Critique my (already turned in) psychology paper

[Dominus Atheos]

I was watching the video about a study "Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life" (Anderson, & Dill, 2000), and was disturbed by how flawed I found their methodology to be. In the video they have adolescents play 2 different games "Doom" and "Myst" and then test their willingness to administer shocks to other people immediately afterwords. The first and most glaring flaw was the fact that the "violent" video game was much different in many other ways from the "non-violent" video game. Whereas Doom is a fast paced shooter Myst is a slow-paced puzzle game.

I would like to see the results of a study where participants play a fast paced shooter where instead of shooting monsters until they explode into bloody corpses, they shoot carrots at fluffy bunnies until they get full and happy (a game that would easily get a G rating from the ESRB); and another slow-paced puzzler where the goal is to drag a resisting prisoner through a puzzle involving barbaric and painful traps that leave said prisoner bloody and in obvious pain until you reach the end where he is executed in an even more bloody and painful way. (a game that is sure to get an M rating from the ESRB).

The second flaw I noticed is that increased aggression immediately after playing doesn't even remotely prove that the subject will have increased aggression the next day, or even a few hours from then. I would like to see a study where the subjects play the fast-paced happy fluffy bunny game and the slow-paced bloody torture puzzler game for a week, then are brought back next week to see if there is any difference in aggression levels between the two groups.

Furthermore, I am not the only person to question the study's methodology (Fergusan 2007). When studies have been done using more correct methodology the results have shown that only minds that were unstable to begin show increased aggression, and that some subject's aggression actually went down, showing that violent video games can have a therapeutic effect on those already dispossessed towards aggression.

Ferguson, C. J. (2007). Evidence for publication bias in video game violence effects literature: a meta-analytic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 12(4), 470-482

Devilly , G. J., Unsworth , G., & Ward, T. (2007). The Effect of playing violent video games on adolescents: should parents be quaking in their boots? . Psychology, Crime & Law, 13(4), 383-394.

Anderson, C.A., & Dill, K.E. (2000). Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 78(4), 772-790.

As it states in the title, I've already turned this in so I'm not looking for help with it. I posted this so I can get some feedback on the ideas presented within. I'm aware that the "G" equivalent rating for video games would be "E" or maybe even "EC" for a game like that, but my teacher might not be.

So what do you think the result of the happy fluffy bunny carrot-shooter vs brutal bloody torture puzzler study would be? Think the violent game would be the one to cause increased aggression? Or the faced paced one?

[eion]

I would be very interested in the results of this study.

You're absolutely right, the study failed to isolate the violence as a variable.

The development for some of the video games has already been done:

Fast Paced non-violent video game: Chex Quest

Fast Paced violent video game: Doom

as for the slow paced violent video game, I don't know of one off the top of my head, though this might work (careful, very NSFW).

A study very much worth pursuing. If I still had to take any psych classes for my degree I might even steal the idea myself.

[adam_grif]

Slow paced violent game is something like the Original Resident Evil perhaps.

I've never been set a paper that let us use first person before. But it seems too obvious to be a mistake, so...

[Darth Ruinus]

Aren't papers supposed to be longer than a few paragraphs?

[Ford Prefect]

I've never been set a paper that let us use first person before. But it seems too obvious to be a mistake, so...

That got drilled into me at college, but when I got to university most lecturers were pretty much 'Do I look like I care?'. In retrospect it's easy to see why they don't care: it only matters if your ideas are supported and that you don't just present your opinion as fact. I had a couple of essays which actually did ask for my opinion on some topic, and as the lecturer put it, avoiding using 'I' in that situation is basically impossible. That said, I do think Atheos' paper is way too conversational, and the usage of references seems pretty weak. Maybe I'm blind but I can't actually see a usage of the Devilly reference, and I probably wouldn't have left the Ferguson reference to that last paragraph. It seems too much like an afterthought, given that it's support for the main thrust of questioning the article up for critique.

Aren't papers supposed to be longer than a few paragraphs?

It's obviously one of those first year starter pieces of assessment usually only worth something like 5% or less. It's not really a 'paper' it's a critique of a set study. I did something similar in psychology too.

[Cosmic Average]

You really shouldn't write a paper like that in the first person.

