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Don't Study the Video Game, Study the Gamer
rrossman2 writes with this quote from a USA Today article about research recently presented to the American Psychological Association: "Video games — especially violent ones — are constantly under scrutiny from parents concerned about negative effects. Now, research suggests that those worries should focus more on the player's personality rather than the content of the games. 'If you're worried about a video game turning your son or daughter into a killer, don't worry about that,' says psychologist Patrick Markey of Villanova (Pa.) University. 'But is your kid moody, impulsive, or are they unfriendly? It's probably not the best idea to have that child play violent video games.' ... Markey found slight increases in hostility for those with certain personality traits: extremely high on neuroticism and extremely low on agreeableness and conscientiousness. ... 'We found — irrespective of violent content — the two highly competitive games produced more aggressive behavior than the two less competitive games,' [Markey said.]"
Children's violence is actually the fault of the child and his parents. News at 11.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
A red story ! How cute. TACO!! (as in Khan!!) I want my slashdot back.
So, basically, video games can still turn anti-social ultra-competitive assholes into anti-social ultra-competitive assholes? Blows my mind.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
My kids love to play Lego games (StarWars, Indiana Jones, Pirates...) maybe there is no killing per se, but to finish levels you have to fight, shot or use The Force. No violent games? Let me see... nope... don't know any. Even Cars for 3 years old is violent, you drive your favorite Cars character and smash other cars... I think that Mass Effect could fit that non-violent games a little. You run, talk, shot once, yawn... reload, yawn again, shot, run. There are no games which are not violent. Even Teletubbies are kinda weird.
I'm going to let my kids play video games. A lot.
If they murder anyone I will eat my hat. And if it's me they murder I won't have to put up with the 'I TOLD YOU SO'
old non violent great games - tetris, transport tycoon (although sometimes trains crash), capitalism.
newer stuff - spacechem, cities in motion, fate of the world.
most baseball games are non violent, as are most driving games. there are tons of options new and old. the reason we have so many violent games, is because people love playing them, but to say there are no options is just wrong.
hell, you can even play dwarf fortress with invasions off, and it just becomes a great building game (and a bad economy game).
Those who think that video games make people aggressive got cause and effect mixed up. If there is a correlation between aggression and video games it's because aggressive people like to play violent games and not because a game made them aggressive. Like the fact that most bank robbers have guns doesn't mean that guns turn people into criminals.
Heard it here first folks. Tetris multiplayer a bigger danger and a threat to society than Mortal Kombat single player.
(/snark(
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
Didn't I just read this on cracked.com?
Oh yes I did. http://www.cracked.com/article/104_6-ways-video-games-are-saving-mankind/
#4 Make You Nicer (Some of Them, Anyway)
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13726738
A recent Iowa State study supports this line of thought. Researchers took 161 students and assigned each of them one of six games; three "violent" and three "pro-social" (including Super Mario Sunshine, where the player has to clean up graffiti).
After a 20-minute gaming session, the gamers paired up and assigned their partners ten puzzles, knowing the partner would win a gift certificate for completing the puzzle. Interestingly, the pro-social gamers tended to aid partners with easier puzzles. As for the violent gamers, they got off on torturing their partners with brainteasers.
The "pro social" games simply put the kids in a nicer mood. And a German study confirmed it. In that one, having gamers play Lemmings (which involves saving the relentlessly suicidal Lemmings) made them exhibit more pro-social tendencies after playing. See? It works both ways, Jack Thompson.
It doesn't appear to be the same study, but it's the same result.
Nothing makes me more angry than losing a round of chess against some underclass AI...
...I was pretty moody, impulsive and unfriendly as a kid. Does this mean I can't play MW3 now? :(
In the UK we have a rating system the same as for movies in cinema's and DVD's...
If the Game is rated 18 then dont buy it for your 11 year old! are you that dumb?
The kids cant buy these games themselves so its obviously the parents buying them, then blaming the games. Do some research on what you are giving your kids before you buy it, these games are for adults only, just like horror films and porn
'...don't worry about that,' says psychologist Patrick Markey of Villanova (Pa.) University. 'But is your kid moody, impulsive, or are they unfriendly?
...uh...such as about every child that gets into puberty? Yeah, sure.
How about not giving children guns? How many children kill others or themselves when they do not have a gun?
I don't claim that children without a gun don't kill themselves or stab others with knifes, yet it seems striking to me that the violent crimes (aka "running amok") by children (and probably also adults) are so violent because they have one or more guns. At least to me as a non-violent layman from Europe it seems much easier to shoot a dozen classmates than to club them to death or stab them. The bottom-line being that you should not give your child a gun when it reaches puberty. Oh yeah, and also give 'em very sharp katanas without further supervision...
