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Studies Say Video Games Increase Violent Behavior
KyDaran was one of several people who wrote about findings in UniSci regarding two studies released in the April issue of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The studies show a relationship between violent and aggressive behavior and video game playing. Check out the full journal study for yourself.
I don't like to talk about this too often, but I will admit that I had a little run-in with the authorities as a youth, as a direct result of too many videogames.
When I was 8, I was sent to a shrink after spending days running back and forth in front of my apartment building with a bucket of water in my hands screaming "Get out of the way! Get out of the way! I must prevent the Mad Bomber from succeeding in his evil plans!".
This was followed by the unfortunate episode where I crafted a giant yellow arrow (not like a bow and arrow, but an arrow as in the symbol that points to something) and ran around town screaming out "Foul Rhindle! I will find and defeat you! I must keep moving! The bat wants my arrow!".
Of course, I hit rock bottom the time I stole several dozen live chickens from the local farm and threw them out into the road at rush hour.
(sigh)
Okay, my therapist says sharing all of those painful memories will make me feel better. I do already.
Suddenly the results become clearer. Of course the Wolfenstein 3D group was more violent! The control group was probably asleep by the end of the test.
You have teh most important point, that correllation != causation.
And when one thinks about it, we really do expect those who are violent and prone to such behavior to be more interested in such games (and the same goes for rapists and violent pornography).
However, they do have a scrap, at least, in one of the studies. They found that the link is stronger for those who fit an aggressive profile to start with. I'd have to look *very* closely at their definitions before accepting this--as a Ph.D. statistician, psychologists playing with statistics are the second most suspect group (behind sociologists).
However, the match does not have to be exact for them to come up with a valid correllation--even a mild correllation (such as between a general agressive profile) and a different result (stronger correllation) *could* be evidence of causation, but I'd really need a closer look before being certain.
hawk
...I cannot believe how much this pisses me off! Where's my BFG; someone's going to pay for thi...oh wait...=)
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
After a marathon of Tetris-playing, my friends would go outside and lay brick walls. I fear some of them went into construction for a living.
After playing Sim City I had an uncontrollable compulsion to run for mayor, or at least to lay pipes for the sewer authority.
I saw some people play too much Populous. They became Gods.
You don't want to know what happened to the guy that played Leisure Suit Larry.
Yes, it is obvious but it is also a vast over simplification of a much more complex problem. Examining violent games alone without looking at the society that creates the games is a useless exercise to say the least. Violent games lead to violent behavior. I say yeah so? That is obivous to the point of being banal.
What nobody is really doing at this point is examining the kind of culture that produces these same games. Change society and the games and other forms of entertainment will become less violent. Less violent cultures simply do not get into the same violent passtimes that our culture goes for (the Japanese are odd in the sense that they love the epic fight/duel games and yet do not have the violence factor).
The society of the Japanese is not as violent(notice I am not saying that their culture is pacifist by any means and their history is very violent I know this) but the games are. The society and culture not the games the children play make the monsters taking out each other in our schools.
ACK
During exercises, he was on the base aggressor team. Personnel in various non-combat roles would be trained to augment base defense (one day you're a clerk, the next you're in a concrete bunker overlooking a field). The aggressor team would attack the augmentee's positions as part of the exercise.
There was a particularly annoying young lady that my friend was unable to ferret out. Time was ticking. The pressure built and he went after her with everything he had. He tossed a smoke grenade at the bunker and lit up her MILES gear as she staggered away from her position.
There was some hand-smacking for tossing ordnance at another person. Not the safest thing to do. And probably quite unpleasant. But my friend was much harder on himself. He was quite horrified at his own actions. "I wanted to take her out so bad. I mean... my God... I was salivating!"
The heat of the moment.
We all like to think we know ourselves. We have our boundaries that we feel comfortable with. There are logical reasons behind what we will and won't do. But to say we know exactly what we'll do while under the pressure of a dire moment is deluding ourselves. We may crumble. Or we may unleash a force we didn't know our psyche contained. And quite often, the situation may call for the actions that force enables us to do. Our survival may be dependent on it.
And it may scare us after the fact.
