Media violence and criminal behaviour

Between science and policy making

Malte Elson is one of our content writers. He graduated in psychology, and is pursuing his PhD on frustrating experiences in digital games. Currently he works as a research associate in the ERC project SOFOGA at the department of communication, University of Münster (Germany). His research interests include digital games and aggression, media effects research methods, and the social aspects of co-playing.

On March 11, 2009, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer entered the Albertville junior high school in the small town of Winnenden, Germany, armed with a 9mm Beretta semi-automatic pistol and 200 rounds of ammunition. In less than an hour, he shot nine former schoolmates and three teachers; on the run from the police to Wendlingen, he highjacked a car and killed three more people, before he finally committed suicide. The tragedy left his and the victims' relatives, teachers, and the general public petrified with questions regarding the motive for this attack, and how a young man developed into a mass homicide perpetrator.

The debates about the influence of media violence on behaviour show no sign of ending.
Photo credit: arker from morguefile.com

The debate about the causes of Kretschmer's rampage went on in the media for weeks, involving politicians and professionals, as well as witnesses and relatives expressing different theories of the decisive factors, ranging from failure in parenthood to insufficient gun control (even though the German Weapon Act already contains one of the strictest gun control laws in the world). And as with other similar tragedies that happened at different places around the world, violence in digital games was offered as a potential explanation for his actions as well. Winnenden citizens formed a group that called for a public disposal of all "killer games" in a large trash bin they placed in the city centre of Stuttgart. In an unparalleled reaction to such an event, the large department store chain Kaufhof decided to stop selling any movies or games with an age rating of 18+ nation-wide.

The shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in December 2012 prompted a similar debate in the U.S. on causes of violent behaviours and how to prevent them, including gun control, mental health reform, and media violence. In 2013 the White House¹⁷ reacted with an action plan including stricter background checks for gun sales and precautionary measures at public institutions (e.g., schools). It also called on researchers to increase their efforts in identifying sources of (and countermeasures to) criminal behaviour, particularly the link with violent media use, for which the administration promised additional research funds. In the area of media violence effects research, additional funds and efforts could pose a great opportunity, but they also bear a certain risk.

Protests in support of stricter gun control laws outside the White House in 2013.
Photo by Elvert Barnes (creative commons)

The empirical evidence on the effects of media violence on aggressive behaviour and violent crime can best be described as inconclusive. The reason for this is not so much a lack of studies, as there are hundreds of laboratory experiments investigating the link between violent media, particularly digital games, and subsequent aggressiveness (with many pointing to a relationship, and some not). The problem is that measuring aggressiveness accurately is an intricate enterprise, and the variables observed in those studies often have very little resemblance with human experiences outside psychological laboratories^6,12. Measures of such behaviours typically include procedures like spicing a bowl of chili for someone else with the hotness of the sauce selected being the indicator of aggressiveness¹¹, or the volume of white noise that is used to punish another participant in a reaction time game⁸. Other researchers measure other more distant facets of aggression, such as the accessibility of aggressive thoughts, e.g. how long it takes to identify words such as "gun" or "kill"² after consuming violent media. Quite often the stimuli used in experiments as "violent" and "non-violent" media differ on so many levels that it is quite difficult to assess whether any obtained effects were caused by the violent content, and not something else (for example, Mortal Kombat: Deception[1] and Dance Dance Revolution Max 2[2] in the experiment of Williams, 2009¹⁹). The few longitudinal studies investigating consequences of repeated exposure to violent media tend to establish rather weak links²⁰), or none at all⁷. Conversely, they do show that individuals with an aggressive personality prefer violent media¹⁸.

Arguments on both sides of the gun control debate can be highly emotive. Photo by Amy Morris (creative commons)

This would not be as much of an issue if the inconclusive state of research would not be frequently misrepresented by politicians, pundits, and scholars. Violent media effects research is a field in which science and ideology tend to mix¹⁰), with warnings of potential hazards vastly overstating what the current evidence yields, and ultimately damaging the credibility of media effects research altogether. Independent reviews by the governments of Sweden¹⁴ and Australia³, and the U.S. Supreme Court⁴ all concluded that there is currently no compelling evidence supporting the notion that violent media would increase crime rates or facilitate problematic behaviours in minors. And yet, the claims of violent media being a public health risk persist, such as being responsible for up to 30% of all societal violence¹⁵, or having the same effect on violence as condoms do on the prevention of sexually transmitted HIV ¹ – a rather curious comparison, to say the least. The occasionally extreme responses to tragedies and serious crimes like school shootings can lead to what Gauntlett (2005) defined a "moral panic"^9,5, in which overt lifestyles or innocuous behaviours (like media use) are considered a hazard for people in a society. In a moral panic, regulating violent media is simply "the right thing to do" for people who believe they are a cause for violent crime. Moreover, media could – in theory – be policed fairly easily by official agencies compared to more covert societal issues like poverty, equality of opportunities, which are usually rather intangible and difficult to combat. Researchers making extreme statements about hazardous effects of media in these environments do not inform public policy, but simply crank up the heat in a significant debate.

