Many folks are discussing Christopher Ferguson’s latest paper on “The School Shooting / Violent Video Game Link: Causal Relationship or Moral Panic?” And with good reason. It’s an important look at how “moral panics” develop in modern society, in this case around video games. [Moral panics is a subject I have written on at length here many times before.  Alice Marwick’s brilliant article on “technopanics” is also worth reading in this regard].

As I’ve noted here before, Ferguson has penned many important articles raising questions about the claims made by some other psychologists (and politicians) that there is causal relationship between exposure to violent video games and youth aggression. Ferguson has shown there are reasons to be skeptical of such claims — both methodologically and practically-speaking. More on that down below.

In his latest piece, however, Ferguson, a professor at Texas A&M’s Department of Behavioral, Applied Sciences and Criminal Justice, is more fully developing moral panic theory, which he describes as follows: “A moral panic occurs when a segment of society believes that the behavior or moral choices of others within that society poses a significant risk to the society as a whole.”  To illustrate the various forces at work that drive moral panics, Ferguson uses this “Moral Panic Wheel”:

This image makes it clear that there is no one group or factor responsible for moral panics. Rather, it is the combination of many forces and influences that ultimately bring such panic about. Activist groups and agenda-driven researchers obviously play a part. Ferguson notes that:

As for social scientists, it has been observed that a small group of researchers have been most vocal in promoting the anti-game message (Kutner & Olson, 2008), oftentimes ignoring research from other researchers, or failing to disclose problems with their own research. As some researchers have staked their professional reputation on anti-game activism, it may be difficult for these researchers to maintain scientific objectivity regarding the subject of their study. Similarly, it may be argued that granting agencies are more likely to provide grant money when a potential problem is identified, rather than for studying a topic with the possibility that the outcome may reveal that there is nothing to worry about…

Ferguson points out that the media and politicians also play a key role in whipping up a frenzy:

The media dutifully reports on the most negative results, as these results ‘sell’ to an already anxious public. Politicians seize upon the panic, eager to be seen as doing something particular as it gives them an opportunity to appear to be ‘concerned for children’. Media violence, in particular, is an odd social issue with the ability to appeal both to voters on the far right, who typically are concerned for religious reasons, and on the far left, who are typically motivated by pacifism…

Importantly, Ferguson also notes that the generation gap fuels the fires of moral panics: “[T]he majority of individuals critical of video games are above the age of 35 (many are elderly) and oftentimes admit to not having directly experienced the games. Some commentators make claims betraying their unfamiliarity,” he says.

Now, let’s get back to Ferguson’s more general skepticism of what other psychologists or social scientists have said about violent video games causing real world violence. [I highly recommend this layman-friendly essay that Ferguson wrote as an introduction to his thinking on the topic]. In his latest piece, he summarizes what is wrong — both from a methodological and real-world perspective — with that research. Here’s some of what he has to say:

• “Seldom are actual physical acts of aggression examined” in that research
• “there are considerable difficulties in generalizing the results from laboratory tests of aggression to real world serious acts of aggression”
• “the generalisability of these results to real world acts of serious violence is dubious”
• “most correlational studies fail to take account of potentially confounding ‘third’ variables such as personality, family violence, or genetics. A few do, and consistently find that the link between video game violence and aggression is greatly weakened by the inclusion of ‘third’ variables.”
• “[there are] significant problems in the violent games literature related to the use of unstandardized, unreliable aggression measures, as well as publication bias.”
• “the empirical link between violent gameplay and serious acts of aggression or violent behavior appears to be slim at best.”
• “In at least one recent court case, it was pointed out that even some social scientists have cherry-picked data that support the panic view, ignoring unsupportive research.”

Next, Ferguson does something I have been trying to do in all the papers and essays I have penned on this subject in recent years: Introduce real-world data! After all, if there is anything to the ‘monkey see-monkey do’ theory of media effects, then the lab research should be showing up somehow in the data we have about actual societal trends. Of course, when you do look at real-world data you find the exact opposite story, as Ferguson illustrates:

as violent video games have become more prevalent, violent crimes have decreased dramatically. This is true both for police arrest data, as well as crime victimization data. Similar statistics for reduced crime have been found in Canada, Australia, the European Union, and the United Kingdom using both arrest and victimization data. This is certainly not to say that violent video games are necessarily responsible for this decline, even partially. However, this certainly cuts away the basis of any belief that violent games are promoting societal violence. The correlation (an astonishing r = -0.95) is simply in the wrong direction. This would be akin to lung cancer decreasing radically after smoking cigarettes was introduced into a population, which is simply not the case.

(Sources: C.F. Ferguson, ESA, Childsats.org)

I highly recommend Prof. Ferguson’s latest paper and hope that it can contribute to the shaping of a new dialogue about youth and media. We do need to be good stewards of our children and be mindful of watch they watch, listen to, download, and play. [I’ve written an entire book about how to do so.]  But we first need to bring this moral panic over games to an end so we can get on with a serious, level-headed conversation about how to better mentor our kids in an age of media abundance.  The current hysteria is not helpful.

