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Gamers Are More Aggressive To Strangers
TheClockworkSoul writes "According to NewScientist, victorious gamers enjoy a surge of testosterone — but only if their vanquished foe is a stranger. Interestingly, when male gamers beat friends in a shoot-em-up video game, their levels of the hormone plummeted. This suggests that multiplayer video games tap into the same mechanisms as warfare, where testosterone's effect on aggression is advantageous. Against a group of strangers — be it an opposing football team or an opposing army – there is little reason to hold back, so testosterone's effects on aggression offer an advantage. 'In a serious out-group competition you can kill all your rivals and you're better for it,' says David Geary, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Missouri in Columbia, who led the study. However, when competing against friends or relatives to establish social hierarchy, annihilation doesn't make sense. 'You can't alienate your in-group partners, because you need them,' he says."
If all y'alls weren't such retards, you'd have asked that question already. Suck it, LUUUUSERS.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I find that I feel bad if I kill someone on my own team by accident.
Then I feel better when I teabag them anyway. Laughter is definitely the best medicine.
I play with my co-workers at lunchtime. I can tell you I get no satisfaction from killing them... none at all *looks shiftilly around*
*STAB STAB STAB STAB*
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
If every soldier got to personally know their enemy, there would be no war.
The lack of communication, and the alienation and dehumanization of the foe are what justifies violent recourse. If only saddam hussein hadn't denied Bush's friend request on facebook...
Yeah, whatever... Take a group of seasoned Pen & Paper gamers and they'll fuck you up with a 10-foot pole and 50 feet of rope.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
I coach youth wrestling and see something similar. There are some kids who just cannot take practice against a teammate seriously - they joke around, their attention wanders, and the ADD kids become downright dangerous. But in a match, against a stranger, it's like their doppelganger stepped onto the mat - very focused, executing moved with speed and precision they never showed elsewhere. And the ADD kids change to - now they hyper-focus, which isn't very good from a coaches standpoint.
Well I guess it's a good thing that I, as a guy with ADD, was on the Debate Team rather than the Wrestling Team in high school.:)