Claims

Factual · Philosophy, ethics and society

“There is no good evidence that violent video games cause real-life violence.”

Steven Pinker, answering in Reddit AMA · 12 March 2013 · Steve Pinker Reddit AMA Transcript (Reddit AMA)

There is no good evidence that violent video games cause real-life violence.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

The second judge said resolved true; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

Judge against the research as it stood on 12 March 2013. 'Real-life violence' means actual violent behaviour or crime, not laboratory aggression measures. True: as of that date, studies and reviews showed no reliable causal evidence that playing violent video games causes real-world violence, though some showed associations with aggression measures. Mostly true: the claim holds on the main point, but there was some contested evidence on serious aggression that the claim glosses over. Mixed: the evidence was genuinely split, with credible reviews or authoritative bodies supporting a causal link to violent behaviour and others rejecting it. Mostly false: credible, widely accepted evidence then showed a causal effect on violent (not merely aggressive) behaviour, and the claim rests only on the lack of crime-level data. False: there was then well-established causal evidence linking violent games to real-life violence.

Evidence

1. BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL. (2011) | FindLaw FindLaw (reproducing the US Supreme Court opinion, No. 08-1448) · 27 June 2011

   “At the outset, it acknowledges that it cannot show a direct causal link between violent video games and harm to minors.”

2. BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL. (2011) | FindLaw FindLaw (reproducing the US Supreme Court opinion, No. 08-1448) · 27 June 2011

   “They show at best some correlation between exposure to violent entertainment and minuscule real-world effects, such as children's feeling more aggressive or making louder noises in the few minutes after playing a violent game than after playing a nonviolent game.”

3. Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review. ERIC (abstract of Anderson et al., Psychological Bulletin, v136 n2 p151-173) · March 2010

   “The evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior.”

4. BROWN, GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. ENTERTAINMENT MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION ET AL. (2011) | FindLaw FindLaw (reproducing the US Supreme Court opinion, No. 08-1448) · 27 June 2011

   “And if this is so, then for at least some minors, the effects of playing violent video games may also be quite different. The Court acts prematurely in dismissing this possibility out of hand.”

Reasoning

In its 2011 Brown v. EMA opinion, the US Supreme Court majority recorded that California conceded it could not show a direct causal link between violent video games and harm to minors (E1). The majority also described the studies as showing at most a correlation with minuscule effects, such as children feeling more aggressive or making louder noises right after playing (E2). Against this, the 2010 Anderson et al. meta-analysis concluded that violent games are a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behaviour (E3), and a passage in the Brown opinion (E4) said the Court was acting prematurely in dismissing the possibility that the effects on some minors may be quite different. The claim holds on its main point about real-world violence, but it passes over contested evidence of a causal link to aggressive behaviour, which fits the criteria for mostly true.

Cite this claim

Steven Pinker, “There is no good evidence that violent video games cause real-life violence.” (said 12 March 2013). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_5b0abefdeb3b, method 0.1.0+28da144b. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_5b0abefdeb3b