The study comes from the American Psychological Association, who state: “the research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognitions and aggressive affect, and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy and sensitivity to aggression”.

One of those academics, a Stetson University psychology professor, Chris Ferguson went a step further and wrote to point out the exact reasons why APA’s report that claims behavioral aggression can directly be related to games, cannot be believed.

The report stated that no single risk factor consistently lead a person to act aggressively or violently, it was the accumulation of risk factors that tends to lead to aggressive or violent behaviour.

The theory that playing violent video games can lead to aggression after all!

The task force (of APA that held the study) appeared to have been selected from among scholars with clear anti-media views (two had previously signed an amicus brief supporting attempts to regulate violent video games in the Brown v EMA 2011 Supreme Court case for instance).

At a meeting in Toronto, Canada, earlier this month the association’s ruling council also called for a video game rating system that took more notice of violence and for games to be more appropriate to players’ age and psychological development.

Violent video game use is one such risk factor.

The findings have prompted a call for more parental control over violent scenes in video games from the American Psychological Association (APA). “For example, how do depression or delinquency interact with violent video game use?” The new resolution replaces a 2005 resolution on the same topic.

Child playing a video game photo by shutterstock.

Appelbaum acknowledged “some variation among the individual studies”, but said that “a strong and consistent general pattern has emerged from many years of research that provides confidence in our general conclusions”. This is a position the APA has long held and this new report simply reasserts that position in its newly released 49-page report. “Numerous medical professionals, researchers, and courts all debunk the fundamental thesis of their argument”, a representative said in a report sent to Polygon. “As with most areas of science, the picture presented by this research is more complex than is usually included in news coverage and other information prepared for the general public”.

Perhaps the next step for researchers is to find out if video games actually have a long-term effect on gamers (we think they’ll find that games – like everything else in the world – do not cause long-term aggressive behavior in people). Contrary to the APA Task Force’s report, Grizzard’s research found that players would become more sensitive to the moral codes they were violating in the game.

The APA Task Force’s review also doesn’t include the latest research on violent video games, since the Task Force only examined studies published until mid-2013.

In addition to Appelbaum, members of the APA Task Force on Violent Media were: Sandra Calvert, PhD; Kenneth Dodge, PhD; Sandra Graham, PhD; Gordon N. Hall, PhD; Sherry Hamby, PhD; and Larry Hedges, PhD.