Antisocial and criminal behaviour is often blamed on media violence. But are games and movies really to blame? Photo credit: Peter "anemoneprojectors" (creative commons)

Since the available evidence into the effects of violent media on antisocial behaviour in the general population is inconclusive¹³), I see the future task of researchers in this field as being to identify the specific scenarios - particularly specific environmental circumstances, configurations of personality attributes and patterns of media usage; in which people could be prone to negative effects from violence in games or movies.

If we are concerned about increases in criminal behaviour, then we should turn away from convenient student samples and start investigating the media uses of violent offenders (e.g., Surette, in press¹⁶) or individuals from high-risk groups (e.g., adolescent victims of family violence). The identification of risk (and resilience) factors that could facilitate influences of popular media, as well as "healthy" and "unhealthy" media use patterns, are key to refining our understanding of the mechanisms behind them. Past research has, with a few exceptions, not been undertaken to inform public policy, but to scrutinize processes in laboratories which can only be generalized to societal violence with appropriate care.

Thus, the debate on potential effects of violent media will certainly continue in public and the scientific community. While the additional funds for media effects research issued by the White House do not necessarily have to be just part of a new moral panic, but the scientific community must be wary of potential biases conveyed by this call. However, with due care, this could be a great opportunity to restore credibility to media effects research, and constructively inform public policy to reduce criminal behaviours and societal violence.


References
why don't all these papers have links?

¹ Anderson, C. A., Berkowitz, L., Donnerstein, E., Huesmann, L. R., Johnson, J. D., Linz, D., Malamuth, N. M., et al. (2003). The influence of media violence on youth. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 4(3), 81–110. doi: 10.1111/j.1529-1006.2003.pspi_1433.x

² Anderson, C. A., & Carnagey, N. L. (2009). Causal effects of violent sports video games on aggression: Is it competitiveness or violent content? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 731–739. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.04.019

³ Australian Government Attorney-General's Department. (2010). Literature review on the impact of playing violent video games on aggression. Barton, Australia. Retrieved from classification.gov.au

⁴ Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Assn., 564 U.S. (2011). (link)

⁵ Ferguson, C. J. (2008). The school shooting/violent video game link: Causal relationship or moral panic? Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 5(1-2), 25–37. doi: 10.1002/jip.76

⁶ Ferguson, C. J. (2011). The wild west of assessment. Measuring aggression and violence in video games. In L. Annetta & S. C. Bronack (Eds.), Serious Educational Game Assessment (pp. 43–56). Rotterdam: Sense. doi: 10.1007/978-94-6091-329-7_3

⁷ Ferguson, C. J., San Miguel, C., Garza, A., & Jerabeck, J. M. (2012). A longitudinal test of video game violence influences on dating and aggression: A 3-year longitudinal study of adolescents. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 46(2), 141–146. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2011.10.014

⁸ Ferguson, C. J., Smith, S. M., Miller-Stratton, H., Fritz, S., & Heinrich, E. (2008). Aggression in the laboratory: Problems with the validity of the modified Taylor competitive reaction time test as a measure of aggression in media violence studies. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 17(1), 118–132. doi: 10.1080/10926770802250678

⁹ Gauntlett, D. (2005). Moving experiences: Media effects and beyond. Eastleigh, UK: John Libbey.

¹⁰ Grimes, T., Anderson, J. A., & Bergen, L. A. (2008). Media violence and aggression. Science and ideology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

¹¹ Lieberman, J. D., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & McGregor, H. A. (1999). A hot new way to measure aggression: Hot sauce allocation. Aggressive Behavior, 25(5), 331–348. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1098-2337(1999)25:5<331::AID-AB2>3.0.CO;2-1

¹² Ritter, D., & Eslea, M. (2005). Hot sauce, toy guns, and graffiti: A critical account of current laboratory aggression paradigms. Aggressive Behavior, 31(5), 407–419. doi: 10.1002/ab.20066

¹³ Savage, J., & Yancey, C. (2008). The effects of media violence exposure on criminal aggression: A meta-analysis. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 35(6), 772–791. doi: 10.1177/0093854808316487

