Videogames increase aggressive behavior in players. Okay, maybe they don't. Or maybe they do. The facts show that really there is no one-way to pinpoint aggressive and violent videogames as leading to an increase of aggressive behavior. A recent report has come out to attest to that fact that it may be a fact never fully known or realized.

From the article:

Any scientific link between violent video games and violent behavior remains tenuous.

At least, that’s the conclusion of a Ph.D faculty member at Texas A&M International University’s Department of Behavioral, Applied Sciences and Criminal Justice. The researcher, Christopher Ferguson forwarded GamePolitics information about a study he recently completed. In an e-mail, Ferguson wrote:

I conducted a meta-analysis of studies associating violent video game exposure with aggressive behaviors. A meta-analysis involves collecting existing studies in the literature, and obtaining an over all effect size (i.e. degree of relationship) for all of the studies examined. This allows us to get a sense, not just for individual research projects, but rather for the overall result from combined studies in a field.

In the current publication, studies that examined violent video game effects on aggressive behavior were analyzed. Also examined was a phenomenon called “publication bias” which means that scientific journals are more likely to publish studies that support a particular hypothesis than those that reject it.

Results from the current meta-analysis found that there were about 25 recent studies on violent video game effects, with conflicting results.

Overall results of the study found that although violent video games appear to increase people’s aggressive thoughts (which it would not be surprising that people are still thinking about what they were just playing), violent games do not appear to increase aggressive behavior.

This as true for both correlational and experimental studies. Also it was found that studies that employed less standardized measures of aggression produced higher effects than better standardized measures of aggression. In other words, better measures of aggression are associated with lower effects.

Publication bias appeared to be a significant issue for studies of aggressive behavior. Thus it was concluded that there is little evidence from the current body of literature on violent video games that playing violent video games is either causally or correlationally associated with increases in aggressive behavior.

Read the full article over at gamepolitics.com