Seriously.
Duh.
What the **** is going on in this ***** up 21st century of yours(ours). So .. I grew up watching roadrunner and tom&jerry. Went through highschool wasting 4nights/week playing nothing but counter-strike for 10 hours straight. Moved from servers in europe to servers in us then in asia as time past and people went to sleep. Played every GTA under the sun. Now i'm in my twenties and I don't rob stores, don't beat up people on the street or get them out of their cars to steal it, I keep the door open for a lady no matter the age or looks because I'm polite, and I work as a programmer and help my parents with groceries and the house and stuff. **** it .. I think I'm a decent person.
These days you can't watch tom&jerry or roadrunner because there's just too much violence and .. think of the children. Really? Well you grew up just fine and I don't see any reminiscence from watching tom&jerry in you. Just do your job and raise them properly and they'll pick up the rest...
mov ax,4c00h
int 21h
Or in other words; "Don't hate the game. Hate the player..." :-)
Stefan Axelsson
But is your kid moody, impulsive, or are they unfriendly?
Seriously? Isn't this the definition of every single teenager that exists, has existed and will exist? Myself included back in the day of course.
Who need's speling and grammar?
Violent AND racist!
Couple that with my love for Yosemite Sam and I'm surprised I'm not blowing away Mexicans in the street.
So in effect, what the article is saying is that if you play competitive games you'll become an asshole. I used to play tourneys rather regularly back in the day and I'm not going to disagree with this. Just look at the communities for all the competitive games out there (MOBAs, RTS games, FPS games, et al.) --e-sports, essentially. The stress of competitive play will generate these negative feelings in people. Teabagging, trash talk, unnecessary violence... if it's true for adults, it'll be true for the kids too.
The lesson you should take away from the study's conclusion is not that competitive games are bad. Far from it, a competitive spirit is seen as an asset in today's society. Instead, teach them coping strategies. Manners, civility, good sportsmanship. Shake the hand of the loser. If you can make them keep in mind the other person's feelings (losing is no fun, losing to a brat is even worse), they'll be well-served later in life. And as for the anger, well, there's no way around it. You have to teach them to recognize anger for what it is.
As Conan the Barbarian once said, "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing."
Like everything else in the world... It's just a few people who manage to FUCK IT UP for everyone else in the world.
The majority has no problem or adverse reactions to playing billions of hours of violent video games.
.
Now.. the question is.. Do we take away games from the majority because a few can't handle it...
It's never been about the game. This is the worlds most ridiculous argument. If a violent game called game X causes Mr. Y to go out and Kill then to blame the game EVERY SINGLE PERSON who played X should be killing. Mr Y kill because he wanted to, on one level or another he had the desire to kill and it's not the game fault. Do you think the top 10 all star killers of the last 1000 years played video games and that's why they killed?
No, they killed because they wanted to. When someone can tell me Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer only killed because the Atari made him then I'll side with video games make kids violent. The truth is people who kill or steal or rob always wanted to. There just using the video game as an excuse and getting away with it.
It would be like someone playing pacman and telling me that it made them eat all the dots they saw around them. I would just call them a dot eater.
... so, be careful what you let it amplify.
On addiction and technology and overcoming it:
http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
(Technology can also be used to broadly suppress things, too, as a variation on amplification...)
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
maybe nothing is wrong with either. In fact it's healthy to have an outlet for your rage, particularly considering how violent human nature is. Let's drug kids up so they are all pacified, and see how well they succeed in life.
First, yes, the major influence on kids are the parents. In just about everything. Yes, it's the actual "parent", which may or may not match the biological parent(s). If you spend time with kids when they're very little, they will imitate you throughout their entire life. If you're a violent slob, guess what will happen. Parents, or their de-facto replacements, have much, much more influence than any tv program or video game. This does not mean, of course, that there is no such influence.
So do you realize the reason this research was "presented" ? I guess not.
It's because it's a tested, re-tested, re-verified and oh yes double-blind checked observation that video games increase violent behavior, in the short term, in the long term, in little kids, in big kids, in young adults, in middle aged people, older people and pensioners. In men and in women. Leftists, rightists, there's even studies testing mental patients. Other than that the effect is stronger and lasts longer the younger you are, there's no difference. Some people react stronger to this than others (in fact it's really, really, really bad in some people), but not a single group has ever shown itself to be immune. There's been an insane amount of resources wasted on this specific question, tons of outright falsifications have gotten caught, people have gotten fired over this left and right ...
