Media Psychology PSYA4

1. The negative effects of
computers and video games

2. Video games and aggression - Lab studies
AO1 AO2
- Have found an increase in physiological
arousal, hostile feelings and aggressive
behaviour following playing violent
computer games (compared to non
violent computer games)
- Anderson and Dill, one group played
violent games + one control group. They
were blasted with white noise, they
failed then then filled out a hostility
rating scale and found that those who
played the violent games had a higher
hostility rating
× Ethical issues, causing distress in real life
(aggression) Protection from
psychological harm if we provoke
children to be aggressive, hostile,
physiological arousal we cant generalise
to real life
 Lab studies are also artificially controlled
which means that they are highly
reliable
× However they do not resemble real life,
which means that demand
characteristics may take place

3. Video games and aggression- Longitudinal studies
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- Anderson et al surveyed 430 children
aged 7-9 twice during the school year
(start+ end). They found that children
who played a lot of violent video games
were more physically and verbally
aggressive.
 This was a field experiment, based on
real life so it was an improvement
× However with these types of
experiment extraneous variables aren't
controlled for. Some children may just
gravitate towards video games because
they are already violent in nature
× They also do not have a reliable causal
link, which causes which? Gentile
criticises this study for this

4. Video games and aggression- Meta-analysis on the video games and
aggression link
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- Several meta analysis’ have found a
consistent link between violent game
play and aggressive behaviour. This
association seems to hold for both
children and adults
- It might be expected that there larger
effects with newer studies as video
games have increasingly become more
violent over time, this was the pattern
found in Gentile and Anderson’s study at
least
× Again however it is hard to establish a
causal link between the two does an
already aggressive child cause them to
play violent games or do violent games
cause aggression?

5. Computers – Facebook use, friends and stress
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- Researchers in 2011 interviewed
200 undergraduate students in
Scotland they found that 2% of
users experienced anxiety. Those
who reported anxiety described
stress as deleting unwanted
contacts and the constant
pressure to be humorous and
entertaining 32% of users said
that they felt guilty about
rejecting friend requests
 Further support of this is the case study of an 18year
old asthmatic man, who had managed to keep his
asthma under control, he hadn't had am asthma attack
in a while. However his girlfriend broke up with him
over Facebook and deleted him as a friend off of it. So
he created a new account with a different name so he
could add her again however when he saw her pictures
his asthma worsened.
× A criticism of this is that, there is no further evidence
that Facebook caused his asthma to worsen, he could
have seen her in the street and the same thing happen
to him, her face is what caused his asthma to worsen
not Facebook
× How you choose to use Facebook is their decision, no
one told him to create a new account and stalk his ex
girlfriend that was his choice, so his worsened asthma
maybe his own doing
× There also maybe other extraneous variables that
caused his asthma to worsen for example a change in
environment/ weather/ illness
× As this was a case study we cannot generalise this to
the whole population either

6. The negative effects of Facebook use and grades
AO1 AO2
- Karpinski conducted a study at Ohio
university. He found that the majority of
students who used Facebook everyday
underachieved by as much as an entire
grade in contrast to students who didn’t
use Facebook as often.
× We can’t establish a causal relationship
as we cant isolate extraneous variables.
Are they already easily distractible
students?
× There is lack of supporting evidence for
the negative effects of Facebook as the
internet and social media accounts are
quite new to the world and so there is a
limited amount of studies conducted
into them
 However, there is some supporting
evidence of Facebook, for example
when Greenfield showed a presentation
at the house of Lords arguing that
Facebook shortens a persona attention
span

7. The positive effects of
computers and video games

8. Helping behaviour
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- Researchers had participants
play lemmings. This game was
about ensuring the safety of all
the lemmings. Researchers
then pretended to accidently
knock over a box of pencils.
Participants who played
lemmings were more likely to
volunteer to help than the
control group who hadn't
played lemmings
× But why don’t pro-social video games have more of an effect? The
researchers who conducted the lemmings study came to the
conclusion that even though social games can influence behaviour
85% of video games involve violence
 Researchers have found that the video game Tetris can help to
reduce or even prevent memory flashbacks after post traumatic
stress events. Researchers showed images from a film of personal
injury from traffic accidents for instance. 30 minutes later some
volunteers played Tetris for 10 minutes some played pub quiz and
some didn’t play anything. In a second experiment the wait
between being shown the film and playing the games was
extended to 4 hours. They found that in both experiments those
who played Tetris had significantly fewer flashbacks from the
images on the film compared to the other groups. Tetris was
effective as long it was played within a four hour window after the
traumatic event. The researchers concluded that playing the game
minimises the minds tendency to flash back to memories or
traumatic events. It is thought that Tetris reduces flashbacks
because it competes with the same sensory memory channels
that are need to form that memory
 Therapeutic applications of video games – a certain video game
‘virtual Iraq computer game’ is a computer simulation which has
been used to allow soldiers suffering post traumatic stress
disorder to relive and confront psychological trauma in a low
threat context.

9. Facebook use and self esteem
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- Researchers conducted a study,
participants were given 3 minutes to
do wither one of the three things, look
in a mirror, go on Facebook or just do
nothing for 3 minutes. They asked the
participants afterwards to say
something positive about themselves
the researchers found that those who
had been on Facebook gave more
positive feedback about themselves
× Why does Facebook increase self esteem?
This study has been criticised because its
argued that Facebook is only a self
esteem booster because we get to select
what information and photos are on
there, so how we represent ourselves to
others is always in a positive light because
we control it