Midterm 1 Study Flashcards

Question

What are the correlations behind learning/cognitive outcomes and video games?

Answer 1

Depending on a videogames: Interactivity and narrative content, video games can have beneficial cognitive outcomes! Time spent playing strategy games leads to better problem solving skills which leads to better academic performance! There are healthy benefits from play as well.

Answer 2

Kids have limited cognitive resources and video games have 3 elements that use up those resources: Narrative, Lesson, and gameplay! How well the gameplay is connected to the plot and lesson makes a difference. We are more successful learning from video games when the gameplay has less distance from the lesson. The gameplay needs to be integrated into the content for kids to learn.

Answer 3

The main benefit discussed in class was the use of AI as a personal tutor. When kids are reading, having parents ask them questions about what they are reading helps reading development a lot! A study tested if using AI instead would there be a difference? The results are the same! AI and parents equally help reading development through being a personal tutor. There are 4 main potential drawbacks to AI: Ethical concerns: Where is the data going? AI can give inaccurate information AI may reduce motivation and enjoyment of learning: EX: Students did better on essays when using chatgpt BUT then enjoyed it less and thought it was more meaningless. Does AI take away from learning skills during tasks?

Answer 4

Main research question: Does AI help our hurt academic performance? Methods: 3 groups of students for math. One no AI, one with regular chatGPT, one with a Tutor GPT (teacher made AI to help give hints and develop knowledge). What happened: Tutor AI had the highest engagement. Practice question performance was increased by 57% using ChatGPT and 127% using Tutor AI. During an actual math test however, chatgpt group did 17% worse! The no AI and Tutor AI did about the same. Crutch effects: students rely on chatgpt too much and might lead to poorer cognitive skills Limits: no long term info recordend, only short term ability.

Answer 5

Some simple ones are - Modeling Behavior - Emotions - Arousal - Cognitions - Identity

Answer 6

Propose there is a direct relationship between media and behavior. Immediate Impact on behavior, I watch a gun fight in a movie and I want to do the same. Large presumption that everyone is impacted the same way. This was the prominent theory in the start of research in media effects (20s-30s) Limitations: The Payne Fund studies would look at large samples and ask questions about behavior and if it is impacted by movies! They also tried to look at physiological responses to media. The problem was the findings were very inconsistent and they found out that everyone has a different reaction to media!

Answer 7

This theory is by George Gerbner and was created due to concerns about how violent media (ex: news, movies, shows) would impact people over time. The cultivation theory depicts that media gradually cultivates certain views in people over time, beliefs slowly creep into our heads and the more we see something the more we believe it to be true. For example, Crime percentage study: People who watch the news more often view crime as a more serious problem than it might really be. Cultivation theory has two characteristics that impact how media affects beliefs. Resonance and Mainstreaming.

Answer 8

Resonance and Mainstreaming are apart of the Cultivation theory. Resonance: The degree to which a piece of media fits with my own experience will influence me more or less. For example, men and women who view the same amount of media, women will view crime as more serious, since it may resonate with them more since women are victims more often. Different impacts of media based on personal experience/circumstance. Mainstreaming: describes how heavy, long-term television viewing leads diverse viewers to share common perspectives and beliefs about social reality, effectively eroding differences based on demographics and aligning their views with the dominant narratives of media.

Answer 9

Observational learning, our behavior is shaped by modelling and mimicking behavior. If you see a behavior, you're likely to copy it, whether viewed by a screen or in person.

Answer 10

Social Cognitive Theory There are some characteristics that make us more or less likely to mimic behavior. - Motivations - Emotions - self-efficacy - identification - And always impacted based on if behavior is rewarded or punished.

Answer 11

This theory claims that individuals are driven to media for various reasons in order to satisfy certain needs. These needs are influenced by social and personal factors. The different reasons for seeking media may yield different effects on behavior, emotions, or cognitions. EX: TV viewing and body image. Why do people watch TV? If people watch TV to escape, that correlates with worse body image. If people watch TV for social learning it correlates with worse body image. However, if people watch TV for entertainment, there is no correlation for body image. The reasons/motivations for seeking media may impact media influences.

Answer 12

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is a comprehensive framework of human motivation, personality, and well-being that posits people have innate psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When these needs are met, people experience higher-quality motivation and enhanced psychological health; when they are thwarted, motivation and well-being decline.

