Violent Videogames and Aggressive Behavior in Women
This is a summary outlining the findings of a study done by Craig Anderson and Christine Murphy. Their research sought to further strengthen the study of videogames by analyzing aspects of the field which had been wholly untapped, namely, their effects on women. A surge in the field of videogame study emerged after the publicity violent videogames got in the media due the columbine school shootings. This study chose to analyze whether a group that is historically uninterested in videogames would develop aggressive behavior, and if increased identification with the characters (female players, female characters) would enhance aggressive tendencies. Instrumental aggressive motivation and revenge motivation were the two types of aggression being analyzed; the former being pure frustration and anger generated from mental engagement, while the latter focuses on aggression toward others (namely revenge on the opponent). To study this, 91 female undergrads were chosen to play two games, Street Fighter and OH NO More Lemmings! 33 of the women were to play a female protagonist, 30 were to play just the fighting game, and 27 to play the non-violent game (one was disqualified during the study). The procedure included two tests, Taylor Competitive Reaction Time (TCRT) and a questionnaire. Aggressive behavior could be analyzed with the TCRT by having the women be subjected to loud noises when they lost, while under the impression that their unseen competitor was choosing how loud to blast them. In the second round of playing, the women got to chose the loudness of the sound blast to their opponent, and after two identical rounds (in terms of wins and losses) the researchers administered questionnaires that asked the women how angry they were while playing. The findings reported positive correlations between both revenge and instrumental aggression with the fighting game, which were much stronger than those found in the Lemmings group. However, there was not a significant enough difference between those playing a female character as opposed to a male character, and thus there is no conclusive evidence that a female identifies more (at least aggressively) with a female character. The self reported revenge motivation correlation to instrumental correlation as seen through the questionnaire (in correlation to the results) were as follows =r<.31 P<.001, Revenge Motivation recorded by TCRT r=.51 N=90 P<.001, Instrumental Motivation recorded by TCRT= r=.26 N=90 P<.05. This shows that there were positive correlations between (connections between) the results received from the TCRT and from the questionnaire, thus making the findings of the study somewhat solid. The only factor that may discredit the study is the relatively low r^2 values associated with the findings. The revenge motivation is a clear byproduct of the TCRT, with a higher r^2 value of .51, but instrumental motivation is low at .26, which shows that there are many outliers in the study, and thus a new factor needs to be analyzed. In short, the results of this study showed that there is a clear aggressive reaction from women that violent videogames such as Street Fighter instigates. Although identification with characters should be a leading factor in aggressive behavior, gender identification is not significant. Finally, revenge, as opposed to instrumental motivation was a much larger influence on aggression, thus showing that the competitive nature of videogames may have more of an influence on aggression than the way in which people identify with characters.