A new study (which is actually based on an old study) by Dr. Craig Anderson of Iowa State University and two other researchers is making news today because it suggests a link between violent video games and real-world aggression. I have written extensively about such studies here in the past, and have included a list of relevant links down below. But let me just use the opportunity to restate the fundamental problem with the way the press reports these things.

1. First, the press typically accepts the assertion made by authors of studies like these that the social “science” is unanimous in support of such a link between exposure to violent video games and real-world aggression. there is another side the story, but the press usually doesn’t report on it.
2. Second, reporters almost always fail to ask about how the researchers define “violent” games and the resulting “aggression” found in these studies.
3. Third, reporters almost never ask about how strong the correlation is or, more importantly, what other variables might have had an influence on the the subjects who were studied. (For example, did they factor in real violence in the home or at school?)
4. Finally, the reporters almost never query the researchers about the biases they bring to the task of studying this issue (namely, do these researchers have strong feelings about the content in the games they review such that they think they should be regulated in some fashion?).

Luckily, other social researchers are willing to point out these deficiencies. (See, for example, my reviews of the recent books by Drs. Kutner & Olson as well as Dr. Kourosh Dini.)  With reference to the new study reported in the press today, Texas A&M researcher Dr. Christopher Ferguson has challenged the study on many of the grounds I listed above. Specifically, in a letter to the journal (Pediatrics) in which the Anderson study appeared, Dr. Ferguson argues:

In the literature review the authors suggest that research on video game violence is consistent when this is hardly the case. The authors here simply ignore a wide body of research which conflicts with their views. A bibliography of research studies finding either null results for video game violence or results that suggest that violent game play reduces aggression is appended to this review. The authors fail to control for relevant “third” variables that could easily explain the weak correlations that they find. Family violence exposure for instance, peer group influences, certainly genetic influences on aggressive behavior are just a few relevant variables that ought either be controlled or at minimum acknowledged as alternate causal agents for (very small) link between video games and aggression. Overall results are very weak with effect sizes ranging from (.07 to .15). Video game exposure overlapped in this study approximately half a percent to 2% with the variance in aggression, which is as close to zero as one can get without being zero. If anything it is remarkable how little effect that violent games had on trait aggression, considering that other relevant variables were not controlled. Likely if other variables had been better controlled, such small effects may have vanished. Lastly the authors link their results to youth violence in ways that are misleading and irresponsible. The authors do not measure youth violence in their study. The Buss Aggression measure is not a violence measure, nor does it even measure pathological aggression. Rather this measure asks for hypothetical responses to potential aggressive situations, not actual aggressive behaviors. […] the authors appear to generalize their results to youth violence, but offer no compelling reason why this should be, particularly in light of the weak results they achieve. The authors also fail to note that during the period in which violent video games became increasingly popular, youth violence has plummeted approximately 66% to levels not seen since the 1960s (childstats.gov, 2008; FBI, 1951- 2007). Although I suspect the authors would simply try to argue that this does not matter, such arguments are disingenuous, particularly as they raise the issue of youth violence themselves. In short, given the weak effect sizes, the lack of control of relevant variables, and the failure of the authors to acknowledge data and research which contradicts their hypothesis, I am left with little confidence that the results of the current study provides much meaningful information on the impact of violent games.

It’s that fourth point he mentions above about defining “youth violence” or “aggression” that I think is most important. When you read through many of these studies that claim to find a link between violent games and real-world aggression, the definitions of “aggression” or “harm” are often a scandalous stretch of the imagination.  (One study I read two years ago referred gossip among peers and siblings as a form of aggression!)  More importantly, as Ferguson rightly notes, at some point the research needs to be compared against real-world data if we are going to take this “monkey see, monkey do” theory of media effects seriously. Of course, when you do look at real-world data, you find the exact opposite story: Juvenile crime rates have plummeted even as exposure to video games has exploded. I have documented this in my big paper on “Fact and Fiction in the Debate Over Video Game Regulation” as well as some of the essays I list down below.

Bottom line: There is another side to the story and the press needs to dig a little deeper to find it. At a minimum, they need to stop blindly accepting every assertion and assumption made by the authors of these studies and instead start asking some tough questions about the details. Most simply, they should (1) start by asking whether how the researchers account for other variables that influence human behavior and then (2) make them account for why their theories do no match up to real-world data.

Anyway, you can find Dr. Ferguson’s own work on the matter here and in his letter to Pediatrics he references some other literature on the subject you should be reading for the other side of the story. Also, here are my relevant blog entries on the subject from past years:

• Why hasn’t violent media turned us into a nation of killers?
• Are All Video Games Violent?
• Do video games create cop killers?
• Let’s Consider the Facts Before We Call In Government to Regulate Video Games
• review: Kutner & Olson’s “Grand Theft Childhood”
• review: Dr. Kourosh Dini’s “Video Game Play & Addiction”
• Jenkins on new Pew report about “Teens, Video Games, and Civics”