Answer 13

Autonomy: The need to feel that one's actions and choices originate from oneself, not from external pressures or internal compulsion. Competence: The need to feel effective and capable in one's interactions with the environment and to experience mastery and expertise. Relatedness: The need to feel connected to, care for, and be cared for by others, fostering a sense of belonging and social connection.

Answer 14

Certain types of media might meet all three of these needs. This could be a huge motivator for why we seek media + why different people prefer different media. If media actually does meet these needs, it can lead to greater well being, if it thwarts needs it can lead to lower well being.

Answer 15

It is by Marshal McLuhan. Medium is the message: An idea that the medium that a message is delivered through is actually just as important or more important than the actual message. The technology (medium) changes how we as humans work and changes how the world works. EX: Lightbulbs change sleep schedules, cars change human society etc. Argued that medium can not be separated from the message, EX does violence in cartoons vs video games have different effects on people? Or seeing violence on the news vs on TV vs Instagram? Does the impact change based on the technology. He argued that the way the media is presented to us in itself is another entire message. The medium changes how we think about the message.

Answer 16

Infants less that 2.5 years like bright colors, striking perceptual features, cartoons. They do not understand nor care for plot/narrative Childhood (3-12): More complex content, comedies and gender stereotyped content (specifically ages 5-7). Adolescence (12-18): more reality based content, social media platforms become highly used at this age, fast, real people, new etc.

Answer 17

Until about 2.5-3 years of age infants are less likely to learn from a screen over live interaction. EX: If a baby watches an adult on TV squeeze and object to make a noise, then prompts the baby to try, it won't know how. However if the adult is in person, the baby will squeeze the duck. The reason for this video deficit is thought to be babies lack of symbolic representation.

Answer 18

The video deficit explains how babies are much less likely to understand and learn from videos over in person demonstration. Poor Symbolic representation may be why! Babies in general have a difficult time grasping symbols! EX: Scale model of a house study. Kids fail to understand symbolic representations in our world. This could be why they don't seem to learn much. Interestingly enough kids can learn through windows, if you disguise a TV as a window the kid will learn through it.

Answer 19

When social connections are in the video, people they recognize. EX facetime. If an adult is watching and engaging with them. Socially meaningful characters and cues are used, if you know Elmo for example the response is better.

Answer 20

Reality Vs Fantasy: Initially children struggle with understanding what is real and what is not in media. Seeing snow on the news vs snow in the movie Frozen, snow is something real but which is depicting reality? Younger kids can’t differentiate this well but as we get older symbolic representation gets better. Kids use perceptual cues that are more realistic rather than content to make a perception. So super man seems more likely to be real than charlie brown. EX Young children focus on perceptual features, how they look, sounds, feel etc. They don't focus on conceptual properties. Piaget centration is relevant here, (wide vs tall water glass). They focus less on how people act EX: Two comics with a nice looking old lady and an evil looking lady, doing the same nice action, the kids would still say the ugly one is mean and the nice one is good despite them both doing a good action. They miss the deeper messages in media often fixating on action, this happens until about 6-7. Kids use perception to judge what is fantasy vs reality, not the content. This occurs until around 6-9

Answer 21

6 to 9 years old typically for content, 6-8 for inference.

Answer 22

Media can be thought of as a play ground for identity. In this stage of life, teens are fixated on themselves and what other people think of them. Media is used to experiment, observe, pretend and more with identities. Risk taking: In this stage, our brains love reward, however, the pre-frontal cortex is not efficient at evaluating risk and controlling behavior, this is a reason we see teens engage in riskier media use. Sexuality: Increase interest in the use of sexual content, use media to develop and understand sexuality, media is a playground for these ideas.

Answer 23

Content analysis is a type of research method that involve analyzing the content of media to find patterns. The first step is to pick a selection of media (EX: Netflix's top 10), then the second step is to define violent content. The last part is to watch, or engage in the selection and compare it to the definition of violence or of interest. Challenges: Content analysis tells us about the content of specific media but nothing deeper, it won't tell us about effects of content. It can be time consuming, definitions of content can vary. Ethical lines of what can be analyzed are unclear as well, for EX: peoples mental conditions being shared online, is that ok to use for research?

