In an article published in 2012 in the Journal of Psychiatric Research*, the researcher Christopher Ferguson looked back on more than ten years of heated debate around “video game violence”. His longitudinal study, carried out over three years with teenagers, found no link between exposure to video game violence and aggressive behaviour.
But it is above all the last part of his article that resonates strangely today. Ferguson discusses moral panic theory, according to which every generation invents its “folk devils” — those cultural objects accused of corrupting youth and destroying society.
As societal and scientific concerns regarding violence in video games appear to be abating, it may be important to understand past claims of harm from video games in the light of moral panic theory (Ferguson, 2010; Gauntlett, 2005). In brief, moral panic theory observes that societies tend to create “folk devils” onto which they displace blame for supposed problems in society. Various forms of new media have been observed to be the object of a moral panic, often accompanied by allegations of imminent harm to minors (Gauntlett, 2005; Kutner and Olson, 2008). For example, Batman and Robin comic books were once thought to be the cause not only of delinquency but also of homosexuality (Kutner and Olson, 2008). Other moral panics concerning media as diverse as jazz, the waltz, rock and roll and rap, penny dreadfuls, Dungeons and Dragons, Harry Potter and, in the era of classical Greece, even Greek plays have been documented (Ferguson, 2010). In light of the excellent essay by Hall et al. (2011), which accurately documents and predicts the potential harm done to the scientific community by science’s indulgence in societal moral panics, we believe it is incumbent on the scientific community to become more familiar with moral panic theory. We believe it will be helpful for the scientific community to learn to identify moral panics more cleverly in the future, particularly when they are likely to influence the scientific process. Failing to do so risks turning the field into what Feynman (1974) called a “cargo cult science“, that is, a field that has the appearances of a science but which, in reality, resists the process of falsification. In light of this, we identify the following potential indicators of a moral panic within the scientific community:
1) A particular theory is presented as having been conclusively and consistently demonstrated, leaving no room for any doubt or debate.
2) The theoretical data used or obtained rely on imprecise, non-standardised, unreliable or poorly validated measures.
3) Proponents of the theory construct arguments that invert falsifiability. These may be arguments that any size of effect, however small, can have practical importance; that sample sizes must be large enough to detect effects, however small (which implies that only statistically significant results are desirable); that null results are always type II errors; that null studies are invariably of poorer quality than statistically significant studies; that publication bias does not exist or does not matter; etc.
4) Proponents of a particular theory display citation bias, that is, they fail to acknowledge contradictory work or alternative theoretical views.
5) Publication bias has been documented in the field (for example, Ferguson and Kilburn, 2009).
6) Researchers have begun regularly to affiliate with activist or lobbying groups dedicated to a particular cause, or to accept funding from them.
7) Proponents of a theory begin to compare it favourably with well-documented scientific discoveries such as smoking/lung cancer, global warming, evolution, etc.
8) Proponents of a theory resort to ad hominem attacks on their critics.
9) Proponents of a theory resort to logical fallacies such as arguments from authority or arguments from consensus.
10) A theoretical approach relies too much on confirmation rather than refutation, thus inverting the scientific process. This is sometimes also called a reversal of the burden of proof.
It is hard not to think of some of today’s alarmist discourse about “entirely harmful screens”, “digital addictions” or “virtual autism”. Same script: a new object, a sincere worry, a few fragile studies… and there is the folk devil of the decade.
As Ferguson reminds us, scientific vigilance is less about denouncing than about doubting, especially when fear takes precedence over nuance. And if we really want to protect young people, perhaps we should start by not giving in to panic ourselves.
OD
*Ferguson, C. J., San Miguel, C., Garza, A., & Jerabeck, J. M. (2012). A longitudinal test of video game violence influences on dating and aggression: A 3-year longitudinal study of adolescents. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 46(2), 141–146.
