Craig A Anderson

Iowa State University | ISU · Department of Psychology

We respond to the Devilly et al. (2023) comment about our article (Bushman& Anderson, 2021). Specifically, we point out 20 false claims they make about our article and explain why these claims are false.

To address a gap in the literature regarding the development of youth disclosure across the transition to adolescence, the current research uses a cohort-sequential approach to study youth disclosure from middle childhood through adolescence. Longitudinal data from three cohorts of parents were utilized (N = 1359; children at T1 were in grades 2 [M...

The first of three volumes, the five sections of this book cover a variety of issues important in developing, designing, and analyzing data to produce high-quality research efforts and cultivate a productive research career. First, leading scholars from around the world provide a step-by-step guide to doing research in the social and behavioral sci...

As the climate crisis has progressed, scientists have begun to ask, "How does a rapidly warming ecosystem impact human behavior?" As aggression scholars and non-professional environmentalists, it has become increasingly clear that the impact of the climate crisis, without intervention, will dramatically increase humans' exposure to risk factors kno...

Objective: Callousness has been identified as a key driver of aggressive and violent behavior from childhood into early adulthood. Although previous research has underscored the importance of the parenting environment in contributing to the development of youth callousness, findings have generally been confined to the between-individual level and...

Introduction The present study investigated the role of dispositional hope as a potential protective factor moderator in the relationship between adult ADHD symptoms, media use/smart phone addiction and wellbeing during the period of isolation because of the COVID-19 pandemic among students in Romania. Methods A sample of 333 college students (86....

The Tangram Help/Hurt Task (THHT) allows participants to help another participant win a prize (by assigning them easy tangrams), to hurt another participant by preventing them from winning the prize (by assigning them difficult tangrams), or to do neither (by assigning them medium tangrams) in offline or online studies. Consistent with calls for co...

Exposure to media violence can increase the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior, and also lead to other harmful effects on youth as well –including children's play with real guns, risk glorification, sexual violence, stereotyping of gender and minorities, and decline in prosocial behavior. The psychological processes underlying harmful me...

Numerous studies from various countries and cultural backgrounds have found a link between media violence consumption and aggressive behaviors and cognition. However, some failures to replicate these findings potentially suggest that some Latinx cultures may be relatively invulnerable to such harmful effects. To investigate this, media violence exp...

Inducing mindfulness has shown a promising effect on reducing aggression in both clinical and nonclinical populations, possibly because mindfulness can improve emotion regulation. The present study examined the association between mindfulness and aggression through potential mediating effects of several emotion regulation strategies. University and...

Much of the current rhetoric surrounding climate change focuses on the physical changes to the environment and the resulting material damage to infrastructure and resources. Although there has been some dialogue about secondary effects (namely mass migration), little effort has been given to understanding how rapid climate change is affecting peopl...

Media is one of the most influential forces in the lives of modern children and adolescents. However, the impacts of using media depend greatly on the content of the media, and range from being very beneficial to having substantial potential for negative impacts on development. There is considerable scientific research to guide parents, professiona...

Over the last half-century, many professional and scientific organizations have issued statements about the harmful effects of violent media on children. Most pediatricians, media researchers, and parents also believe that violent media can be harmful. Although most studies report significant violent media effects, some report null effects. In this...

The general aggression model, or GAM for short, is a metatheory for understanding the roots of aggression. The GAM is especially useful for understanding how exposure to violent media can increase aggression. In the GAM, personal and situational variables independently and interactively influence a person's internal states (cognition, affect, arous...

As we are exposed to varying kinds of media, we respond in differing ways both physiologically and psychologically. One effect is desensitization, the process by which repeated exposure to a stimulus reduces negative emotional arousal to its presentation later on. Early psychological research saw desensitization manifested primarily in clinical/beh...

First person shooter or action video games represent one of the most popular genres within the gaming industry. Studies reveal that action gaming experience leads to enhancements of visuo-spatial processing. In contrast, some correlational evidence reveals that experience with action video games may be associated with reduced proactive cognitive co...

In Game On! Sensible Answers about Video Games and Media Violence, the authors bridge the gap between "easy-to-read" and "reasoned discussion of the research." Written as a series of answers to 57 questions that media violence scholars are routinely asked, the book breaks down this complex and nuanced topic into small, easily-digestible portions. E...

This is a preliminary analysis of the data I was collecting for my thesis study.

Here we review the events of Hurricane Katrina, and how vulnerable populations in New Orleans were more adversely harmed by the outcomes of the hurricane and its devastation.

Video games can be morally consequential, with immoral in-game behavior affecting moral outcomes, but less is known about what may amplify these effects. Avatar identification is one potential moderator. We integrated three lines of research on moral disengagement, moral foundations, and avatar identification to conceptually replicate and extend pr...