Answer 24

a non-experimental research method that studies the relationship between two or more variables without manipulating them, aiming to describe and predict relationships rather than establish cause and effect Most studies do find a correlation with violent media and increased aggressive behavior. (Directionality problem!) Limits: Third variables, directionality, no causation. EX: A common correlational design example is measuring a relationship between physical activity and self-esteem

Answer 25

a research method that involves repeated observations of the same variables or individuals over an extended period of time, often years or decades Pros: helps us establish directionality. Many of these studies do find that early violent media consumption can predict later aggressive behavior. Violent media preceding aggression Limits: takes forever

Answer 26

Trend: Many– but not all— longitudinal studies find that earlier violent media use predicts more aggressive behavior and less prosocial behavior EX: start in early development looking at aggression and viewed media then test the kids 10 years later. This helps us establish the time order and therefore directionality. Found that kids who consumed more violent media were higher in aggression.

Answer 27

the structured process of planning and conducting an experiment to test a hypothesis and establish cause-and-effect relationships by manipulating variables and controlling others These help us eliminate 3rd variables! Problem is the ethics behind showing kids violent media.

Answer 28

EX: Kids played Mario or street fighter, found that SF kids had more aggressive behavior in the Noise Blast task later. More prominent in children. EX: 11-14 year olds are shown indirect, direct or non aggressive videos: then asked to evaluate the researcher who introduced them. Asked if they should keep them, and how much to pay. The more aggressive video meant poorer evaluation and less money. This doesn’t replicate everywhere but is decently consistent. Many experimental studies show those who are assigned to consume media violence (TV, video games) are then more likely to demonstrate aggressive cognitions/behaviors - But not all studies!!!

Answer 29

an observational study that uses naturally occurring events or policy changes to investigate their effects, where exposure to a "treatment" or condition is determined by nature or external factors outside the researchers' control, but mimics random assignment where naturally occurring circumstances (like geography creating some towns with TV and some with none) create differences between individuals.

Answer 30

Notel is a natural experiment created by different areas within a region having no TV (Notel), 1TV channel (Unitel), or a lot of TV (Multitel) due to satellite availability. Notel measured higher in reading and creative thinking when they had no TV, when they got one channel, Aggression and gender stereotypes went up, reading and critical thinking went down!

Answer 31

a statistical technique that combines the quantitative results from multiple independent studies on the same topic to derive a more precise and powerful "pooled estimate" of the effect being studied Small to moderate effects of violent media leading to aggressive behavior. 2-10 %. Lots of debate around this conclusion, is there any real world impact?

Answer 32

An act that intentionally leads to physical or psychological harm, violence comes up in many different forms of media, news, movies, video games, scenes of car crashes, intentional harm. There is such a wide range. Harm depicted physically or psychological.

Answer 33

60% of TV shows have violence, 70% in children's programming, 90% in movies etc. In video games rated E: 60-90%. Rate T games were at 98% These are old statistics however.

Answer 34

The typical idea is that viewing media violence leads to increased aggressive behavior and decreased prosocial behavior.

Answer 35

Catharsis Social Cognitive Theory Scripts Theory Priming Excitation Transfer Desensitization General aggression model

Answer 36

An old theory that states when we see violence that should reduce our aggression because that should get our urges for violence out. Not much evidence to support this.

Answer 37

By Albert Bandura, created the famous Bobo the doll study. SCT states we are likely or less likely to mimic the behavior we observe from others depending on circumstances (EX: Reward Vs Punishment). Observational learning suggests we would copy violence too. Not everyone is impacted in the same way however. This was impacted by reinforcement and punishment and the reaction of others. The reward or punishment influences the child's behavior a lot. Lack of punishment looks like a reward too. In media we see rewards for violence all the time.

Answer 38

Mimicking aspects of behavior depicted in violent media depends on different conditions. This was impacted by reinforcement and punishment and the reaction of others. The reward or punishment influences the child's behavior a lot. Lack of punishment looks like a reward too. In media we see rewards for violence all the time.

Answer 39

a subconscious process where exposure to a stimulus (the "prime") influences a person's response (thoughts, feelings, behaviors) to a subsequent, related stimulus without their awareness of the connection For violent media, it is thought that observing violent media can "prime" aggressive thoughts

Answer 40

Script theory posits that humans use mental templates called scripts to understand and navigate common situations by providing a program for action. In our mind we have an idea of how particular interactions are suppose to go. For example the script of going to a restaurant. We use these scripts to apply to our own behavior. In a context of violence, the more we see or play in video games, the more likely we could adopt violet scripts. Certain types of scripts can be primed. For example: if I have just watched a violent move, a violet script could get primed for and used to guide my behavior in solving a disagreement I have later.

