I happened upon an interesting and possibly important website, especially for parents concerned about the possible effects of video games on behavior.

It’s called VG Researcher - Psychology

Video game research review from a person with a B.A. psychology

This website is a review blog of the latest psychology research on video games (VG) where I read, review and give out my opinions based on the knowledge and experience of a gamer and a person with a B.A. in psychology who had read some research material on the subject matter.

Basically, this blog is between a news website and a peer-review of an academic study. One of the reason is an attempt to bridge the gap between gamers and VG researchers in psychology. Another pertinent reason is that I’m simply tired of reading short and somewhat inaccurate news report on VG research (angers me a lot) and makes me want to read the article directly and write on it.

It’s interesting because it’s written by an active and knowledgeable video gamer who also has training in psychology. He filters out the half baked studies from the ones they are important. And he is by no means anti-video games. The articles he reviews carry a wide range of subject matter. Here’s one that caught my attention.

Examining the relationship between the Wiimote and violent video games

Now I’ve got your attention. But I won’t give away the results

cool, Just like tv and movies i bet this research will neither prove nor disprove that games make people more violent. But atleast theres some research being done finally, there is simply not enough especially relating to non violent responses and games.

Results indicated that the use of motion capture controls did not increase the negative effects of violent video games. However, participants with elevated levels of psychoticism were much more affected by violent video games than other participants. Such findings suggest that only some individuals are adversely affected by violent video games and that those who are affected have preexisting dispositions which make them susceptible to such violent media.

Jesus, they get paid for this? lol

Psychologically unstable people get more unstable with violent games, really

Not useless information, although it should be common sense, if you have an angry or overly aggresive child, giving him GTA4 may not be your best plan. In a normal well adjusted child, it will probably do no harm.

Several studies have come to the same conclusion and this is one parents should take notice of. it puts some responsability back on them where it belongs.

If you maintain good communications with your child they are much less likely to be negativly affected by violent games and videos. If you don't keep the communications open the violent games and movies will probably make the bad situation even worse.

I suspect from reading some of this that the best adjusted young male would be one that owned both a HD console and a Wii. The HD console would allow him to bond with his "warrior clan" and participate in very aggresive and competitive games with his peers. The Wii would be good to maintain social connections with family and friends who do not have the same inclination or ability for the highly competitive more violent games. Both types of social interaction are healthy in this group which does comprise the vast majority of true "hardcore" gamers.

Hmm, this ought to be an interesting read. I'm actually taking a developmental psychology course, and we've discussed some paths of aggression. One example actually included video games, where a violently inclined child enjoyed violent games, and seeked out friends who had similar tastes in games. Eventually this escalated to the child, and his friends, becoming more hostile and violent in real life. It was actually quite interesting to see it progress.

I'll give this a read afterwards (I'm just posting in here so I don't lose this - hope this doesn't offend you Grampy).

@ Grampy

Thank you for your interest in my blog, although I'm not really trained to be a psychologist, if that's how you meant it. I just learn the basic theories.  I don't really filter out half-baked studies (academic journals do that), I just pick them if they're interesting, sometimes I do so at random or when they are mentioned in the news. And I've got a backlog of studies waiting to be blogged about, but so little time.