Behavioral, Attitudinal, and Decision-Altering Effects of Aggressive Video Games on Young Adults

153 Pages·2015·4.22 MB·English

by  Kent Smallwood

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Dissertations Graduate College
12-2007
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Kent Smallwood
Western Michigan University
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Smallwood, Kent, "Behavioral, Attitudinal, and Decision-Altering Effects of Aggressive Video Games on
Young Adults" (2007). Dissertations. 918.
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BEHAVIORAL, ATTITUDINAL, AND DECISION-ALTERING EFFECTS OF
AGGRESSIVE VIDEO GAMES ON YOUNG ADULTS
by
Kent Smallwood
A Dissertation
Submitted to the
Faculty of The Graduate College
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Psychology
Dr. R. Wayne Fuqua, Advisor
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, Michigan
December 2007
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UMI Number: 3295563
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Copyright by
Kent Smallwood
2007
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank, first and foremost, my wife Hilary, for her continued efforts at
preventing my procrastination-fueled bad habits, generally in the videogame playing
realm (ironic, given the subject of the study). I would also like to thank all three of my
research assistants, listed as co-authors in the study, for the many hours they spent
recruiting and running participants. I would especially like to thank Scott Latour, who
kept things running smoothly organizationally while I was out of the state on internship. I
would obviously like to thank my dissertation committee, for agreeing to take on the
supervision of such an outside the box topic.
An eternal debt of gratitude goes out to Joseph Dagen, who assisted me
immensely in the statistical analysis of this study. My ability to design research far
exceeds my ability to statistically analyze it, and so without him, I would likely have been
left with a compelling research question, a conceptually tight and elegant experimental
design, and then a mess of data that I wasn’t sure what to do with.
Thanks to all my friends and family for their support throughout the years. You
know who you are. Thanks to Monster Energy Drink, for keeping me awake during
painful AM therapy groups on internship, and to Anti-Flag, Thursday, and Boy Sets Fire,
the best bands out there. Thanks to Oberon, for being my best friend in the world.
Kent Smallwood
ii
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......................................................................................... ii
LIST OF TABLES...................................................................................................... vi
LIST OF FIGURES..................................................................................................... vii
INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................... 1
Topic Background.......................................................................................... 1
Industry Scope................................................................................................. 3
Foundational and Correlational Research.................................................... 4
Experimental Research................................................................................... 6
Summary.......................................................................................................... 14
METHODS.................................................................................................................. 16
Overview......................................................................................................... 16
Participants...................................................................................................... 16
Pre-experimental Game Selection................................................................. 16
Setting.............................................................................................................. 21
Equipment....................................................................................................... 22
Participant Selection and Informed Consent................................................ 22
Experimental Procedure................................................................................. 22
RESULTS.................................................................................................................... 32
Game Matching............................................................................................... 32
Main Group Analysis..................................................................................... 34
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Table of Contents - Continued
Responder and Non-responder Analysis....................................................... 39
DISCUSSION............................................................................................................. 51
Summary......................................................................................................... 51
Pretest Differences......................................................................................... 52
Posttest Differences....................................................................................... 53
Responder Analysis........................................................................................ 56
Limitations...................................................................................................... 59
Future Research............................................................................................... 61
REFERENCES........................................................................................................... 63
APPENDICES
A. HSIRB Approval Letter................................................................................. 67
Bl. Game Matching Tool-MC.............................................................................. 68
B2. Game Matching Tool-GTA............................................................................ 69
C. Declaration of Interest Forms......................................................................... 71
D. Game Playing Habits Questionnaire............................................................. 72
E. Aggression Provocation Questionnaire......................................................... 73
F1. GTA Controller Handout............................................................................... 80
F2. MC Controller Handout................................................................................. 82
Gl. GTA Cheat Codes........................................................................................... 83
G2. MC Cheat Codes............................................................................................. 88
H. Game Content Data Sheet.............................................................................. 89
iv
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Table of Contents - Continued
I. Aggression Questionnaire............................................................................... 90
J. Video Game Evaluation.................................................................................. 91
K. HSIRB-Approved Consent Document........................................................... 92
L. Unabridged Statistical Analysis..................................................................... 98
M. Visual Representations of Statistically Nonsignificant Data....................... 131
N. Gender Analysis.............................................................................................. 136
0. Recruitment and Session Scripts.................................................................... 139
v
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LIST OF TABLES
1. Game Content Descriptors............................................................................... 19
2. Input Variables and Interobserver Agreement on the
Games in the Study............................................................................................ 21
3. Simulation Decision Matrix............................................................................. 27
4. Experimental Session Order............................................................................ 31
5. Responder Classification and Outcome Variable Summary.......................... 41
vi
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LIST OF FIGURES
1. Video Game Industry Sales Growth, 1996-2005............................................ 4
2. Game Evaluation Means, Questions 1-8......................................................... 33
3. APQ Pretest/Posttest Likert Comparison, GTA-MC and MC-
GTA.................................................................................................................... 37
4. APQ Pretest/Posttest Comparison, Responders vs. Non-responders 43
5. Simulation Aggression Choies Comparison, Responders vs. Non­
responders .......................................................................................................... 44
6. AQ T Score Means, Responders vs. Non-responders.................................... 46
7. AQ Subscale T Scores, Responders vs. Non-responders............................... 47
8. Simulation Repeated Measures Comparison, Responders vs. Non­
responders .......................................................................................................... 48
9. Simulation Repeated Measures Comparison, Responders............................. 49
10. Simulation Repeated Measures Comparison, Non-responders..................... 49
11. Simulation Key Trials Converted Decisions, Responders vs. Non­
responders .......................................................................................................... 50
vii
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