This actually seems to be an intelligently written and well done study. Their claims aren't outlandish or too far reaching, and they're obviously building on a significant body of research and theory. What I take issue with is the invocation of Columbine at the beginning of the paper. Why dump this incident at the top of an otherwise scholarly paper? Yes, there has been a great association by members of the media between the two kids who did the killings and violent video games, but placing it in this context makes it sound like they are claiming to have the answer, which is not a claim that they are making. The article itself admits that the games would be only one possible factor. Why not come right out and admit what that means? Video games may increase short term and/or long term aggression. But there is no indication that otherwise healthy people will go on a shooting rampage based on nothing more than a few rounds of Doom. Associating Columbine with the evils of violent video games is a cheap cop out, an attempt to paper over serious societal problems with a scape goat. There was much, much more wrong with those kids than having played Doom, and to focus only on video games as the trigger is both cowardly and dangerous.
"Of all days, the day on which one has not laughed is the most surely the one wasted." -Sebastian Roch Nicol
I'd like to see a study done on the effects of team sports and aggression. My son comes home from Lacrosse games and practices and the usually calm nice 15 year old is a pumped up mass of testosterone. He usually has to take an hour to just hang out alone in his room watching tv until he can deal with anyone else without being too boisterous. I'd say his games have a large effect on his behavior, but that doesn't mean that we don't encourage him with what he's doing. He loves the sport, and he is very good at it. Besides, the game has made him tougher and more physically fit.
Also, I play Quake 3 with my son. We play capture the flag and are usually on the same team. I run and he blocks. We work together and feel a real sense of accomplishment when we trounce another team. I don't see any problem with this at all.
What? I was supposed to have a point? Oh. Nevermind.
... but usually only while playing the games. I can't tell you how many stories of broken controllers/walls/game systems I've heard because people got so frustrated at the damned games...
Seriously, though, I find video games as an outlet for my aggression a lot of the time... If I get really pissed off at something, I'll go play games for a while, and I'll be totally calm afterwards.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
I, for once, will agree that interactivity causes better learning curve. Shouldn't we be applying this simple rule of thumb at schools and universities? If interactivity can alter your behaviour faster and more effectively than passive observations then it is the way to go. I think everything that had to do with learning and that was passive before, should become interactive and involve humans into active learning.
Corollary: I believe that the worst source of violence ever, in the past 50 years (after WWII) was caused by Windows 95/98 OS. It made me so violent sometimes that even the scary Eradicator or Doom or Wolf3 looked PALE in comparison. When my computer crashed because of those OS's I became enraged and unstoppable, I became a killing machine. Of-course when I booted my GNU/Linux or Solaris partitions I cooled down and relaxed for a while.
You can't handle the truth.
This is a NEW study?! And they are playing THESE games??? Of course there is an increase in violent behaviour. These test subject who participated in this study were probably under the impression that they would be playing Half Life or Soul Caliber and they got old, out of date games.... I might be a little violent too...
-----
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
I stopped reading when I found out that the study was conducted on volunteer college students (read: adults) using a questionaire. They didn't let people play games and then give them guns to see if they smiled when they fired the guns or something like that. The people who particpated:
1) had to in order to receive class credit. This is how people who are doing studies get test subjects, the U requires that the 100/200 level students participate in X number of experiments being done by grad students. Unfortunately, these studies are usually questionaires (although, I did participate in one that tested memory by building things with Legos).
2) having filled out a questionaire, did self assesment, which means any results collected are not singlely biased, but rather are up to the interpretation of each person who filled out the questionaire.
Personally, I specificly play Quake3 SO I DON'T GET TOO AGRESSIVE IN REAL LIFE AND KICK SOMEONE'S ASS. A quick 200 frags can be really relaxing.
I'll be eager to go read this new study, but I'm always curious about studies like this: How come if video games spur violence among the young, that violence among the young is dropping to its lowest levels since the depression. Though the study may explain Threads.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Of course video games increase violent behavior. So does my 40 minute commute through bumper to bumper trafic just to get to a job that doesn't pay me enough. But what really makes me violent? Silly studies that try to place the blame for societies ills on the latest scapegoat. In Nazi Germany, the cause of all human woes was the Jews (according to Hitler and his posse) Today, John Carmack is the father of all things unholy. Get a grip! It's not the games. The people who are blowing away folks in the real world have just never developed a sense of right and wrong. My Dad used to carry a rifle to school every day (in the 40's) to go hunting after school. He never shot, or killed anyone. His parents, at home, taught him better.
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
It starts out:
>They are not drunk or high on drugs. They
>are not racists or Satanists, or addicted to
>violent video games, movies or music.
