An interventional study of Video games and violence in Psychology, Social and Adolescent Behavior, sponsored by Ohio State University. Completed at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 8 Years to 12 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2020-05-11.
Sponsored by Ohio State University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Other
More American children die by accidental gun use than children in other developed countries. One factor that can influence children's interest in guns is exposure to media containing guns. The objective of this study is to test whether children who play a video game containing guns will handle a real gun longer, will pull the trigger more times, and pull the trigger while pointing the gun at themselves or another than children who see the same movie without guns.
The design will be a 2 (player vs. observer) x 3 (nonviolent, violent with sword, violent with gun) between-subjects study. Participants will randomly be assigned to conditions. Participants will be tested in pairs. The participant in the player condition will play a video game while the participant in the watcher condition will watch. The participants will be in the same room, seated next to each other.
Video games will be chosen for the three conditions which have no violent content (nonviolent condition), violent content with a sword as a weapon for the player (violent with sword condition), and violent content with a gun as a weapon (violent with gun condition). All games chosen will be age appropriate (rated E) and have a consistent perspective (i.e., 1st person or 3rd person) between conditions. Participants will be asked how familiar they are with the video game used to control for experience with the stimulus. Gameplay will last for 20 minutes.
The measures for experiment 3 will include the media habits, aggressive behavior, attitude toward guns, and guns in the home measures listed for experiment 1. In addition, parents will be asked if their children have taken a gun safety course and a behavioral measure will be whether or not children handle a real (but non-firing) gun and whether they pull the trigger.
Participants will be tested in pairs, with a sibling or friend. Participants will be placed in a room containing toys, with a camera on the wall. Participants will be told that they can play with any of the toys in the room for the next 20 minutes. The toys will be placed will be placed in drawers inside a cabinet. Inside the room, two brightly colored plastic Nerf dart guns and two handguns will be placed in separate drawers, as in previous research. The handguns will be modified so they cannot fire. Inside the magazine, the handguns contain no bullets. They do, however, contain a sensor that counts the number of times the trigger is depressed with sufficient force to discharge the weapon. This allows us to distinguish reliably the children who pull the trigger from those who only handle the gun. Parents will be asked to predict whether their child will handle the real gun and pull the trigger. The researcher and the parents will be able to watch the session via a monitor in a control room. A thorough debriefing will follow (see attachment). The investigators also have received letters of support from the Director of the School of Communication and from the Chief of Police (see attachments). The investigators predict the highest levels of playing with guns and firing them among participants who see a violent clip containing guns.
305 studies on the registry are indexed under Adolescent Behavior; 47 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 250 is above the median of 172 across 256 interventional studies indexed under Adolescent Behavior.
Browse Adolescent Behavior studies →Ohio State University is the lead sponsor of 663 studies on the registry; 148 are open to participants now.
Of its 67 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 49 (73%) have results posted.
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Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
Exclusion Criteria:
Participants in this condition will play a video game with violent content which includes guns.
Behavioral: Video games and violence
Participants in this condition will play a video game with violent content which does not include guns. Instead, the violence will include weapons such as swords.
Behavioral: Video games and violence
Participants in this condition will play a video game which contains no violent content or weapons.
Behavioral: Video games and violence
Participants will be randomly assigned to play a video game which contains either (1) no violent content, (2) violent content with swords, or (3) violent content with guns. The game, rated E, is age appropriate and modded to include guns in the appropriate condition.
Time Spent Holding Gun
Time (in seconds) participant spent holding the real firearm during the play session
Time frame: 20 minute play session
Number of Trigger Pulls
Number of times participant pulled trigger of real firearm during the play session
Time frame: 20 minute play session
Number of Trigger Pulls Aimed at Self or Other
Trigger pulls while the firearm is aimed at the child holding the firearm or the other participant.