Answer 41

Arousal: increased heartrate, blood pressure, muscle tension etc in response to something. Arousal can be misinterpreted as anger or other emotions that could lead to more aggression. Excitation transfer: This is the idea that consuming violent media leads to arousal, this arousal can be mis interpreted as anger and therefore influence our behaviors!

Answer 42

Desensitization theory: With repeated exposure to something it becomes normal. The more we see violence the more we think it's not a big deal. Our reactions to violence are lessened significantly. Neuro Sci example: teens were put in a brain scanner and showed violence. The two groups had different levels of exposure to violent media. They showed them all the same violent media repeatedly. Low previous exposure had more brain activation than those who had lots of previous exposure.

Answer 43

A model of inputs and outputs to map how and when aggressive behavior is more or less likely. Inputs: These are variables that may influence someone's aggression. The two inputs are: The situation itself, and the person's characteristics. Routes: There are 3 routes that inputs influence that can lead to aggressive outcomes: Our affect, cognition, and arousal. Outcomes: After routes have been influenced by inputs, we have an appraisal and decision process on to determine if we act thoughtfully, or impulsively. Social encounter: Depending on the result of our appraisal, we have a social encounter then a feedback loop depending on what happens in that social encounter. The next inputs are typically based on getting rewarded or punished by the social encounter.

Answer 44

Violent media Short term effects: These impact arousal and affect, which can prime aggressive thoughts. Violent media long term effects: This affects our cognitions and arousal, over time this can create more aggressive scripts, and desensitize us to violence.

Answer 45

Do the impacts of violent media have the same effects across different types of people? Gender Culture Age Personality Mood Identification

Answer 46

Early studies suggest that violent media affects boys more than girls, however recent studies may suggest that gender effects are not super different. Most studies are done on boys which makes it hard to tell.

Answer 47

There are similar effect sizes across cultures. The correlation or size of the effect is similar across different cultures, increasing violent media consumption leads to similar effects, universality to this claim. Effects are similar cross-culturally.

Answer 48

The first big challenge is Finding an ethically appropriate media suitable to show all ages is hard! Creates many 3rd variables since we can not let kids play Mortal Combat. We can try to compensate by letting kids play a "game of equivalent violence" like Minecraft and old kids play Mortal Combat but they are two different games which may lead to inaccurate findings. HOWEVER: There is some evidence of children 5 and under most impacted by violent media. An idea for this is because they don’t understand reality vs fantasy as well as older kids do.

Answer 49

The effects of violent media do change depending on characteristics of the individual. Aggression: If individuals are high in aggression, or have "Hostile Attribution Bias" they are more likely to be influenced by violent media and behave aggressively. Current mood also makes us more or less likely to behave aggressively in response to violent media.

Answer 50

Similarity Identification: This is a tendency to behave more like a character/person when we feel similar or identify with that character/person more. This applies to violent media as well. EX: Video game players more likely to show aggression after playing with personalized avatars Wishful Identification: The desire to be similar to a fictional character. The more wishful identification with an aggressive character, the more aggressive they were in the speaker game.

Answer 51

Main Question: Does wishful identification with violent video game characters make adolecent boys more aggresive after playing the game? So the significant reasons that boys did increase loud sound blasts were through wishful identification, realistic violent games predicted more wishful identification, not aggresion. Wishful identification is the mediator. Implications: violent video games increse aggresion when players wnat to be like the character the most. Limits: measured correlation not cause. no measures on empathy and its effects, long term effects uncertain. small sample

Answer 52

Perpetrators can be appealing, are they rewarded for violence? Are their consequences for violence? When the violence looks realisitce there is more of an effect. These features matter! Depending on if characters are rewarded or punished for behavior can lead to Identification with the character, liking of the character, which lead to mimicking behavior (Aggressive Behavior). Also how realistic the violence looks matters.

Answer 53

Violent Video games also have collaborate features which are actually good for us! When we play games that require team work like Fortnite, it helps us feel more connectedness, competence and more.

Answer 54

Main question: findings: Violent co-op has the most prosocial benifit, even over neutral co-op. The mediator is violent co-op increases competence, relatedness, positive emotions which = prosocial behavior. How children played co-op was the big factor.

Midterm 1 Study Flashcards

(79 cards)