NURTURE
Childhood Kombat –
“Finish Him!”
The correlation between THE ACADEMIC
aggressive behaviour and DISAGREEMENTS
with
violent video games has So, here’s the problemtherethe
different literature out
that
been hotly debated among discusses and debates the connection
scientists, researchers between violent video games and
and the general public, aggressive behaviour: do violent video
with numerous studies games such as Grand Theft Auto and
its ilk influence children to be overly
done on the topic that aggressive or do these games already
either forcefully debunk or attract kids who are already aggressive
firmly support the notion. to begin with?
Farhan takes a look at the
The main argument of the studies that
available literature and conclude that violent video games do
comes to a conclusion. not promote aggressive behaviour in
Six primary and six secondary
schools…
…with a total of 3,034 children
(73 percent of them males) were
surveyed…
They were asked:
• To list their three favourite video
games
• How often they played each
game
• How frequently each game
contained violent or pro-social
(voluntary behaviour that
benefited other people) themes
…over three years.
END
ER
Family & Life • Jul 2014
three-year longitudinal study
involving 3,034 primary and
secondary school students
in Singapore.
THE STUDY IN SINGAPORE
CAL
18
There are two persistent issues
that plague many of the studies
and research done in this topic:
the period of the investigation
and the lack of mitigating factors
and psychological mediators that
could potentially influence a child’s
aggression. However, recently, a
team of researchers from Singapore
led by Professor Craig A. Anderson,
director of the Department of
Psychology at Iowa State University,
released the conclusions of their
31
Yes, it
is now clear
that frequent
childhood
exposure to
violent media
leads to more
aggressive
adults.
children is that correlation does not
imply causation and that there are a
myriad of other factors in a life of a
child that could influence his or her
behaviour. On the other end of the
spectrum, researchers who argue
that there is a link point out that
the results from all the studies,
when put through a meta-analysis
(discerning the average outcome),
clearly reveals that the results
and effects are quite consistent –
“exposure to violent video games
increases subsequent aggression”.
By Farhan Shah
CALEN DER
1