlier studies employed the reaction time (RT) to confrontational statements as a result of violent thoughts in a lexical decision task, the evaluation of violent thinking does not exclude the likelihood that the impacts of VVGs are not particular to the aggressive images the participants saw. Future research should use diverse age groups to improve the applicability and generalizability of the evidence. Barrington, G., & Ferguson, C. J. (2022). Stress and violence in video games: Their influence on aggression. Trends in Psychology, 30(3), 497–512. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43076-022-00141-2. The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether VVGs or stress contribute to violent behavior against a collaborative peer while playing. The authors hypothesized that when subjects were stressed, they would be more hostile toward an inferior partner than a superior partner. The main inferences in this article are that when people are exposed to violent content with a competent or incompetent partner, results show that provoked stress and violent materials do not lead to aggressive conduct in these circumstances. However, people with pre-existing stress issues may become increasingly aggressive if constantly exposed to stressful situations. The study involved 73 participants (20 percent males and 80 percent females). A self-report anxiety measure was utilized to collect data concerning the respondents’ change in feelings and attitudes as they are consistently exposed to stressful conditions and violence. The researchers utilized the International Business Machines (IBM) SPSS version 26.0 to analyze the data. This study had two limitations: the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) tool to capture anxiety information may have partially considered chronic stress; a small sample size reduced the power of the researchers’ analysis processes. Future research should consider other variables, such as competition among players, since aggression is a multifaceted phenomenon caused by numerous factors. Shao, R., & Wang, Y. (2019). The relation of violent video games to adolescent aggression: An examination of moderated mediation effect. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00384. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the regulated mediating role of normative attitudes towards violence and environmental influences on exposure to VVGs and adolescent aggressive behavior. The authors hypothesized that VVGs significantly influenced youngsters' aggressiveness based on the individual's normative beliefs concerning violence and conditions in a home environment. The main conclusions of this article are that there is a strong connection between teen violence and exposure to VVGs. The researchers employed the self-report technique to collect data. This survey included 648 Chinese middle school students, 339 males, and 309 girls between the ages of 12 and 19. There were four limitations in this study: assessing a small number of Chinese students affected the sample representativeness; the study only focused on VVGs instead of including other sources of violence, including the internet, wars, and other social events; given that the use of peer, parent, and teachers' reports are reliable sources of information concerning teen behavior, the use of the self-report method could affect the effectiveness of the study; besides home environment and normative beliefs, there could be other mediating and moderating variables that influence how teens interact with violent content. The authors did not provide any suggestions for future research. Summary: Do Video Games Lead to Violence? In recent years, playing video games has risen in popularity among young and older populations. However, given the rise in mass shootings, scientists have increasingly become concerned about the impact of the violent video game on players’ aggressive conduct outside the gaming platforms. Because...