Christopher J Ferguson
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 1662851 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Christopher J Ferguson |
| NOMBRES | Christopher J |
| APELLIDO | Ferguson |
| FIRMA | FERGUSON C J |
| AFILIACIONES | Stetson University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0986-7519 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 92 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 106 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 92 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2000 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
The Complex Relationship Between Community, Economic, Social Factors, Violent Crime, and Suicide
The current study examined suicide and violent crime data for 100 large municipalities in the United States. Suicide occurred more often when high school graduation rates were lower, but paradoxically, better income inequality rates predicted higher suicide, though this is consistent with international economic data. The frequency of mental distress predicted suicide as expected. Communities with higher proportions of black residents were more re…
The relationship between rapid media consumption and short-term cognition
Links between social media use and mental wellness in youth are an artifact of other factors
Longer-term interventions to reduce social media time do not improve mental health
Do social media experiments prove a link with mental health
Suicides Among Youth and Social Environment
CRT(ish) ‘indoctrination’ in schools
Video games as conduits for radicalization
Loneliness and political intolerance
Have introductory psychology textbooks gotten better at representing psychological science
Recent scholarship has identified that factual errors have been common in introductory psychology textbooks. These errors tend to be in the direction of making psychological research appear more consistent than it is, as well as promoting viewpoints consistent with politically progressive ideologies. Some famous experiments in psychology have also seen serious questions raised about their validity. Given that these conversations have gone on for …
Cyberbullying and its relation to right and left authoritarianism, trait victimhood, and mental illness
Resolving the Contradictory Conclusions from Three Reviews of Controlled Longitudinal Studies of Physical Punishment
Economic correlates of crime
Directional is the new null? A comment on Bushman and Anderson (2021)
Bushman and Anderson (2021) have recently argued that the evidence of harm after playing violent video games is so strong that this effect should be our starting point for future research. They base this claim on an argument that: (a) many professional bodies agree with this opinion; (b) strong theories, such as their General Aggression Model (GAM), predict such outcomes; (c) experimental and meta-analytic studies back such a claim; and (d) peopl…
Ecological and social correlates of violent crime
Are orcs racist? Dungeons and Dragons, ethnocentrism, anxiety, and the depiction of “evil” monsters
Pride and prejudice and zombies…and statistics
Does sexualization in video games cause harm in players? A meta-analytic examination
An Exploratory Study of Environmental Stress in Four High Violent Crime Cities
Understanding the social contexts of violent crime remains controversial in the literature. In the current study, we examine common social contexts in four cities (Houston, TX, Baltimore, MD, Jackson, MS, Wilmington, DE). Data were examined in two studies. In the first, each city was compared to national county-level data on health outcomes. In the second, communities within the four cities were examined for correlates of crime. Results suggest t…
Pornography and Sexual Aggression
Whether pornography contributes to sexual aggression in real life has been the subject of dozens of studies over multiple decades. Nevertheless, scholars have not come to a consensus about whether effects are real. The current meta-analysis examined experimental, correlational, and population studies of the pornography/sexual aggression link dating back from the 1970s to the current time. Methodological weaknesses were very common in this field o…
Prosocial Video Game Content, Empathy and Cognitive Ability in a Large Sample of Youth
Pathological gaming
Debates about pathological gaming continues in the wake of the World Health Organization's (WHO) decision to establish a gaming disorder diagnosis. Questions persist whether gaming disorder is best conceived as a stand-alone psychiatric disorder, or whether it heralds or accompanies other, more established conditions, such as depression or ADHD. We tested these hypotheses in a sample of 3,034 youth from Singapore. Evidence suggests that pathologi…
Catastrophe
Who are GamerGate? A descriptive study of individuals involved in the GamerGate controversy
Aggressive Video Games Are Not a Risk Factor for Mental Health Problems in Youth
Recent preregistered studies and analyses have suggested that links between aggressive video games (AVGs) and aggression-related outcomes may have been exaggerated in previous literature. However, concerns about AVGs remain. Although the impact of aggressive games on aggressive behaviors has been the subject of approximately a dozen preregistered studies, the potential impact of aggressive games on the player's mental health symptoms has not been…
A meta-analysis of normal and disordered personality across the life span
Much ado about nothing
The issue of violent video game influences on youth violence and aggression remains intensely debated in the scholarly literature and among the general public. Several recent meta-analyses, examining outcome measures most closely related to serious aggressive acts, found little evidence for a relationship between violent video games and aggression or violence. In a new meta-analysis, C. A. Anderson et al. (2010) questioned these findings. However…
Pathological Gaming in Young Adolescents
Video Games and Youth Violence
Children and Parents Deserve Better Parental Discipline Research
