PhD defence E. Miedzobrodzka - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

PhD defence E. Miedzobrodzka
14 September 2023 13:45 - 15:15
The possible effects of violent video gameplay on adolescents are intensely debated, highlighting the difficulties in the violent media research. The current dissertation posits that media may sort effects in more subtle and less direct ways than thus far studied. It employed a novel perspective to investigate the possible effects of violent video games on adolescents’ social outcomes, by looking beyond aggression and by focusing on four social-cognitive skills: emotion recognition, inhibitory control, perspective-taking, and empathy for pain. The development of these skills is particularly salient during early adolescence. If such development would be disturbed by exposure to violent video games, it may underlie antisocial behavior. Integration of insights from media psychology, developmental psychology, and neuroscience led to an expectation that exposure to violent video games would be negatively related to and would have a negative impact on the four social-cognitive skills. To investigate how exposure to violent video games may influence these social-cognitive skills, we took a multi-level approach, by investigating possible effects on a self-report level (questionnaires), a behavioral level (reaction times), and a brain level (ERP responses). To test our hypotheses, we performed four studies employing various study designs: correlational, experimental, and quasi-experimental in different adolescent samples and in one young adult sample. The outcomes of this project indicated that the possible impact of violent video game exposure on adolescents’ social-cognitive skills is limited and may be observed only in terms of short-term effects: less accurate perspective-taking and lower empathy for pain reactions measured immediately after the game. Further, habitual exposure to violent video games was related to lower empathy for pain reactions, but only in young adults, not in adolescents. Contrary to our expectations, more frequent habitual exposure to violent video games was related to better inhibitory control over emotional expressions in adolescents. Moreover, we also tested the possible effects of exposure to antisocial content in other media, beyond video games, and found that it was related to less accurate emotion recognition and lower empathy for pain reactions in adolescents. While this project brings new insights which could enrich scientific and public debates on violent media effects on youth, future longitudinal studies are needed to better understand possible ‘traces’ of violent video games in adolescent development, considering individual developmental trajectories and differences between young people.
About PhD defence E. Miedzobrodzka
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