I certainly agree that there is a lot of violence on TV and in music, far more than we really should have, so there’s no argument there. At least with TV they can try to filter exposure with time-slots, and they should do something similar with music, although I don’t notice it as much. Frankly I think the violence on TV is too graphic (CSI & other crime dramas, especially) and there’s too much prudishness (?) about sex and sexuality (but that’s another kettle of fish).

What would you suggest instead of an age restriction on video games? They’re reasonably easy to get around, I agree, although they should stop underage people from purchasing the games in the first place, at least. After that, parents have a responsibility to try to protect and educate their children. If parents are disinterested enough to simply buy and let kids play all manner of violent games then that’s their prerogative and their fault. They can’t control (necessarily) what happens at a mate’s place, but then the mate’s parents should be watching too.

@aion database: I agree wholeheartedly. IMHO parents have a responsibility to monitor and control what their children are exposed to and to discuss it so if they are exposed to something disturbing then they can work through the experience and be better prepared or better able to deal with it next time. It ties in with the whole internet censorship debate, which is very pertinent at the moment in Australia with the federal government wanting to introduce mandatory filtering, simply assuming parents aren’t up to the job. (Sorry, a little hobby horse of mine.)

I agree with you both, Ramsey and Purgatori, evidence that violence in video games is enticing but that it affects how you react to further stimuli are non-mutually exclusive things, especially with regard to an evolutionary perspective. Evolutionarily, we should be extremely happy to overeat sweet and fatty foods to our detriment because out on the savannah they were rare, so if you did find them it made sense to eat them all. We just haven’t evolved to live in the city yet (not in every respect anyway – rates for short-sightedness are over 90% in China’s city-based youth).

Great ep, Michael.

Anyhoo, it occurred to me that a podcast on the psychology of anger management would be really interesting and possibly relevant to many of your listeners (especially fathers of small children, like me).

All the best and keep up the great work.

In other words, I don’t think Carangie et al. would claim that people are NOT interested in violent content, only that it has negative consequences in terms of desensitization. Although, in some sense you could argue that one study highlights the “darkside” of violent games and the other shows possible “positive effects” (i.e., increased accuracy) of violence.

Again, this is a tremendous site for psychology–keep up the GREAT work!

Also, I can’t see how these studies were actually making conflicting arguments, and I thought that the latter, despite its methodological flaws such as small sample size, was the more enlightening of the two, since it ties quite nicely into animal and evolutionary psychology, as well as multi-disciplinary research into play. It goes some of the way towards providing an account for why we find videogames enjoyable (i.e. they are an extension of the types of play that we, as predatory social mammals, naturally enjoy engaging in), whereas the Carnegie study merely documents a response curve which may or may not be revealing about certain types of violent behavior.