Causes and consequences of a biased representation and perception of social science research: The violent video games debate as an example

Whenever social science research directly relates to people's everyday rationalities, and when social scientific findings collide with laypersons' subjective experiences, such research may become instrumentalized by the media and by political authorities and misconstrued by the general public. Scientific programs and findings are most likely to be misperceived and devalued when (a) they threaten fundamental moral convictions (such as justice, equality, nonviolence), or when (b) they threaten people's needs for a positive social identity. In this article, we exemplify the cognitive and emotional processes involved in such misperceptions in the context of media violence research, that is, research on the potentially harmful effect of playing violent video games. Implications and consequences of this analysis for a communication between science and the public will be discussed.