Addiction and aggression within the MMO context (Grusser, Thalemann & Griffiths, 2007)

So we have some researchers asking whether there’s a connection between aggression and addiction within video games. Mark Griffiths is someone I recognize in the psych literature who has done extensive research on addiction, especially gambling.

A simple reasoning from the authors is that according to the lit.: violent video games increase aggression in players, while the addiction part is something that is now recognized amongst MMOG players. So two negative components of video games are now under the psychology microscope. However, their findings suggest that there is no or little connection between aggression and addiction

Method

The study is quite simple really: an online survey of players (7069 players, age average= 21.11, SD=6.35) who completed 2 questionnaires of which they related to gaming behaviours and aggression-related and violent-related variables. Of the gaming behaviours, in order to classify someone as addicted they used criteria based from the ICD-10 for dependence. I don’t know which specific one.

They analyzed the data using chi-square and a one-way ANOVA.

Results

11.9% of players fulfill the criteria for addiction. That’s quite a high number, but I do wonder the percentage of people who are alcoholics or those who are compulsive gamblers? But remember the criteria are adapted from existing diagnostic criteria, so the percentage mark is uncertain, but it should not be ignored because it is judged to be the best criteria under the present circumstances. i.e. video game addiction resembles very much to gambling addiction, even though there are marked differences, but it’s all we have for now.

Appeal of online First Person Shooters (Jansz & Tanis, 2007)

Here’s something to counter argue anti-video games advocates claims of gamers being loners in regards to FPS games on the online world. Anyways, to the authors’ knowledge FPS games are not researched in depth, but they are peripherally. Even the claims of increase in hand-eye coordination is based on the definition of “those that have fast motion, require vigilant monitoring of the visual periphery, and often require the simultaneous tracking of multiple targets.” (Green & Bavelier, 2006) which includes FPS, shoot’em ups, racing, beat’em ups, etc.

Jansz and Tanis conducted an exploratory survey on online FPS players like Counter-Strike, so a survey based on unproven knowledge, i.e. stereotypes heard from media, general knowledge, etc. and gratification theory.  The survey results are that online FPS gamers, in particular players in clans, are motivated by competition and challenge. In addition, players are also in it for the social interaction. i.e. not loners.

Method

• Participants: 751 Dutch-speaking participants who completed the survey online on two unidentified popular websites for online FPS.
• Questionnaires: Demographics (age average = 18, gender mostly male, game behaviour and clan membership: 80% are clan members)
• A likert scale questionnaire based on the gratification theory of which they diluted the answers into 6 categories of motives: competition, interest, enjoyment, fantasy, social interaction, excitement and challenge.

The demographic results are the usual thing: young male who played about 2.6 hours per day. In addition, FPS gamers play an average of 16 hours per compared to RPG gamers who play between 23-25 hours per week and that RPG gamers are older (average 28 years, see Nick Yee).

Looking into the correlational relationship between the 6 categories and demographics revealed some statistically significant relationships. Although they’re significant, the correlations seem awfully small.

Anger personality trait a factor in VG influence on aggressive behaviour (Giumetti & Markey, 2007)

I think my first blog entry wasn’t that great, maybe I should continue and improve.

Now continuing on to another study that’s published in the Journal of Personality Research by Giumetti & Markey.

In this study, Giumetti and Markey looked into the relationship between personality trait of anger and aggressive thoughts after playing video games, again they based the research from the General Aggression Model by Craig Anderson.
They found that anger has an influence on the influence of violent video games on players. In terms of personality, the more angrier players are, the more aggressive than non-angry players.

From past studies on anger personality and the GAM, people who are easily angered than others are more likely to be more violent. They see situations in a hostile manner, so someone spills a drink to a guy and he sees this as provocation or an insult. A third factor is that anger gets you aroused which that arousal would in turn fuel aggressive behaviour if given the opportunity like a provocation. In essence, our personality level of anger influences our interpretation of situations, our judgement and our actions.

In relation to VG, this study examined whether anger has a role in violent or aggressive behaviour. So they have 3 hypotheses to test:
1- Players who just played violent video games will likely respond to ambiguous stories in an aggressive manner.
2- When responding these stories, angrier players are more aggressive than the non-angry players.
3- which in turn leads the idea that anger is one of the factors that influence our reaction to video games.

To explain how relevant it is to test, the first hypothesis can be explained by an example: when you’re hungry the first thing you want to say or think is food. Or when you’re asked to make a story after watching an episode of Star Trek you’re likely to use material that are fresh in your mind. Or like Jack Thompson interpreting ambiguous stories that somehow relates to video games being the cause of bad things, no matter how trivial the story is. (something called closed-mindness)

Hypothesis 2: Even though you’re calm and you have an angry personality. But, you might not notice that you’re still seeing things in red. Along with arousal, you might feel more aggressive in seeing those stories end not so happily.

Hypothesis 3: Of course, violent video games alone don’t directly influence our behaviour. Some aspect of our personality does have a role in our behaviour. And so does being a jerk is a personality.

So how does the researchers do their study?