¹⁴ Statens Medieråd. (2011). Våldsamma datorspel och aggression. En översikt av forskningen 2000-2011. [Violent computer games and agggression. An overview of the research 2000-2011]. Stockholm, Sweden.(link)

¹⁵ Strasburger, V. C. (2007). Go ahead punk, make my day: It's time for pediatricians to take action against media violence. Pediatrics, 119(6), e1398–e1399. doi: 10.1542/peds.2007-0083

¹⁶ Surette, R. (in press). Cause or catalyst: The interaction of real world and media crime models. American Journal of Criminal Justice. doi: 10.1007/s12103-012-9177-z

¹⁷ The White House. (2013). Now is the time. The president's plan to protect our children and our communities by reducing gun violence. Washington, D.C. (link)

¹⁸ Von Salisch, M., Vogelgesang, J., Kristen, A., & Oppl, C. (2011). Preference for violent electronic games and aggressive behavior among children: The beginning of the downward spiral? Media Psychology, 14(3), 233–258. doi: 10.1080/15213269.2011.596468

¹⁹ Williams, K. D. (2009). The effects of frustration, violence, and trait hostility after playing a video game. Mass Communication and Society, 12(3), 291–310. doi: 10.1080/15205430802461087

²⁰ Willoughby, T., Adachi, P. J. C., & Good, M. (2012). A longitudinal study of the association between violent video game play and aggression among adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 48(4), 1044–1057. doi: 10.1037/a0026046

[1] Midway. (2004). Mortal Kombat: Deception. Chicago, IL: Midway.
[2] Konami. (2003). Dance Dance Revolution Max 2. Tokyo, Japan: Konami.

A year of unanswered questions (and that's a good thing)

We’ve been adding regular posts to this blog for exactly one year this month. Last June our very first intern, Jon started with us through our partnership with SEPnet, and a year on we have another two new interns with us for the summer through them. We still have our two chemistry students at the moment (Freya and Lucy), and last but not least we've been joined by a business and marketing intern via the Sheffield Business School.

The year in numbers:

• 40 blog posts
• 16 guest posts, including researchers from the UK, US, the Netherlands, Mexico, and Belgium
• over 24,000 visits to the blog
• almost 11,000 unique visitors
• our site is being read for 1 out of every 3 minutes
• interviewed by start something and GDI Impuls
• stage appearances in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland as part of the Freischwimmer arts festival and Aarau Democracy Days
• we've never paid to advertise our blog

Month by month, our audience has grown at an increasing rate

Déjà vu

Déjà vu - that sudden, inexplicable feeling that the exact event you are experiencing has happened to you before, in exactly the same way, even though the logical part of your brain knows that it can’t have. Most of us have experienced it at some time or another, but very little is known about what actually causes it. The name comes from the French for ‘already seen’, although this name does not explain the phenomenon fully - as well as feeling you have already seen something, for déjà vu to occur, you must also know that you have not.

The Temporal Lobe is the part of your brain just above your ears.
Image credit: wikimedia commons

Although for most of us this feeling is harmless, if rather disconcerting at times, for some people it can be a warning sign for something more sinister. Déjà vu experiences have been linked with temporal lobe seizures in epilepsy sufferers. Partial seizures affect only a small area of the brain, so cause different symptoms depending on where they occur. Generally the patient remains conscious and may not even realise that they are having a seizure. The temporal lobes are located above the ears, and contain areas of the brain responsible for memory, as well as language production and comprehension, emotion, and some higher level visual and auditory processing, such as face recognition. These broad ranging functions mean that seizures to this area can cause a variety of unusual symptoms, such as experiencing sensations without a cause, rushes of emotion, or memory problems, including déjà vu. Temporal lobe seizures have even been linked with religious experiences.

The Search for another Earth

"Two possibilities exist: either we're alone in the Universe, or we're not.
Both are equally terrifying."
- Arthur C. Clarke.

This guest post is by Andrew Rushby, currently undertaking a PhD in earth systems modelling at the University of East Anglia. Andrew usually blogs at the II-I- blog, the Pale Blue Blog or the European Association of Geochemistry blog. He can also be found launching high altitude balloons into (near) space, and tweeting as @andrewrushby. This is the third in our series of posts about the many unknowns involved in the study of planets orbiting other stars across the galaxy.

In my last post I broadly covered the techniques for finding planets around other stars in the galaxy, as well as the role this technology plays in defining the current limits on our knowledge. We have discovered 885 other planets to date, but how many of them are like the Earth and why is this important?

