Pub Med has announced a new study on the effects of violent video game playing on persons with autism spectrum disorder, a study launched in response to some recent commentary that such game playing is more likely to negatively affect persons with ASD than those without the disorder. However, the authors report in their abstract that results “suggest that societal concerns that exposure to violent games may have a unique effect on adults with autism are not supported by evidence.”

Here is the link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26113064

It has been my contention for some time that violent video games are not causative of antisocial or violent behavior. Such behaviors have other roots, leaving only some measure of correlation (which is not causation) in its place. My view depends much on Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura) and the principal of self-agentic behavior, which is what led Bandura to leave the behaviorist school he originally advocated.

I would like to see someone investigate the possibility that playing violent video games may reinforce bad behavior in those predisposed to antisocial spectrum disorders, and not in those who lack such predispositions. But I’m afraid that experimental studies are likely to run afoul of guidelines for experiments with human subjects, leaving only population studies over time to try and fill the gap.

Any thoughts?

Public TV station KVCR has produced a very nice three-minute news piece on the Inland Empire Museum of Art (IEMA), for which I have been volunteering some time for PR (including setting up this coverage). Here is the URL for the KVCR “news” website: http://kvcr.org/now

The story on IEMA is in the upper right hand corner. Click and watch. Tell me what you think!

Please read this story from today’s NY Times:

I first became aware of Disney management’s arrogance when I got a direct mail piece advertising their management training program back in the late 1990s. The piece, done during the Eisner era, took the tone of “We are so incredibly hot, wonderful and successful, don’t you wish you could be as cool as we are?” They wrote it like they were Harvard or Stanford, Penn or Wharton…a business school better than any other!

And over the years I’ve seen and heard other stories in the same vein. Their organizational psychology is one of multiple personality disorder. There’s Dr. Jekyll, the warm and wonderful creator of Pixar films and Disney characters. Then there’s Mr. Hyde, the miserable, penny-pinching Scrooge out to screw everyone they can for a buck.

How do you like their new park visitor pricing scheme? As much as I genuinely admire Ed Catmull and his team for their apparent grasp and successful practice of media psychology concepts, I abhor the fact that he’s tied up with these bastards. So I won’t go see any more Pixar films. I won’t visit the parks anymore. I won’t watch ABC TV. I intend to boycott any and all things Disney, as best I can. I ask you to join me.