An overview of climate change and how it will impact human aggression and violence.

Purpose of Review An important question regarding rapid climate change concerns its likely effects on violence. Rapid climate change is likely to produce sociological, political, economic, and psychological changes that will increase the likelihood of violent behavior. This article examines relevant theory and research. Recent Findings We examine...

Here I walk through two models that display how media stereotypes create and foster negative attitudes about stereotyped groups, thus leading to support for policies that may harm those groups.

The potential role of brief online studies in changing the types of research and theories likely to evolve is examined in the context of earlier changes in theory and methods in social and personality psychology, changes that favored low-difficulty, high-volume studies. An evolutionary metaphor suggests that the current publication environment of s...

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144599/2/ab21766_am.pdf

The General Aggression Model (GAM) is a meta‐theory that considers the role of personal and situational variables on aggressive behavior, ranging from the biological to the cultural. Possible mediating variables include internal states (e.g., aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, increased physiological arousal) and the results of appraisal and deci...

The need-density hypothesis proposes that pathological gaming is most likely to occur when satisfaction of three basic human needs (competence, autonomy, relatedness) is low in the real world but high in video games. Our study tested this hypothesis to determine whether real-world need satisfaction and video game need satisfaction independently pre...

This entry defines aggression, its various subtypes, and its relation to violence. It also gives a brief overview of risk factors that contribute to aggression, ranging from biological to sociological to psychological. Distinctions between types of aggression include reactive versus proactive, direct versus indirect, and physical versus verbal vers...

Violence in screen entertainment media (ie, television, film, video games, and the Internet), defined as depictions of characters (or players) trying to physically harm other characters (or players), is ubiquitous. The Workgroup on Media Violence and Violent Video Games reviewed numerous meta-analyses and other relevant research from the past 60 ye...

Aggression is a phenomenon that can take many forms, ranging from relatively minor acts (such as name calling or pushing) to more serious acts (such as hitting, kicking, or punching) to severe acts (such as stabbing, shooting, or killing). The fact that aggression appears in so many forms can sometimes make it difficult to determine whether or not...

In public discourse on violent media effects, positions often become polarized: Violent media are either blamed for violent acts or are said to have no effect whatsoever. Decades of media violence research is often absent from this discussion, despite every major relevant scientific organization agreeing with the conclusion that media violence is a...

Video game play has become a ubiquitous form of entertainment in modern society. As a result, interest has accrued from parents, educators, policy makers, and scientists alike regarding the potential effects of this relatively new media. The current chapter has several goals. The first is to describe the research findings regarding the most heavily...

A large meta-analysis by Anderson et al. (2010) found that violent video games increased aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal, and aggressive behavior and decreased empathic feelings and helping behavior. Hilgard, Engelhardt, and Rouder (2017) reanalyzed the data of Anderson et al. (2010) using newer publication bias methods (...

Previous studies have documented links between sub-clinical narcissism and the active pursuit of short-term mating strategies (e.g., unrestricted sociosexuality, marital infidelity, mate poaching). Nearly all of these investigations have relied solely on samples from Western cultures. In the current study, responses from a cross-cultural survey of...

The General Aggression Model (GAM) is a comprehensive, integrative, framework for understanding aggression. It considers the role of social, cognitive, personality, developmental, and biological factors on aggression. Proximate processes of GAM detail how person and situation factors influence cognitions, feelings, and arousal, which in turn affect...

Cultural generality versus specificity of media violence effects on aggression was examined in seven countries (Australia, China, Croatia, Germany, Japan, Romania, the United States). Participants reported aggressive behaviors, media use habits, and several other known risk and protective factors for aggression. Across nations, exposure to violent...

There is perhaps no finding in psychology that is more consistent than the human motivation to avoid negative experiences and seek out positive ones. The current review details some of the aggression-related consequences that result from failures to avoid these negative experiences. Attention is paid to the theoretical processes at work that produc...

Given the dire nature of many researchers' predictions about the effects of global climate change (e.g., rising sea levels, droughts, more extreme weather), it comes as little surprise that less attention has been paid to the subtler, less direct outcomes of rapid climate change: psychological, sociological, political, and economic effects. In this...

The general aggression model (GAM) is an integrative, bio-social-cognitive, developmental framework for explaining human aggression that incorporates many domain-specific theories of aggression. This entry discusses and defines important concepts in the study of aggression (i.e., aggression, violence, proactive vs. reactive aggression, direct vs. i...

Violent content appears frequently in screen and audio media and takes many forms, including physical and relational aggression, gory images, violent stereotypes, and cyberbullying. Over six decades of research demonstrates that different types of media violence have significant detrimental effects, both immediately and in the long term. Exposure t...

