Correlational research study (Video game violence and Aggression).

Correlation Research Study
Name of the Student
Professor’s Name
Correlation Research Study
Study Design and Sampling
The study may be conducted as a cross-sectional randomized trial. The randomization would be based on purposive sampling. This means that individuals belonging to the age range of 12 years to 18 years (with a history of playing video games for more than 10 hours/per day) would be only included in the study. Stratified random sampling may be implemented to control the confounding variables. The confounding variables that may impact the end-points include gender, age, socioeconomic status and psychological status of the study participants. Hence, the study should be designed to negate the impacts of confounding variables. Hence, analysis may be performed with respect to age, gender, socio-economic status and psychological status. Hence, randomization should be appropriately conduced for selecting the study participants. First of all, the study participants might be segregated into 5 age groups (12 to 13 years, 13years to 14years, 14 years to 15 years, 15 years to 16 years and 16 years to 18years). Secondly, the participants would be stratified according to hours of exposure to video games. The lowest and highest duration of exposure would be selected for forming the class intervals. The next stratification would be based on socioeconomic status. The socioeconomic status would be determined from per capita income of the family members. The study participants may be broadly segregated into “poor”, “low” and “high” socioeconomic backgrounds.

The study participants should be also segregated based on psychological status. This can be done by tracking the past history from the parents of study participants. Individuals might present with aggression at baseline. However, such aggression might result from domestic violence and associating aggression with exposure to video games might be coincidental. Hence, it would be candid to exclude individuals (who are exposed to domestic violence in real life settings) from the study.
On the other hand, a logistic regression analysis would be useful in assessing the impacts of different independent variables (confounding variables and experimental variable) on aggressive behavior. The magnitude of aggression would be considered as the dependant variable, while gender, age, socioeconomic status, psychological status and duration of playing video games/day would represent the independent variables.

Analysis of the Probable Results
Assuming the study reflects a correlation coefficient of 0.56 different conclusions may be inferred from the value. However, the correlation coefficient should be statistically significant. The null hypothesis contends that there is no significant correlation between hours of watching video games and exhibition of aggressive behavior. Acceptance of null hypothesis would indicate that any observed correlation must have happened due to chance factors associated with random sampling. The null hypothesis is accepted if the p-value for the statistical test of significance (Pearson’s correlation coefficient) is greater than 0.05 (p>0.05). The alternate hypothesis contends that there is significant correlation between hours of watching video games and exhibition of aggressive behavior. Acceptance of alternate hypothesis would indicate that any observed correlation has not happened due to chance factors associated with random sampling. The alternate hypothesis is accepted if the p-value for the statistical test of significance (Pearson’s correlation coefficient) is less than 0.05 (p<0.05). For exploring the causal relationships between exhibition of aggressive behavior and hours of watching video games; it should be assumed that the alternate hypothesis was accepted for the study.
The three causal relationships are mainly based on learning. First of all, it may be contended that aggression is strongly related to learning. Learning induces activation of aggression-related knowledge, which is primarily stored as short term or long term memory. Situational inputs (exposure to violence in media or playing video games) influence aggressive behavior. Situational variables are speculated to alter the internal state of an individual. The internal state of an individual is represented by cognitive, arousal and affective behavior. Hence, exposure to media violence may increase emotional arousal in an individual. Exposure to violence in media may induce explicit learning in an individual. Exposure to violence might promote priming of aggressive cognitions. The priming might occur through increased arousal or induction of an aggressive state (Buchman, & Funk, 1996).
Secondly, long-term exposure to violence may also induce aggressive behavior. Such causal relationship also involves learned responses. Right from birth, human beings are able to perceive, acknowledge, appraise, and respond to changes in their physical or social environment. These abilities develop over a period of time through their interactions with real and virtual environments. Different types of knowledge structures are associated with the development of such responses. Repeated exposure to violence may induce aggressive attitudes and beliefs. It may also lead to aggressive perceptual schemata and aggressive expectation schemata. Finally, aggression sensitization is also induced by repeated exposure to violence. Activation of these knowledge structures increases aggressive personality in the concerned individual. The aggressive personality might be manifested as personified aggression (spontaneous aggression and does not depend upon situational variables) or situational aggression (non-spontaneous aggression but induced by violent situations). Both types of aggression form the basis of general aggression model (Bushman, & Huesmann, 2001).
Finally, the causal relationship between exposure to violent video games and exhibition of aggressive behavior may be attributed to a reduction in prosocial behavior. Children exposed to media violence are insensitive towards prosocial behavior.
References
Bushman, B.J., & Huesmann, L.R. (2001). Effects of televised violence on aggression. In
D.G. Singer & J.L. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (pp. 223–
254). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Buchman, D.D., & Funk, J.B. (1996). Video and computer games in the ’90s: Children’s
time commitment and game preference. Children Today, 24, 12–16.