You can read the series of articles here: http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/040900ramp age-killers.html
Could we calm down a bit before posting on this subject? Like any "study" that shows Linux may be inferior to some other OS in some obscure way, this topic always brings out the raving lunatics who disagree, because, dammit!, it's wrong! This doesn't help the "cause" any.
Violent video games are in a bad position, because they get kids talking about how much damage different weapons do and how much ammo they hold and how they took down Joe 3/_ee+ with a head shot. Well, duh, this is going to cause people to wonder. Yeah, yeah, yeah, violent movies, blah, blah, blah, but they didn't let the viewer to do the killing. Being smug about this is the wrong angle. It's like going in front of a PTA and saying, "C'mon all you soccer moms! Marijuana isn't bad like everyone says! Look at me!"
The quote says it all...
Gun manufacturers don't make bad products, bad parents do.
Last year, studies said bran was good for you. This year they say it's bad for you.
Vitamin C used to useless, then it was a miracle drug, now it's useless again.
And yes, after a year of studies finding little correlation, there will of course be two that find that video games are killing us all. Along with rays from high-tension lines, cellular phones, caffeine, aspartame, and the fumes from using ALex caulk on your house's siding.
Yawn.
Somebody let me know when the experts have agreed on something for more than five years in a row. I should be nearly finished with Thief II and System Shock 2 by then. Then you can let me know if I'm a raving psycho or not.
--G
The article does NOT say that video games increase violent behavior, in fact, it says precisely the opposite. Allow me to show you why it says the opposite, when one understands entry level psychology statistics methods.
.05).
> Playing violent video games often may well cause increases in delinquent behaviors,
> both aggressive and nonaggressive. However, the correlational nature of Study 1
> means that causal statements are risky at best. It could be that the obtained video
> game violence links to aggressive and nonaggressive delinquency are
> wholly due to the fact that highly aggressive individuals are especially
> attracted to violent video games.
This is the single most significant portion of Study #1, it says that people who play violent video games are the same people who are aggressive individuals. This means one of three things, either people play violent video games and become aggressive because of it, people who are aggressive prefer to play violent video games, or a third factor causes both aggressiveness and a tendency to play violent video games.
In order to resolve which of the three it was, they conducted the second study. In Study #2, the hypothesis was the first of the three things I mentioned, that playing violent video games causes aggression. The results of the pilot study conducted for the hypothesis are reported as follows:
> The game type effect as well as all two- and three-way interactions between
> the independent variables were nonsignificant (allps >
The key word here is "nonsignificant". In other words, this means that when they attempted to find an increase in aggression due to playing violent video games, they completely failed. There was no measureable increase in aggression due to playing violent video games.
So in conclusion, no, playing violent video games does NOT increase violent behavior, and studies, such as this one, continue to demostrate such. Only the opposite can be shown, that people who are aggressive are inclined to play violent video games.
Hello? Anybody home? Our brains are neural networks, which learn by patterning and repetition.
Do the "violent behavior is normal/acceptable/etc" neural pathways get reinforced by playing violent games or by watching cinema/TV violence? Of course they do.
The survival of civilization relies on the OTHER neural pathways overriding the violent ones when its time to make a real life decision. Thankfully this happens most often. Unfortunately, it is happening less often that it used to (road rage is an example.)
Argue all you want that playing violent games is not criminal. (I don't think it is either.) The problem is, the "violent is beneficial" pathways (by nature and evolution) respond FASTER than the "peace" pathways.
Train (a neural network term) those peace pathways as much as you train the ones for immediate attack/flame, and you'll be a fine member of a civilization.
Obvious to any thinking person.
I know this probably weon't make some people happy, but I see this with my own son. When he rents a new shoot 'em up game he seems to be much more aggressive after a few hours of game play.
Knowing this however, it becomes _my_ responsibility as a parent to monitor his game usage and teach him how to appropriately channel his aggression.
Using video games as a substitute for family interaction can lead to problems. Socialization is a learned skill and sitting in front of a video console 4 hours a night takes away from the opportunities to learn this skill.
Does that mean that all of us (myself included) who like to play video games are going to turn into gun crazed lunatics? No, and some groups will try to oversimplify these findings to say that. But there does need to be a balance and it is responisibility of parents to make sure that balance is there.
And the second experiment is just that -- an attempt to start to establish firmer ground for the "video game hypothesis". This was a pretty responsible approach, I believe. The scientific method bears out the truth in time, and in this case, the researchers were clearly trying to find the truth.
