Transforming odds ratios into correlations for meta-analytic research.

ence lung cancer (e.g., diet, exercise, genetic predispositions). Regarding our own meta-analysis, Block and Crain (2007) stated that we “did not provide references for the studies included in their meta-analysis; therefore it is impossible to replicate their study or determine if they again used the faulty transformation to convert odds ratios and relative risk to correlation coefficients” (p. 252). We did not include references for the studies in our meta-analysis because the editor of American Psychologist thought it would be better to have interested individuals contact us directly for these references rather than to use valuable journal space listing hundreds of references. These references are readily available from Brad J. Bushman. We do agree with Block and Crain’s (2007) conclusion that violent media effects constitute an important and controversial topic and that the results from scientific studies on media-related aggression need to be accurate and replicable. Our 2001 article relied heavily on meta-analytic procedures to integrate the literature on media-related aggression. Meta-analytic procedures are more objective, accurate, and replicable than are traditional narrative procedures (e.g., Bushman & Wells, 2001; Cooper & Rosenthal, 1980). Although violence in the media is not the only factor that increases aggression, or even the most important factor, it is not a trivial factor.