Rather than, "I was watching the video about a study "Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life" (Anderson, & Dill, 2000), and was disturbed by how flawed I found their methodology to be," it should be something like, "The study, "Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life" (Anderson, & Dill, 2000), was flawed in its methodology."

The short article review is written unprofessionally; its far too casual.

[adam_grif]

That got drilled into me at college, but when I got to university most lecturers were pretty much 'Do I look like I care?'.

Likewise drilled in during college, but it appears that my lecturers/tutors at UTAS still maintain that standard unless otherwise explicitly stated for an assignment. They're anal retentive about us not deviating even slightly from the APA referencing format, but when I was chatting with my tutor he claimed he ignored it for his PhD and still got it. I imagine once I push through second year psych this year things will relax a lot more in those regards.

[Dominus Atheos]

It's supposed to be in first person. I called it a paper because that was easiest to explain, but the actual assignment was an "academic discussion", and as Ford Perfect said is only worth 5% of my grade or 20 points out of 400.

[Feil]

It's a poorly written document. Your decision to mark the "E" rating as "G" makes it factually incorrect. If you need to define a term, define the term - don't substitute a similar but incorrect one. There is no such thing as a G rated game. Regarding the writing quality, I've gone through your first paragraph briefly:

I was watching the video about a study "Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life" (Anderson, & Dill, 2000), and was disturbed by how flawed I found their methodology to be. In the video they have adolescents play 2 different games "Doom" and "Myst" and then test their willingness to administer shocks to other people immediately afterwords. The first and most glaring flaw was the fact that the "violent" video game was much different in many other ways from the "non-violent" video game. Whereas Doom is a fast paced shooter Myst is a slow-paced puzzle game.

First person is not necessarily a sin, but sloppy writing is. Sentence 1, you state that you were disturbed by the fact that you found their methodology flawed. Presumably, you mean that you were disturbed by their flawed methodology. However, unless you're asking the professor to cease showing the video on the basis of its disturbing content, there's no reason for you to say that at all. A much more useful topic sentence is what Cosmic Average suggested:

The study, "Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life" (Anderson, & Dill, 2000), was flawed in its methodology.

Since you are referencing a video, not the study itself, I would suggest modifying that to:

The information presented in the video "Video" (Video) about the study "Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life" (Anderson, & Dill, 2000) suggests that the study was flawed in its methodology.

Sentence 2, you refer to a "they" with no antecedent. Who is "they"?

Numbers less than 11 should generally be written, not expressed in numerals.

Appositives ("Doom" and "Myst") must be set off by punctuation. All the following are legal.

Two children, Jack and Jill, went up a hill.
Two children (Jack and Jill) went up a hill.
Two children went up a hill: Jack and Jill.
Two children - Jack and Jill - went up a hill.

Avoid passive tense in sentence 3.

Sentence 4 is a run-on sentence. You must have punctuation between two independent clauses. Because you begin with a coordinating conjunction (whereas), the only legal punctuation is a comma.

[adam_grif]

There is no such thing as a G rated game.

Austrailan/New Zealand rating systems use G. America uses E, European countries use PEGI rating systems which don't have letters, just a number representing age.

[Feil]

I stand corrected.

[Ford Prefect]

Likewise drilled in during college, but it appears that my lecturers/tutors at UTAS still maintain that standard unless otherwise explicitly stated for an assignment. They're anal retentive about us not deviating even slightly from the APA referencing format, but when I was chatting with my tutor he claimed he ignored it for his PhD and still got it. I imagine once I push through second year psych this year things will relax a lot more in those regards.

Well, yeah, sticking to APA format is important, but even Findlay (which is ironically a pretty conversational book about strict formatting requirements) doesn't really say that it's a terrible sin to use the personal pronoun. It talks about how the passive voice has been preferred in the past for some pretty obvious reasons, but that often comes across as clumsy in terms of expression, and that often you can simply avoid certain personal expressions simply because they can be inferred. Certainly I don't think you'd loose any marks for it, especially not in first year psych at UTAS. The coordinators are pretty extremely chill.

Admittedly this is beside the point because Atheos isn't at UTAS, and his piece is still too unprofessional, which is on top of particular structure issues. It's all part of the learning expereince, of course.

[sketerpot]

The happy bunny feeding FPS actually exists. It's called Super 3D Noah's Ark. It's essentially Wolfenstein 3D with new sprites and a Bible-based plot -- the video-game equivalent of Christian Music.