Before people overreact, let's remember that there's nothing wrong with having the hypothesis that there is a causal link between real-life and video game violence. For many people, that's actually a "common sense" conclusion. So when someone wants to apply the scientific method to verify the validity of that conclusion, even those who oppose it should applaud the honest and valuable effort.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
I am really really really violent. If someone talks to me when I am at my computer trying to get work done, I will punch them. If I am at the water fountain getting a drink and someone tells me to hurry up, I will kick them.
I learned this behavior from playing video games. It all started with Shinobi, the ninja game from sega. I started pretending to be a ninja and then when street fighter II came out I started fighting like blanka. You couldn't have imagined it when I would dress up in my yellow fur and beat the crap out of people.
This is my life style and I have video games to thank for it. I now know 20 different styles of martial arts, learned from playing video games. You would believe how high I can jump!
The psychological profession long ago decided that the road to power and political relevance was to reject the Aristotilean idea of catharsis and instead follow the Platonic idea that "the poets should be banned from the Republic because they get the people all stirred up." Otherwise, they won't get invited to testify on Capitol Hill or TV talk shows.
There are some counter articles out there today that everyone should also read:
Lawmakers are uneducated about video game industry, panelist says
Illinois attorney general urges end to sales of violent video games to minors
And, most importantly: Federal judge dismisses lawsuit against movie, video game makers
I think the big question that everyone needs to ask themselves is who better serves American interests, jurists, or psychologists? I agree with R. A. Heinlein (who used to get guff from amateur psychologist when he was writing his juvenile novels, Red Planet, and others) that the psychological profession is full of charlatans and quacks. Of course, with the current low regard the First Amendment and the entire Constitution is held in in this country, I don't expect my opinions to hold much weight.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
The first study just found a link between violent games and violent behavoir. However a link doesn't mean that violent games cause violent behavoir. It's quite common for people to confuse these two. Just because something is associated with something else doesn't mean that that something caused something else. Floods and rain are linked, but you wouldn't say that floods caused rain!
The second study looks at very short term effects that lasted a matter of minutes. No-one has done any proper studies to look at this. IE you get a two groups of kids, encourage one group to play violent games, watch violent TV etc. while do nothing with the other group. Then as they grow up watch their behavoir. Unfortunatly these sort of studies cost huge amounts of money and take a very long time to complete. But they are the gold standard.
Now what would happen if such a study was done and showed a definit cause and effect between violent games and TV and violent behavoir? Well I'll put it this way, good luck keeping Doom legal!
"One study reveals that young men who are habitually aggressive may be especially vulnerable to the aggression-enhancing effects of repeated exposure to violent games," said psychologists Craig A. Anderson, Ph.D., and Karen E. Dill, Ph.D. "The other study reveals that even a brief exposure to violent video games can temporarily increase aggressive behavior in all types of participants."
I look at this report and I worry. Not because of the details of the report in particular, but because aggressive behaviour is difficult to pin down and is not necessarily a bad thing. The first report seems to me to say that aggressive people may be stimulated by aggressive situations. That doesn't strike me as being an illogical statement - it is merely stating the obvious. The second study is more interesting. If I play an immersive video game, yes, my heart rate goes up. In a tricky situation when I'm pinned down by sniper fire or there is a helicopter whirring overhead, I'm tense, edgy. If I get into an open fire-fight with half a dozen other human players or computer-controlled players, I may get aggressive and noisy. So yes, video games do have an effect, probably far more effective then TV because the interaction between what you see and can do is so much more complete.
But is this limited to computer games, or does it extend to other activities? I would argue that any competitive activity will lead to increased aggression over my normal, fairly passive self. If I play rugby, there is no way I'm going to survive on the playing field unless I get going. If I'm not pumped when I get the ball, I'm going to get flattened by someone who wants it more than I do. If I'm being chased by some back row player who is technically faster than me on paper, then that extra adrenaline is going to be needed if I'm going to make it to the line. If I'm going to tackle some 6ft6 tight-head prop forward who weighs 260 lbs, I'd better be aggressive!
Any involving competitive activity will require an increased level of adrenaline, alertness and aggression. And it's not necessarily a bad thing - these are our survival instincts being used in a modern arena, whether it's rugby, Quake or even some individual sport like badminton. Aggression can help us out when our other resources are low. The only time aggression becomes a problem is when it is taken from the field of play/battle/sport whatever and spills over into our daily lives. And I really don't feel that this report works through this last point.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.