Cara Flanagan
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The following query was posted on Psychexchange by Paul:
In the media topic of the Psychology companion text book (with the dog on the front) a study by Anderson and Dill is described, where it says after playing a violent video game participants rated themselevs higher on the state hostility scale and blasted opponenents with white noise for longer.
Having spent some time reading details of the actual study, participants DID NOT rate themsleevs higher. And whilst they did blast opponenents for longer, they did not choose to increase the intensity at all – which surely raises questions about just how aggressive the video games made them.
So have I got the wrong end of the stick, or is the text book wrong? And if so, would students be penalised for descriving the results wrongly in the exam, or is this a common error?
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Cara Flanagan
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First of all – examiners cannot credit mistakes even if they are due to a textbook.
Second I have checked this study and can’t see that there is a mistake. The article says in the summary ‘Lab exposure to a graphically violent video game increased violent thoughts and behaviour’. In the text of the article it does say that those higher in trait irritability reported more state hostility, so I assume that this was an individual difference and a complex relationship.
Your other point challenges the conclusions made by the authors which is a perfectly acceptable point to make.
Mike may have further information to add but I hope that helps.
Cara
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paul
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Hi Cara, thanks very much for the reply.
My understanding is that the second of the three tests (which isnt mentioned in the text book) they did showed some evidence of increased aggression – presenting participants with words and seeing how quickly they responded to aggressive words.
I’ve looked at this on various places and found similar conclusions – this is quite a good link:
http://www.arasite.org/anddill.html
Having read about the study, there is quite alot of interesting points to it, manythat would make excellent evaluation points in an exam – i’m surprised Mike didnt decide to include a bit more detail. I appreciate you cant for all studies, but as a teacher I would def prefer the more details rather than having lots of studies in little detail.
Just my thoughts, I appreciate others may disagree 
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Cara Flanagan
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Thanks for your comments Paul.
We are currently revising the A2 book and will bear this in mind. However, as you say, there is a trade off between the number of studies that can be covered and the amount of detail provided on each. One key factor is that the AO1 content of any essay is never more than 8 marks (about 200 words), so you may do students a disservice by giving them too much information – educationally sound but exam-wise unsound (another trade-off, between duration and exam).
Cara
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