![]() Despite recent improvements in customizing manipulations (Hilgard et al., 2019), such artificial designs aren’t likely to generalize beyond the lab (Sherry, 2007 Yarkoni, 2020). The typical experiment has one group play a game featuring violence and another group play a game not featuring violence (e.g., Miedzobrodzka et al., 2021). Unlike basic behaviors that can be isolated in the lab more easily, video game play is complex and thus difficult to measure-let alone manipulate (Eronen & Bringmann, 2021 Markey, 2015). ![]() Yet, even those advances haven’t addressed one of the most important limitations of the literature: poor data quality (Davidson et al., 2021). ![]() Research following current gold standards of full transparency aligns with meta-analyses showing little effects (Ferguson & Wang, 2019 Hilgard et al., 2019 Johannes et al., 2022 Przybylski & Weinstein, 2019). Moreover, a lot of the ‘raw material’ of these meta-analyses has been shown to result from poor research practices (Drummond & Sauer, 2019 Elson & Przybylski, 2017 Hilgard et al., 2017)-a problem well-known in meta-analysis which can only produce inferences as good as the individual studies (Ioannidis, 2016 Vosgerau et al., 2019). Recent meta-analyses that address these problems find little to no association between playing violent video games and aggression (Drummond et al., 2020 Ferguson, 2015 Furuya-Kanamori & Doi, 2016). Many researchers have criticized not only that conclusion, but also the statistical analyses leading to it (Hilgard et al., 2017). Several older meta-analyses conclude that playing violent video games causes aggression (Anderson et al., 2010 Anderson & Bushman, 2001). If we don’t measure the behavior in question, we cannot advice policymakers on its effects (IJzerman et al., 2020).Ĭompounding the lack of a clear theoretical account is the inconsistent quality of evidence (Drummond & Sauer, 2019). A central shortcoming of evidence so far is poor data quality: Most studies investigate the effects of playing violent video games without actually measuring such play (Markey, 2015 Weber et al., 2020). The quality of that evidence is critical not only for scientific debate public stakeholders regularly invite social scientists to give expert opinions and file legal briefs in court decisions on video games (Elson et al., 2019 Ferguson, 2018 Hall et al., 2011). The evidence for effects of these games on aggression is contested (Bushman et al., 2015 Bushman & Anderson, 2002 Huesmann, 2010 Ivory et al., 2015 Markey et al., 2015). Indeed, the social sciences know few topics as contentious as research on games that feature conflict, combat, and competition-referred to in the literature, perhaps overly simplistic, as violent video games (Ferguson & Konijn, 2015 Grimes et al., 2008 Hall et al., 2011 Orben, 2020). Our results showcase the value of obtaining accurate industry data as well as an open science of video games and mental health that allows cumulative knowledge building.įor more than four decades the discourse surrounding video games has been dominated by the idea that playing games causes players to become aggressive and antisocial (Blumenthal, 1976). We found that playing these games did not increase aggressive affect the cross-lagged association between game time and aggressive affect was virtually zero. ![]() Specifically, we asked how time spent playing two popular online shooters, Apex Legends (PEGI 16) and Outriders (PEGI 18), affected self-reported feelings of anger (i.e., aggressive affect). We analyzed objective in-game behavior, provided by video game companies, in 2,580 players over six weeks. Here, we present a secondary analysis of the most authoritative longitudinal data set available on the issue from our previous study (Vuorre et al., 2021). Unfortunately, that debate has produced insights that remain preliminary without accurate behavioral data. There is a lively debate whether playing games that feature armed combat and competition (often referred to as violent video games) has measurable effects on aggression.
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