Applied to video game violence, maximal positive controls is far from even a minimal demonstration: Comment on ( )

Abstract

In this reply to Hilgard’s 2021 criticisms of the Hasan et al. (2013) study, we show that his use of the Maximal Positive Controls methodology was inappropriately implemented for four main reasons: (1) he had participants watch a film of video gameplay (we had participants actively play video games), (2) his videos were about 2 minutes and 15 seconds whereas our video games were played 20 minutes per day for three days; (3) his protocol involved one-session whereas our protocol involved three sessions, and (4) he relied on a direct process (in our study the process was indirect). Moreover, his study was based on a sample mostly composed of women, lacked controls, used only one video game per condition, and did not include a measure of aggressive behavior. Moreover, Hilgard erroneously suggested that the effect size on Day 3 of the Hasan et al. study was implausible. However, this claim is unwarranted because past media violence studies have reported larger effects than our effect. Moreover, based on theory we expected a large effect on Day 3 because we expected repeated exposure to violent video games to have a cumulative effect over time. Although the Maximal Positive Controls methodology could be an innovative way to assess psychological research, we believe that the specific ways it was applied to the Hasan et al. study was inappropriate in multiple ways. We believe that the gold standard for assessing whether research results are implausible is to conduct an exact replication of the target study.