New evidence is emerging about the cross-cultural impacts of video-game violence, but analysts are skeptical about the findings.
Apparently, it’s not just American kids who show aggression after playing violent video games for a three- to six-month period. Japanese kids are manifesting similar behaviors, according to a study sponsored by Iowa State University’s Center for the Study of Violence.
In the study, published in the November issue of Pediatrics, researchers linked an earlier ISU study of 364 American children ages nine to 12 with two similar studies of more than 1,200 children between the ages of 12 to 18 from Japan.
The conclusion: Exposure to violent video games was a risk factor for aggression and violence in those children.
“Basically what we found was that in all three samples, a lot of violent video-game play early in a school year leads to higher levels of aggression during the school year, as measured later in the school year — even after you control for how aggressive the kids were at the beginning of the year,” said Craig Anderson, president-elect for the International Society for Research on Aggression.
Studying Aggression
ISU researchers assessed the children’s video-game habits and their level of physical aggression against each other at two different times during the school year. The studies varied somewhat in the length of time between what Anderson is calling time one and time two — that is, times between the reports of video-game use and physical behavior. The shortest duration was three months and the longest was six months.
“Each of the three samples showed significant increases in aggression by children who played a lot of violent video games,” Anderson said. He began collaborating with Japanese researchers several years ago when he visited Japan to give an address at the International Simulation and Gaming Association convention. Japan’s cultural differences…