Negative effects:Experimental studies


	Negative effects:Experimental studies
	Advantages	Disadvantages A major weakness of lab experiments in this area is that researchers cannot measure real life aggression. They therefore must use measures of aggressive behaviour that have no relationship to real life aggression and can only measure short term effects. Longitudinal studies are available to observe real life patterns of behaviour and document both short term and long term effects. However a problem with longitudinal studies in this area is that participants may be exposed to other forms of media violence (e.g on TV) during the course of the study, meaning that the effect from violent video game exposure alone is uncertain. Research is yet to establish a reliable causal link between violent video game play and aggressive behaviour. A "bidirectional modeal" (Gentile et al 2004) whereby, although video games may cause an increase in aggressive behaviour, it is just as likely that people who already possess personality traits that orientate them towards aggressive behaviour, preferentially select video games for recreational purposes.
	Evaluation

A major weakness of lab experiments in this area is that researchers cannot measure real life aggression. They therefore must use measures of aggressive behaviour that have no relationship to real life aggression and can only measure short term effects. Longitudinal studies are available to observe real life patterns of behaviour and document both short term and long term effects. However a problem with longitudinal studies in this area is that participants may be exposed to other forms of media violence (e.g on TV) during the course of the study, meaning that the effect from violent video game exposure alone is uncertain.
Research is yet to establish a reliable causal link between violent video game play and aggressive behaviour. A "bidirectional modeal" (Gentile et al 2004) whereby, although video games may cause an increase in aggressive behaviour, it is just as likely that people who already possess personality traits that orientate them towards aggressive behaviour, preferentially select video games for recreational purposes.

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