This article critiques the scientific evidence for the emerging view in nonclinical parenting research and in popular books that parents should use only positive methods of parenting and rarely resort to any disciplinary consequences. Four methodological fallacies pervade research used to support this viewpoint: the correlational fallacy (inferring causation from correlations), the trumping fallacy (permitting correlational conclusions to trump s…
Concurrent and Prospective Analyses of Peer, Television and Social Media Influences on Body Dissatisfaction, Eating Disorder Symptoms and Life Satisfaction in Adolescent Girls
Violent and non-violent virtual reality video games
Causal Evidence for Exclusively Positive Parenting and for Timeout
In our initial article we raised concerns about a paradigm we called “Exclusively Positive Parenting” (EPP). This paradigm opposes all negative disciplinary consequences, including timeout and privilege removal. We argued that the empirical support for EPP was insufficient. Researchers should not rely on insufficient causal evidence to replace well-established parenting perspectives that combine positive parenting with appropriate firm control. I…
Aggressive Video Games are Not a Risk Factor for Future Aggression in Youth
Violent Video Games, Sexist Video Games, and the Law
During the early 2000s, several states and municipalities sought to regulate minors’ access to violent video games owing to perceived harms to minors. The resultant case law, culminating in the US Supreme Court case Brown v. EMA (2011), demonstrated court skepticism of the science linking violent games to harm in minors. Such skepticism was increasingly confirmed as numerous newer studies could not link violent games to socially relevant outcomes…
Murder she watched
Gender, Video Game Playing Habits and Visual Memory Tasks
One Less Reason Why
Concerns about whether fictional media can have a contagion effect on youth viewers have been debated for several decades. In the 1980s these led to several lawsuits featuring heavy metal acts as defendants. More recently, concerns have been renewed following the popular television show 13 Reasons Why which depicts an adolescent girl’s suicide. The current study examines these concerns in a survey study of 174 youth and their caregivers. Results …
The Impact of Degree of Exposure to Violent Video Games, Family Background, and Other Factors on Youth Violence
Are Associations Between “Sexist” Video Games and Decreased Empathy Toward Women Robust? A Reanalysis of Gabbiadini et al. 2016
She said/he said
Video Game Violence Use Among “Vulnerable” Populations
Is the association between children’s baby video viewing and poor language development robust? A reanalysis of Zimmerman, Christakis, and Meltzoff (2007)
Zimmerman, Christakis, and Meltzoff (see record 2007-18340-001) reported that exposure to Baby Einstein videos was negatively associated with language development. The current study uses the Zimmerman et al. (2007) data set to replicate and extend the original analyses. Caregivers of 392 children aged 6 to 16 months and 358 children aged 17 to 27 months reported on media exposure, language development, and control variables related to child/paren…
Not Worth the Fuss After All? Cross-sectional and Prospective Data on Violent Video Game Influences on Aggression, Visuospatial Cognition and Mathematics Ability in a Sample of Youth
Real feelings for virtual people
Factors which may affect how people become attracted to virtual characters were explored in an online survey of players of a recent video role-playing game. Seventy-four participants (33 male) completed a series of questionnaires assessing their personality, motivations for game play, and feelings towards the ten non-player characters (NPCs) with whom they had potentially experienced extensive interactions within the game world. Results suggest t…
Manufacturing consensus in a diverse field of scholarly opinions
We appreciate the efforts of Bushman and Cruz to provide new data describing parents’ and professionals’ opinions regarding effects of media violence. Unfortunately, we feel it is necessary to call attention to apparent errors and inaccuracies in the way those data are interpreted and represented in their article. The article overstates the extent to which there is agreement that media violence has meaningful negative societal effects and misrepr…
Comfortably numb or just yet another movie? Media violence exposure does not reduce viewer empathy for victims of real violence among primarily Hispanic viewers
Continued debate exists regarding the impact of media violence exposure on viewers’ thoughts and behaviors. One facet of this debate has focused on the possibility that viewing media violence may desensitize viewers to the suffering of others and reduce their empathy. In the current study, 238 mostly Hispanic, young adults were randomized to watch either a violent or nonviolent TV show. Participants also watched clips of either fictional victims …
A Strategy for Involving Undergraduates in Research
Increasingly, colleges and universities value undergraduate educational research experiences, though traditional apprenticeship models may be infeasible due to faculty time and resource limitations. The “embedded researcher” method can provide research experiences to large numbers of students within traditional courses while generating valuable data for faculty. Our implementation of this method at a Hispanic-serving university yielded both high …
Defining and classifying serial murder in the context of perpetrator motivation
Free will
Free will
Media violence
Media violence
Defining and classifying serial murder in the context of perpetrator motivation
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
Gender, Video Game Playing Habits and Visual Memory Tasks
A Multivariate Analysis of Youth Violence and Aggression
An effect size primer
Increasing emphasis has been placed on the use of effect size reporting in the analysis of social science data. Nonetheless, the use of effect size reporting remains inconsistent, and interpretation of effect size estimates continues to be confused. Researchers are presented with numerous effect sizes estimate options, not all of which are appropriate for every research question. Clinicians also may have little guidance in the interpretation of e…