Time frame: 20 minute play session
| Milestone | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Watcher) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Watcher) | Control: No Violence (Player) | Control: No Violence (Watcher) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Started | 42 | 42 | 42 | 42 | 41 | 41 |
| Eligible | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 |
| Outlier elimination | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 39 | 39 |
| Found handgun | 38 | 38 | 37 | 37 | 35 | 35 |
| Completed | 38 | 38 | 37 | 37 | 35 | 35 |
| Not completed | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 |
Time (in seconds) participant spent holding the real firearm during the play session
| Seconds | Control: No Violence (Player) | Control: No Violence (Watcher) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Watcher) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Watcher) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time Spent Holding Gun | 29.57 ± 15.28 | 21.14 ± 10.92 | 82.86 ± 25.79 | 48.62 ± 24.77 | 61.52 ± 17.77 | 68.40 ± 17.59 |
Number of times participant pulled trigger of real firearm during the play session
| Number of trigger pulls | Control: No Violence (Player) | Control: No Violence (Watcher) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Watcher) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Watcher) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Trigger Pulls | 2.31 ± 1.60 | 1.97 ± 1.20 | 4.19 ± 1.74 | 2.22 ± 1.45 | 6.45 ± 2.60 | 8.79 ± 3.38 |
Trigger pulls while the firearm is aimed at the child holding the firearm or the other participant.
| Number of trigger pulls | Control: No Violence | Control: No Violence (Watcher) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Watcher) | Experimental: Violence With Guns | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Watcher) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Trigger Pulls Aimed at Self or Other | 0.20 ± 0.20 | 0.09 ± 0.09 | 1.97 ± 1.22 | 0.84 ± 0.53 | 2.42 ± 1.17 | 3.68 ± 1.74 |
Collected over 1 week, as reported by parents in a follow-up email. Non-serious events are listed at a 0% frequency threshold.
| Group | Deaths | Serious | Other |
|---|---|---|---|
| Experimental: Violence With Guns (Player) | 0/38 (0%) | 0/38 (0%) | 0/38 (0%) |
| Experimental: Violence With Guns (Watcher) | 0/38 (0%) | 0/38 (0%) | 0/38 (0%) |
| Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Player) | 0/37 (0%) | 0/37 (0%) | 0/37 (0%) |
| Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Watcher) | 0/37 (0%) | 0/37 (0%) | 0/37 (0%) |
| Control: No Violence (Player) | 0/35 (0%) | 0/35 (0%) | 0/35 (0%) |
| Control: No Violence (Watcher) | 0/35 (0%) | 0/35 (0%) | 0/35 (0%) |
Children between the ages of 8 - 12, tested in pairs. Several children were excluded from the analysis, either for not meeting study criteria (n=4), for being identified as outliers (n=4), or for not finding the handguns (n=22). Figures here are after exclusions.
| Age, Continuous(years) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Watcher) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Watcher) | Control: No Violence (Player) | Control: No Violence (Watcher) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean | 9.66 ± 1.60 | 10.08 ± 1.50 | 9.97 ± 1.21 | 9.95 ± 1.41 | 9.88 ± 1.40 | 9.82 ± 1.36 | 9.94 ± 1.45 |
| Sex: Female, Male(Participants) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Watcher) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Watcher) | Control: No Violence (Player) | Control: No Violence (Watcher) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 16 | 15 | 11 | 15 | 13 | 21 | 91 |
| Male | 22 | 23 | 26 | 22 | 22 | 14 | 129 |
| Race/Ethnicity, Customized(Participants) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Watcher) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Watcher) | Control: No Violence (Player) | Control: No Violence (Watcher) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| White | 28 | 28 | 28 | 26 | 26 | 27 | 163 |
| Black | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 25 |
| Latino | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| Asian | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Mixed race or other | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 23 |
| Region of Enrollment(Participants) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence With Guns (Watcher) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Player) | Experimental: Violence Without Guns (Watcher) | Control: No Violence (Player) | Control: No Violence (Watcher) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 38 | 38 | 37 | 37 | 35 | 35 | 220 |
PDFs hosted by the registry, ClinicalTrials.gov.
Plan to share: Undecided — The investigators are considering making individual participant data available, but need to determine steps and appropriateness according to our institutional IRB board.
Ran from Jul 2017 to primary completion in Aug 2018, 13 months.
Results were first posted in May 2020, 1 year 8 months after primary completion.
Of 195 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Adolescent Behavior, half reached primary completion within 21 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 8 and three quarters within 43. This study's 13 months is below that.
Counting every sponsor, half of 198 studies reached it within 20 months; a quarter within 8 and three quarters within 40.
How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.
This study is completed, as verified in Apr 2020. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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