Chunk #67 — II. G × E Interaction in Aggressive Behavior — A. Potential moderators of genetic influence found in adoption and twin studies — 2. Violent media exposure
Others studies examining the relationship between violent video games and aggressive acts have found little evidence for a relationship. A recent review included a total of 25 studies comprising 27 independent observations. The corrected overall effect size for all included studies was only r = 0.08 (Ferguson and Kilburn, 2009). The mixed findings in the literature clearly suggest that more research is needed to resolve whether there is a link between exposure to violent video games and aggressive behavior. Also, some studies have found that exposure to violent video games only explains a small fraction of the variance. An explanation for this paradox could be that exposure to violent video games moderates the influence of genetic and environmental effects on aggressive behavior, rather than exerting direct effects. No genetically informative studies have examined violent video game exposure as a possible moderator of genetic influence on aggression, however, leaving this as an important area in need of study.