A meta-analysis of normal and disordered personality across the life span
Much ado about nothing
The issue of violent video game influences on youth violence and aggression remains intensely debated in the scholarly literature and among the general public. Several recent meta-analyses, examining outcome measures most closely related to serious aggressive acts, found little evidence for a relationship between violent video games and aggression or violence. In a new meta-analysis, C. A. Anderson et al. (2010) questioned these findings. However…
A meta-analysis of pathological gaming prevalence and comorbidity with mental health, academic and social problems
Video Games and Youth Violence
A Vast Graveyard of Undead Theories
Publication bias remains a controversial issue in psychological science. We argue that the field often constructs arguments to block the publication and interpretation of null results and that null results may be further extinguished through questionable researcher practices. Given that science is dependent on the process of falsification, we argue that these problems reduce psychological science’s capability to have a proper mechanism for theory…
Publication bias in psychological science
The issue of publication bias in psychological science is one that has remained difficult to address despite decades of discussion and debate. The current article examines a sample of 91 recent meta-analyses published in American Psychological Association and Association for Psychological Science journals and the methods used in these analyses to identify and control for publication bias. Of the 91 studies analyzed, 64 (70%) made some effort to a…
Positive Female Role-Models Eliminate Negative Effects of Sexually Violent Media
Much debate has focused on the potential negative role of sexualized violent media on viewer attitudes toward women. One potential issue in previous literature is that depictions of sexuality and violence were confounded with subordinate depictions of female characters. The current study addressed this by randomly assigning young adults to watch either neutral media or sexually violent media with either subordinate or strong female characters. Wo…
Real feelings for virtual people
Factors which may affect how people become attracted to virtual characters were explored in an online survey of players of a recent video role-playing game. Seventy-four participants (33 male) completed a series of questionnaires assessing their personality, motivations for game play, and feelings towards the ten non-player characters (NPCs) with whom they had potentially experienced extensive interactions within the game world. Results suggest t…
Comfortably numb or just yet another movie? Media violence exposure does not reduce viewer empathy for victims of real violence among primarily Hispanic viewers
Continued debate exists regarding the impact of media violence exposure on viewers’ thoughts and behaviors. One facet of this debate has focused on the possibility that viewing media violence may desensitize viewers to the suffering of others and reduce their empathy. In the current study, 238 mostly Hispanic, young adults were randomized to watch either a violent or nonviolent TV show. Participants also watched clips of either fictional victims …
A Strategy for Involving Undergraduates in Research
Increasingly, colleges and universities value undergraduate educational research experiences, though traditional apprenticeship models may be infeasible due to faculty time and resource limitations. The “embedded researcher” method can provide research experiences to large numbers of students within traditional courses while generating valuable data for faculty. Our implementation of this method at a Hispanic-serving university yielded both high …
The Embedded Researcher Method for Involving Undergraduates in Research
Undergraduate research provides multiple educational advantages, and Hispanic students may reap particular benefits. The embedded researcher method avoids difficulties inherent in traditional apprenticeship models, providing meaningful research experience to multiple students within a standard didactic course structure while yielding valuable research data. The authors report implementing this method within an undergraduate course at a Hispanic-s…
Spanking, corporal punishment and negative long-term outcomes
In the eye of the beholder
The issue of thin-ideal (or muscularity ideal for males) media effects on viewers continues to be debated and discussed within the scientific community. Many scholars have concluded that thin-ideal media can have an appreciable effect on viewers. More recently several scholars have contested this issue suggesting that media effects may be small to negligible or limited to groups of individuals already at risk for body dissatisfaction. The current…
Advertising and fictional media effects on healthy eating choices in early and later childhood
The influence of advertisements on children’s healthy eating choices continues to be an issue of great concern to policymakers, activists, and parents. However, these influences have not been examined closely from a developmental perspective. The current analysis examines advertising effects on a sample of 304 mainly Hispanic children aged 3 to 12. Using a randomized experimental design, children were exposed to either advertisements or fictional…
Not Worth the Fuss After All? Cross-sectional and Prospective Data on Violent Video Game Influences on Aggression, Visuospatial Cognition and Mathematics Ability in a Sample of Youth
Psychological Homelessness and Enculturative Stress among US-Deported Salvadorans
Psychology (75 obras) · Social Psychology (50 obras) · Medicine (33 obras) · Impact of Technology on Adolescents (27 obras) · Computer Science (26 obras) · Developmental psychology (22 obras) · Social Psychology (22 obras) · Video game (21 obras) · Poison control (20 obras) · Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression (19 obras)