Video games and Violence

The verdict is still out on Video Games - Do violent games cause aggression in children?

Well this recent study found that, no, in this case they showed no significant effect on children!

So this study recruited 302 (mainly Hispanic) children between 10 and 14 as part of a larger study of youth violence. They were interviewed twice - once at the start of the study and again 12 months later.

Their exposure to violence both in video games and on television as well as negative life events, including neighborhood problems, negative relationships with adults, antisocial personality, family attachment, and delinquent peers were all taken into account, as well as the styles of family interaction and communication, adolescents' exposure to domestic violence, depressive symptoms, serious aggression, bullying and delinquent behavior.

One year later they found that only 7% of the children who played violent videogames reported engaging in at least one criminally violent act. Only 19% reported engaging in at least one non-violent crime.

The researchers concluded that violent video games were not a good predictor of violent behaviour.

But what they did find was that depressive symptoms were a strong predictor for youth aggression and rule breaking, and their influence was particularly severe for those who had pre-existing antisocial personality traits.

This evidence doesn't end the argument about video games, but it's another step towards finding out the truth!

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How Lemonade Curbs Aggression

Need to give somebody some bad news and fear they may get just a little bit angry with you? Give them some Sugary Lemonade first and be amazed at the difference!

A recent study has found that people who drink a glass of lemonade with sugar acted less aggressively toward a stranger a few minutes later than people who consumed lemonade with a sugar substitute.

Now why would this make a difference? The researchers suggest that the increased glucose in the sugared lemonade allows the person to have greater self control, which enables them to avoid their angry impulse. This is because self control takes a lot of energy, and the extra glucose gives this energy to the brain.

It was also found in other studies that that people who have trouble using glucose in their bodies show more evidence of aggression.

"Diabetes may not only harm yourself -- it is bad for society," said Bushman (co-author of the study.) This is because those with diabetes struggle with using their glucose, meaning, this study suggests, they are likely to suffer from increased aggression.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to find that boosting glucose levels can reduce actual aggressive behavior," Bushman said.

Interestingly, when 2001 data was anaysed, the researchers found that diabetes rates for each of the 50 US states were linked to violent crime rates. Those states with higher diabetes rates also tended to have higher rates of murder, assault, rape and robbery, even after controlling for poverty rates in each state.

In a Prisoner's Dilemma experiment, those who scored higher on diabetic symptoms were less likely to forgive an initially uncooperative partner, when compared to those who scored lower on diabetic symptoms.

Evidence does seem to be mounting against those who cannot metabolise their clucose correctly!

The researchers believe that "with the rate of diabetes increasing worldwide, it is something that should concern all of us."

And maybe it should!

Article 1

Seeing Meat Makes People Less Aggressive

According to new research seeing meat appears to make human beings significantly less aggressive.

Odd!


Researcher Frank Kachanoff says:
"I was inspired by research on priming and aggression, that has shown that just looking at an object which is learned to be associated with aggression, such as a gun, can make someone more likely to behave aggressively. I wanted to know if we might respond aggressively to certain stimuli in our environment not because of learned associations, but because of an innate predisposition. I wanted to know if just looking at the meat would suffice to provoke an aggressive behavior."

Kachanoff believed that humans may have evolved a predisposition to respond aggressively towards seeing meat. In the experiment, participats had to punish a script reader every time he made an error while sorting photos. Some photos were of meat whilst others were neutral.

Kachanoff believed that the use of 'ready to eat' meat images may have been the problem as when our ancestors were eating they would have been with friends/family and thus calm. He is interested in trying again using 'hunting' images instead, and expects to find different results.

Kachanoff's research is important because it looks at ways society may influence environmental factors to decrease the likelihood of aggressive behavior. Perhaps more pictures of food around would lead us all to be calmer!

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