Previous studies have documented links between sub-clinical narcissism and the active pursuit of short-term mating strategies (e.g., unrestricted sociosexuality, marital infidelity, mate poaching). Nearly all of these investigations have relied solely on samples from Western cultures. In the current study, responses from a cross-cultural survey of...

Technological advancement has given rise to unprecedented access to television shows, movies, and video games. Naturally, scientists have dedicated much attention on how media, particularly violent media, influences viewers and players. The current article summarizes findings on the influence of such media on several outcomes including aggression,...

An experiment investigated the effects of violent content in video games on two physiological indicators of the fight-or-flight response (cortisol and cardiovascular changes) and on accessibility of aggressive thoughts in children. Participants played a randomly assigned violent or nonviolent video game, rated the game on several dimensions, and di...

The Tangram Help/Hurt Task is a laboratory-based measure designed to simultaneously assess helpful and hurtful behavior. Across five studies we provide evidence that further establishes the convergent and discriminant validity of the Tangram Help/Hurt Task. Cross-sectional and meta-analytic evidence finds consistently significant associations betwe...

I killed my first Klingon in 1979. It took place in the computer center at Stanford University, where I was playing a new video game based on the Star Trek television series. I was an "early adopter" of the new technology of video games, and continued to be so for many years, first as a fan of this entertainment medium, and later as a researcher in...

In responding to the published comments on our SPSSI Research Summary on Media Violence, we note that several key themes emerge. In assessing the media violence research evidence, it is more informative and less biased to draw conclusions based on the full range of findings than to emphasize findings from individual studies. Using the full range of...

In our modern age, electronic media usage is prevalent in almost every part of the world. People are more connected than ever before with easy access to highly portable devices (e.g., laptops, smartphones, and tablets) that allow for media consumption at any time of day. Unfortunately, the presence of violence in electronic media content is almost...

Objective: Two studies were conducted to (re)examine whether the strength differential hypothesis-that face-to-face bullies are likely to be physically stronger than victims-is valid in the cyberbullying domain. The novel contribution of our research includes testing the relations between the belief that strength is irrelevant for online bullying,...

The goal of this chapter is to provide a review of current theory and research findings concerning media violence effects on good (prosocial behavior) and evil (aggression, violence, stereotyping, and intergroup conflict). Several theoretical perspectives are discussed that can be used to understand media violence effects (the General Aggression Mo...

For over seven decades social psychological theories advanced understanding of aggressive behavior. The most recent major model – the General Aggression Model (GAM) – integrates prior theories, thereby encompassing the broadest range of aggressive phenomena. GAM is built on research about factors within a person that predispose them to aggression;...

Video game play has become a ubiquitous form of entertainment in modern society. As a result, interest has accrued from parents, educators, policy makers, and scientists alike regarding the potential effects of this relatively new media. The current chapter has several goals. The first is to describe the research findings regarding the most heavily...

Media use among children has increased sharply in recent years, due, in part, to a significant increase in multimedia portable devices. On average, U.S. children aged 8-18 spend more than 7 hours a day engaging with media. Governments, professional bodies, and citizens have become increasingly concerned about the social and personal impact of media...

Violence is a complex, multiply determined, and multifunctional behavior that manifests in various forms. To date, assessment procedures and intervention efforts targeting violence propensity have remained largely disconnected from much of the theoretical and experimental literature concerning aggression and violence. A greater intersection between...

The positive role of secure attachment in reducing intergroup biases has been suggested in prior studies. We extend this work by testing the effects of secure attachment primes on negative emotions and aggressive behaviors toward outgroup members across four experiments. Results from Studies 1A and 1B reveal that secure attachment prime, relative t...

Across six studies, we validated a new measure of helpful and hurtful behaviors, the Tangram Help/Hurt Task. Studies 1 to 3 provided cross-sectional correlational convergent and discriminant validity evidence for the Tangram Task using college-based and adult online samples. Study 4 revealed that previously validated empathy primes increase helpful...

This article places media violence research into a broader context than the typical public debate about whether violent video games (or TV programs, or movies) are “the” cause of school shootings and other extreme acts of violence. We describe how scientists today decide whether one variable (e.g., exposure to violent media) increases the risks for...

The Internet and related technologies have reconfigured every aspect of life, including mental health. Although the negative and positive effects of digital technology on mental health have been debated, all too often this has been done with much passion and few or no supporting data. This title addresses threats resulting from the growing reliance...

We summarize the main findings of Bushman, Gollwitzer, and Cruz (this issue), highlight its empirical contributions, and note interesting patterns and implications for future research. The results demonstrate the invalidity of the common claim that no consensus exists among experts on the reality of harmful media violence effects on children and ad...

