(Press-News.org) The older the clinician, the more likely they are to think playing video games leads to violent behavior, according to new research published in Computers in Human Behavior.
Psychology professor Dr. Christopher Ferguson, author of the study from Stetson University, US, says his findings go some way to explaining why people have different opinions about the effect of video games and suggests many of the reasons come down to generational issues. For parents, one way to close this gap is speaking to children and testing out the games themselves.
As long as video games have existed, people have thought about and studied their effect on behavior. But thirty years of research hasn't fully answered the question of whether playing games causes harm and people still have conflicting opinions about the topic. Two experts - for example clinicians - can look at the same data and draw the opposite conclusion, so Dr. Ferguson wanted to understand what factors affect their opinions.
In the study he analyzes the opinions of 109 clinicians who work with children and families to see whether they believe video games are a problem for society.. Overall, there is no agreement - only 39.5% of clinicians think playing video games causes violent behaviour.
Most of the clinicians surveyed who have a hostile view towards video games are older and the majority of the clinicians surveyed are not gamers, reporting that they played zero hours of video games a week in the last six months. Dr. Ferguson says there is a generational effect at play.
"Older people who are parents or grandparents don't tend to use new media, such as video games, and they often only see clips of its worst examples, so they believe there is some potential to cause harm," said Dr. Ferguson. "The young people who use the new media don't buy into this, but no one listens to them because they're kids."
Dr. Ferguson suggests that to minimize the generation gap effect, parents could talk to their children about video games, and even try them out. "Ask kids why they like playing these games, and play them yourself," he suggests. "Direct experience will give you much better insight than a 20 second clip on Fox News."
This concern about new forms of media is not new. In the 1950s, there were Congressional hearings in the US over comic books causing juvenile delinquency. In the 1980s the story returned, but this time over the dangers of listening to rock music: some people thought it was causing suicide, violence and occultism in young people.
"We tend to see a lot of controversies like this around young people; moral panics about teens are nothing new," said Dr. Ferguson. "As a nation, we freak out about something, then everyone thinks it's crazy 15 years later. Now we can't imagine how anyone thought listening to Tom Petty and Cindy Lauper was making us behave violently."
"As people get older, the culture changes and they feel it slipping away from them," said Dr. Ferguson. "Comic books, rock music and video games are the sorts of new media that older people don't feel part of when they emerge, and that can skew their opinions. Clinicians are no different - they're people too, and are susceptible to these reactions."
Such opinion bias in experts like clinicians could be problematic, since they provide expert testimonials and policy statements. For example, scholars are currently lobbying the American Psychological Association (APA) to retire their statements on video games, as their conclusions are controversial and do not reflect consensus.
INFORMATION:
Read more on: Elsevier Connect
Notes to editors
"Clinicians' attitudes toward video games vary as a function of age, gender and negative beliefs about youth: A sociology of media research approach" by Christopher J. Ferguson, Department of Psychology, Stetson University.
Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 52, November 2015, Pages 379-386.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563215004562
About Computers in Human Behavior
Computers in Human Behavior is a scholarly journal dedicated to examining the use of computers from a psychological perspective. Original theoretical works, research reports, literature reviews, software reviews, book reviews and announcements are published. The journal addresses both the use of computers in psychology, psychiatry and related disciplines as well as the psychological impact of computer use on individuals, groups and society. http://www.journals.elsevier.com/computers-in-human-behavior
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care, and sometimes make groundbreaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions -- among them ScienceDirect, Scopus, Elsevier Research Intelligence and ClinicalKey -- and publishes over 2,500 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and more than 33,000 book titles, including a number of iconic reference works. Elsevier is part of RELX Group plc, a world-leading provider of information solutions for professional customers across industries. http://www.elsevier.com
WASHINGTON and NEW YORK (August 19, 2015)--A new report examining newly-released data from the 2014 Uniform Data System (UDS), which collects patient and health care information from the nation's community health centers, shows how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is changing insurance coverage and health care in the nation's most medically underserved urban and rural communities. Examining data collected from nearly 1,300 federally funded health centers operating in over 9,000 locations, the report shows that between 2013 and 2014, the number of health center patients with ...
