Sample Library Research

Sample Library Research Report

Firstname Lastname

ILR 260

Research question:

“Do violent video games lead to real-life violence and aggression?”

SOURCE 1

Psychiatric researchers Guy Porter and Vladan Starcevic (2007) conducted a broad examination

of the literature on video games and aggression. Their meta-analysis includes a study that

found that adolescents who play violent video games also exhibit more hostility and aggressive

behavior through fights, arguments, and poor school performance. The authors also reviewed

studies involving individuals playing violent video games in a laboratory setting that

demonstrate a connection between the video game play and aggressive feelings and behaviors.

They conclude that while available evidence does not demonstrate a direct causal connection

between violent play and violent acts, it does suggest that violent play has the potential to

worsen “hostile” and “antisocial” personal traits in individuals already possessing violent

tendencies.

SOURCE 1 CITATION

Porter, G., & Starcevic, V. (2007). Are violent video games harmful? Australasian

Psychiatry,15(5), 422-426. doi:10.1080/10398560701463343

SOURCE 2

Christopher Barlett, a psychologist at Iowa State University, led a research team that studied

the effects of violent video game play on undergraduates. The students played the game Time

Crisis 3 for fifteen minutes, after which they underwent a series of physiological and behavioral

assessments. The researchers found that the students exposed to the most violent game

sequence had elevated heart rates and favored violent responses to hypothetical scenarios

presented by the researchers. These findings, they contend, suggest at least the possibility that

violent video game play may have a causal relationship with real-life violence.

SOURCE 2 CITATION

Barlett, C. P., Harris, R. J., & Baldassaro, R. (2007). Longer you play, the more hostile you feel:

examination of first person shooter video games and aggression during video game play.

Aggressive Behavior, 33(6), 486-497.

SOURCE 3

Sociologist Joel Best (1998) argues that social anxiety about popular children’s

entertainments—especially that they might exert a “dark” influence—are not new (p. 197). He

points to newspaper and book commentaries dating back a century to demonstrate that these

kinds of fears have been around for a long time. Back then people worried about violent

imagery in the cheap adventure novels sold to boys. In more recent times the focus shifted to

movies and television, and it now hovers around violent video games.

SOURCE 3 CITATION

Best, J. (1998). Too much fun: Toys as social problems and the interpretation of culture.

Symbolic Interaction, 21(2), 197-212.

SOURCE 4

In a 2007 article that appeared in Psychiatric Quarterly, research psychologist Christopher

Ferguson criticizes a large number of studies linking video games and aggression, including one

in which the researcher used a “noise blast” program (which produces an irritating noise to

punish player error). Ferguson argues that the program’s inconsistent frequencies and pitches

could be changed during violent and non-violent interaction during game play and thus could

be used to skew the results and falsely suggest a causal relationship between violent video

game play and real-life aggression.

SOURCE 4 CITATION

Ferguson, C. (2007). The good, the bad and the ugly: A meta-analytic review of positive and

negative effects of violent video games. Psychiatric Quarterly, 78(4), 309-316.