Objective: The current research applied the general aggression model (GAM) to explain the relation between negative societal changes (e.g., indicators of a poor economy) on aggression-related outcomes. One correlational and one experimental study tested the relationships between these variables as well as possible mediating mechanisms. Method: In S...

Previous research has established media violence as a causal risk factor for aggressive behavior. Several theoretical mechanisms have been identified to explain this effect. The present study assessed 422 undergraduate students to test the possibility that individual differences in attention problems and impulsiveness can help explain the link betw...

Importance: Although several longitudinal studies have demonstrated an effect of violent video game play on later aggressive behavior, little is known about the psychological mediators and moderators of the effect. Objective: To determine whether cognitive and/or emotional variables mediate the effect of violent video game play on aggression and...

A controversy exists about the effects of violent video game play, with some studies showing “positive” effects on spatial attention, others showing “negative” effects on aggression, and others suggesting that there are no important effects. The present study examined neural recruitment during violent videogame play among 13 late adolescent gamers,...

The current study tested the relation between culture and cyberbullying using a short-term longitudinal research design. College-aged participants from the United States (n = 293) and Japan (n = 722) completed several questionnaires at Wave 1 that measured cyberbullying frequency, cyberbullying reinforcement, positive attitudes toward cyberbullying...

Despite recent growth of research on the effects of prosocial media, processes underlying these effects are not well understood. Two studies explored theoretically relevant mediators and moderators of the effects of prosocial media on helping. Study 1 examined associations among prosocial- and violent-media use, empathy, and helping in samples from...

Violent video game playing is correlated with aggression, but its relation to antisocial behavior in correctional and juvenile justice samples is largely unknown. Based on a data from a sample of institutionalized juvenile delinquents, behavioral and attitudinal measures relating to violent video game playing were associated with a composite measur...

The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology explores facets of human behavior, thoughts, and feelings experienced in the context of media use and creation. Divided into six sections, chapters in this volume trace the history of media psychology; address content areas for media research, including children's media use, media violence and desensitization...

Objective: Test the effects of stereotypic video game portrayals with and without violence on attitudes toward the stereotyped group. Method: Two experiments tested the effects of stereotypic video game portrayals of Arabs in a violent and nonviolent context on implicit and explicit attitudes and perceptions of Arabs. Results: In both experiments,...

To examine the potential link between violent video game play and aggressive behavior, reliable and valid measures of the level of violence in video games are required. A range of different approaches have been used in the literature, and it is not clear to what extent they converge or measure different constructs. To address this question, three l...

• The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how the general aggression model (GAM) helps to answer perplexing questions regarding the causes and conditions of aggression and violence. The GAM is a dynamic, social–cognitive, developmental model that provides an integrative framework for domain-specific aggression theories. It includes situationa...

The study of screen media effects is becoming especially important because people spend increasing amounts of time on visually realistic entertainment media. This chapter applies two related theoretical frameworks to the study of media effects: the general aggression model (GAM) and the general learning model (GLM). Both theories posit relations be...

This entry includes the followinng topics: what are aggression and violence; aggression and violence; affective versus instrumental; proactive versus reactive; thoughtful versus thoughtless; what causes aggression; proximate causes: individual differences; hostility biases; attitudes and beliefs; sex; biology; proximate causes: situational factors;...

Since the advent of social psychology, scholars have attempted to understand why people behave aggressively. The current chapter summarizes classic and contemporary aggression research. It reviews major theoretical perspectives on aggression, and discusses how these perspectives changed over time. It discusses how aggression develops and what facto...

Recent research reveals that playing prosocial video games increases prosocial cognitions and helpful behaviors [Gentile el al., 2009; Greitemeyer and Osswald, 2009; 2010; 2011]. These results are consistent with social-cognitive models of social behavior [e.g., the "General Learning Model," Buckley and Anderson, 2006]. The social-cognitive learnin...

A five-person panel of senior researchers have each selected two articles that they believe represent the best violence research that was published in 2011. The panelists each describe how they approached this challenging task and as a result help to outline how we might approach the task of knowledge integration and synthesis. The 10 selected arti...

Recent research reveals that playing prosocial video games increases prosocial cognitions, positive affect, and helpful behaviors [Gentile et al., 2009; Greitemeyer and Osswald, 2009, 2010, 2011]. These results are consistent with the social-cognitive models of social behavior such as the general learning model [Buckley and Anderson, 2006]. However...

Video games are a pervasive pastime among children and adolescents. The growing popularity of video games has instigated a debate among parents, researchers, video game producers, and policymakers concerning potential harmful and helpful effects of video games on children. This article provides an overview of research findings on the positive and n...