As we live on a rather lovely watery planet ourselves, we seem to have a natural inclination to seek out others just like it because we consider them to be the most likely for hosting life. Why? Well, because our current sample of ‘inhabited planets’ stands at just one, we have a very limited understanding of where the boundaries for life lie as well as the important factors that affect habitability when considering the broad characteristics of life-bearing worlds. If other inhabited planets exist, is the Earth typical within the sample or an outlier? Are the furnaces of close-in gas giants the cradle of most flavours of life in the universe, or maybe the frigid surfaces of icy worlds in the far-flung outer regions of their star system?

Some lifeforms live in extremely tough environments, and have even survived space vacuum conditions - like this water bear. Image credit Bob Goldstein and Vicky Madden (Creative Commons)

It might be fun to speculate about all the various forms and shapes that other life might take, but this lies outside the remit of science. It seems obvious to us that only on a planet able to support life would organisms (like intelligent Homo Sapiens) eventually evolve, but this instils in us a fundamental bias towards planets like Earth: it remains beyond our perspective to consider the possibility that can life operate outside of the physical and biological boundaries that we are familiar with. It therefore seems unsurprising that the limits of life lie so perfectly within those experienced on Earth, and why we seek out other Earth-like planets as possible oases of biology. This bias is known as the anthropic principle and is an important philosophical consideration to bear in mind when considering the search for ‘habitable’ planets.

Open Questions in Open Science

I sometimes tell people that "There's no point in making the biggest scientific discovery in the history of the world, if you don't tell anybody about it." In other words, science communication is important. This is why I, and Things We Don't Know, feel strongly about the topic of "Open Science". For those who aren't familiar with "open science", it's a relatively straightforward concept. The principle behind open science is that the results of science should be available to the public, free of charge. Since scientific results are published in scientific journals, this means those journals would have to be available free of charge.

But of course, there is a cost associated with the publishing of journals, so open science is not a particularly easy thing to achieve, and people have suggested several models which would make this possible - each with their own side effects and drawbacks. If you'd like to read more about the details of open science, Nature have a nice feature article which summarises the background, and another which explains the "green" and "gold" open access models.

Why does hot water freeze faster than cold water?

This article is by our intern Freya Leask, who is also in her second year at the University of Bradford studying chemistry.

For most people, making ice-cream doesn't lead to the discovery of an unsolved mystery…unless you're Erasto Mpemba. In 1963, the then school boy stumbled across the phenomenon where initially-hot liquids sometimes freeze faster than initially-cold ones. Although this had been observed by Aristotle, this effect wasn't proved experimentally until 1969, and still isn't very well understood. Just what is the Mpemba effect, and why does it happen?

Many papers have been written about the Mpemba effect, though scientists can't even decide what that name refers to - is it the time taken to form a homogenous block of ice, or the time taken to reach 0°C? Both situations have been studied under various combinations of conditions, but either way, it seems simple enough on face value to explain. Evaporation takes in heat energy and the warmer liquid's higher rate of evaporation reduces the mass to be frozen. The initially warmer liquid also has a lower density, as the water molecules have more energy to move around more. This means more heat is released, and the liquid cools faster.

Against all expectations, warmer water (red) can freeze before cooler water (blue) does.
Image credit: Pico Technology

Heating a liquid can also change its composition, which can affect its cooling time. For example, when salty water is heated, the water evaporates away, leaving a higher concentration of salt which lowers its freezing point and makes it take longer to cool¹. However, none of these things can account for a big enough effect on the rate of cooling to completely explain the Mpemba effect.

The beast with a billion backs: Part 2

We are not alone.

No matter how quietly you listen, nor how closely you stare you’ll not hear them, nor see them with the naked eye. They’re too small, too quiet. They are our microbiome, the trillions of microorganisms that make their homes inside and out of our bodies. They – we – are an ecosystem, with different bugs filling different niches, some helpful, some quietly parasitic, and others, well, others you do end up knowing about…

This is the second of two posts on the subject of the microbiome. The first post looked at questions around the need to unpick its importance to our health – what’s a good or bad microbiome? Which microbes are causes or effects of a disease? And how does the microbiome spread – is it like a disease? Questions which, when answered, could lead to new treatments and ways of protecting our health by manipulating this complex ecosystem within ourselves.

Collateral Damage

Whilst we can’t yet manipulate the microbiome with any finesse, we do influence it through our immune system, evolved over time to cope with invading pathogens and keep them in check. Yet when the immune system isn’t enough, we have a powerful way to, if not manipulate, then affect our microbial ecosystem; it’s just a little…inelegant and unpredictable: Antibiotics.

Two different species of bacteria with disks soaked in different antibiotics. The bacteria on the left are susceptible to all the antibiotics tested, while the bacteria on the right are resistant to most of them.
Image credit: Wikimedia commons