Overhype and 'research laundering' are a self-inflicted wound for social science
Thursday, October 25, 2018 - 09:30
in Psychology & Sociology
Earlier this fall, Dartmouth College researchers released a study claiming to link violent video games to aggression in kids. The logic of a meta-analytic study like this one is that by combining many individual studies, scientists can look for common trends or effects identified in earlier work. Only, as a psychology researcher who's long focused on this area, I contend this meta-analysis did nothing of the sort. In fact, the magnitude of the effect they found is about the same as that of eating potatoes on teen suicide. If anything, it suggests video games do not predict youth aggression.