CHICAGO, IL, August 19, 2015 - A new study revealed that your cereal choice at breakfast might have an impact on how much you eat for lunch. Newly published research in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition showed that a hearty bowl of instant oatmeal helped curb food intake at lunch better than a leading oat-based, cold cereal -- even when each bowl provided the same number of calories.
The statistically significant results of the randomized, controlled crossover study (n=47) showed that a 250-calorie instant oatmeal serving (with an additional 113 calories ...
Racial disparity in mortgage rates is widespread between black and white borrowers, according to a newly published study which found more financially vulnerable black women suffer the most.
The study, led by Ping Cheng, Ph.D., professor of finance in Florida Atlantic University's College of Business, used data from three waves of U.S. Survey of Consumer Finance and found that black borrowers on average pay about 29 basis points more than comparable white borrowers, or .29 percent more. Their article was published in the July 2015 issue of The Journal of Real Estate Finance ...
Reducing trade barriers between countries reduces the likelihood of armed conflict and leads to a reduction in defence spending. In turn, this promotes a domino effect in relation to other countries, which has a positive effect on the situation in the world as a whole. This is the conclusion reached by Roman Zakharenko, Assistant Professor of the HSE International College of Economics and Finance, and his colleagues regarding the relationship between trade and defence spending.
In today's word, armed conflicts are not as frequent as they used to be, but defence spending ...
Scientists at the University of Surrey found peak concentrations of potentially harmful ultrafine particles reach up to 4000 times local background levels when undertaking building activities such as drilling. Breathing of these particles is linked with serious cardiovascular and respiratory system related diseases, with ultrafine particles penetrating deeper into the lungs.
The researchers also found that the greatest ultrafine particle emissions occurred during wall chasing (cutting grooves into a wall using an electrical tool, for example to lay electrical cables). ...
BOSTON, Aug. 19, 2015 -- Tomato lovers rejoice: Adding or rearranging a few simple steps in commercial processing could dramatically improve the flavor of this popular fruit sold in the grocery store, according to researchers.
The scientists will present new research on flavor-saving methods at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The meeting features more than 9,000 reports on new advances in science and other topics. It is being held here through Thursday.
"Ideally, tomatoes should ...
BOSTON, Aug.19, 2015 -- Cross contamination in commercial processing facilities that prepare spinach and other leafy greens for the market can make people sick. But researchers are reporting a new, easy-to-implement method that could eliminate or reduce such incidences.
The scientists will present their work at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The meeting features more than 9,000 reports on new advances in science and other topics. It is being held here through Thursday.
Each year ...
BOSTON, Aug. 19, 2015 -- Alcoholism inflicts a heavy physical, emotional and financial toll on individuals and society. Now new discoveries and promising animal studies are offering a glimmer of hope that a new class of drugs could treat the disease without many of the unwanted side effects caused by current therapies.
Researchers are presenting the results of their work today at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The meeting features more than 9,000 presentations on a wide range of science ...
University of Tokyo researchers discovered an increase in a helium isotope during a ten-year period before the 2014 Mount Ontake eruption in central Japan. The finding suggests that this helium isotope anomaly is related to activation of the volcano's magma system and could be a valuable marker for long-term risk mitigation concerning volcanic eruption.
Small quantities of the isotope helium-3 are present in the mantle, while helium-4 is produced in the crust and mantle by radioactive decay. A higher ratio of helium-3 to helium-4 therefore indicates that a sample of helium ...
Seven million women a year in the developing world are treated in healthcare facilities for complications following unsafe abortion, finds a study published today (19 August) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology (BJOG).
Every day, approximately 800 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Unsafe abortion accounts for 8 - 15% of maternal deaths and remains one of the leading causes of maternal mortality worldwide.[1] However, these figures do not take into account the number of women who are surviving but need hospital ...
