Violent Video Games and Aggressive Behavior in Young Women by, Craig Anderson and Christine Murphy
November 18, 2009
The article, Violent Video Games and Aggressive Behavior in young Women, is based on an experiment conducted by Craig Anderson and Christine Murphy. The study aimed to show video game effects on aggression in young women, provide a preliminary look at potential effects based on gender of controlled character, and give insight into “two potential mediating variables-instrumental aggressive motivation and revenge motivation (hostile aggression motivation).”
The study consisted of, 91 female participants were used in conducting the experiment. Participants were equally broken up and randomly assigned to play video games with one of three conditions: violent video game with female protagonist; violent video game with male protagonist; non-violent game. The participants played one of two games: Street Fighter II, or Oh No! More Lemmings. After playing the assigned game, participants performed the Retaliation Competitive Reaction Time task. This method of measurement aims at calculating ones level of aggression by calculating the reaction of the participant to loud noises predetermined by the opponent after a loss. The experiment is conducted 25 times in order to look for patterns in aggression. Following the (RCRT) the participants were asked a number of questions about the experiment in order to gather a better understanding of the effects of the game.
The experiment concluded, that “there is little evince proving that the violent video game effect on aggression was mediated by instrumental aggressive behavior. This is evidence that that the violent video game effect on aggression was at least partially mediated by increases in revenge motivation(428).” The article concludes with suggestions in order o to make a more concise study as well as a prediction of the negative impact violent television especially video game will have on the future because of its highly engaging procedural rhetoric.
Although, this short term experiment was not successful in achieving the most concise results, it showed a repetitive tendency between the participants. The results indicate that in fact the gender of the participants was not a substantial factor in the behavior of the participant with the game play and story being the most important aspect.
