Virtual Morality Gives Pause For Thought

Thanks to Globeandmail.com for their article discussing deeper storylines and more complex moral choices for a maturing videogame audience. They cite a forum post from a KOTOR player lamenting: "Being evil is addictive and I find myself in situations where my conscience kicks in and it's difficult for me to do the bad thing", and the article claims this "...represents a new generation of sophisticated electronic games, created for a maturing and rapidly expanding audience, that are transforming gaming consoles from an adolescent diversion into a mainstream entertainment medium with artistic integrity and a social conscience." Is it justified to feel guilty about being evil within a videogame?

Comments

wrong wrong wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to insult you, but you really need to open up a psychology book before you quote "fact" that is anything but...

The part of the brain that is referred to as the "reptilian brain" has very little to do with behavior, it controls primarily maintenance functions, not advanced behavior or rational thinking.

Furthermore, almost every single study conducted on the cathartic process (everywhere from movies, to games to punching bags) has concluded that acting out anger only furthers it since the excitation and subsequent release of certain neurotransmitters (dopamine for example) is reinforcing of the aggressive behavior

Am I saying that games make people violent? no, that's neither here nor there. Am I saying that Catharsis is nothing but an exploded myth? yes.

interesting

[newsdee]

"reptilian brain" has very little to do with behavior

You are right... humans do have some kind of "animal instict" behavior, but indeed, it is probably rooted in another place. I have used the term somewhat loosely in this respect...

almost every single study conducted on the cathartic process has concluded that acting out anger only furthers it since the excitation

But for how long is this excitement high ? Is it measured immediately after the experiment or in the long term? Studies with kids and videogames have shown that the arousement levels decrease considerably in time... only because all the violent latent energy was acted out. So if you stop a gamer in mid-session, he'll be aggressive, but if you don't, he will be calm.

Although it is true that Catharsis was defined for passive violence (i.e. seeing a theatre play), so it may not hold for active, there is definetely a calming long-term effect of "harmless" active violence. For example, rugbymen are reputed to be very good husbands because they do all their "macho/violent things" in the field, so they don't feel the psychological need to do them at home.