Show people violence, you're making them violent. Make people participate, even in imagined violence, and you're doing the same, but much faster. Show people relaxing images, they relax. Make them participate even in imagined relaxation, and it works better. No big surprises there.
So that's the reason this research had to be presented. Note that the actual study indicated that people are very much affected, specifically made violent, by these video games. What the study mostly claimed is that some types of imagined violence had more of an effect than others (big surprise : convincing violence, preferably with some sort of consequence on a real, human, victim, even if it's just a number on his/her screen, evokes more violence than what amounts to showing a picture of some blood).
So can we now please please grow up and assume that, yes, 40 years of testing the same thing (20 years for video games), with every honest psychologist coming again and again to the same conclusion did not result from a desire to steal your tv/video games ? Argue for or against video games (or tv) knowing full well that they cause violent behavior. The whole point of science is that you can be VERY certain that it won't conform to your political persuasion, whatever that may be.
This is THE way to politicize science.
Cool story, bro.
signature is pants
"moody, impulsive, unfriendly (to adults)" describes, like, 90% of teenagers, with the exception of the student council types.
It's because it's a tested, re-tested, re-verified and oh yes double-blind checked observation that video games increase violent behavior, in the short term, in the long term, in little kids, in big kids, in young adults, in middle aged people, older people and pensioners.
Except not a single one of these studies have proven that. In fact, they are closer to proving that competition irrespective of violent content, is the main motivator for aggressive, not violent behavior. Holy crap, people who play competitive games (sports, video games, board games, whatever) are sometimes aggressive about their competitiveness. Hmm...perhaps competitive people play competitive games. Considering that the only thing that has been shown is a correlation (to aggressiveness, not violent behavior) claiming that they cause violent behavior is a flat out lie.
So can we now please please grow up and assume that, yes, 40 years of testing the same thing (20 years for video games), with every honest psychologist coming again and again to the same conclusion did not result from a desire to steal your tv/video games ?
If you read what the studies actually say, the honest psychologists never claimed that violent media caused violent behavior, only that there is a correlation. The honest ones also showed that video games are not alone, all violent media has roughly the same effect. Games (video, card, board, sports, etc.) are only different in the existence of competitiveness. When it comes to the violent imagery, they are no different that tv, movies, books, comics, etc. Maybe the reason why we've been testing the same thing for 40 years is because everyone THINKS that they must cause it (because they don't want to take responsibility for raising their own children) and they keep re-testing it because they haven't gotten the answer they want yet. Nah, that couldn't be it.....
Note that the actual study indicated that people are very much affected, specifically made violent, by these video games. What the study mostly claimed is that some types of imagined violence had more of an effect than others (big surprise : convincing violence, preferably with some sort of consequence on a real, human, victim, even if it's just a number on his/her screen, evokes more violence than what amounts to showing a picture of some blood).
Except the study said no such thing. The study actually explicitly stated that the violent content in the games doesn't do anything unless you have specific personality traits that could be affected. Newsflash! If your kid has trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality, don't let them play a violent game. If your kid is already aggressive, violent and moody, don't let them play a violent game. It has nothing to do with the video game causing anything, it just reinforces a pre-existing issue with the person. Violent games will not cause a perfectly normal person to become a violent person. It just doesn't happen and it's not possible. The study actually stated: "We found — irrespective of violent content — the two highly competitive games produced more aggressive behavior than the two less competitive games." So the factor is competitiveness, not violence. And the result is aggressiveness, not violence. Holy crap, people who play competitive games will become aggressive because they are competitive! I never guessed that! Maybe they want to win or something?
This is THE way to politicize science.
Politics refuses to accept the answer that media (whether it's movies, video games, punk rock, comic books, etc.) is just not as influencing of behavior as they like to believe. People need to be able to blame something other than themselves for the perceived "immorality" of young people today. Every time some new media comes around, it is vilified and eventually proven to not be the cause of all of life's woes like people claim. Your post i
I've been saying for a while that the whole "video games cause violence" idea has causality wrong. If you're a happy, perfectly well adjusted person, then playing DOOM won't turn you into a killer. However, if you have mental/emotional problems that make you potentially violent and homicidal, you might be very likely to seek out means to play out those desires, which may include violent games.
If you want to prevent the next school shooting, don't bother censoring video games. Seek out the troubled kids and try to help them.
The real problem here isn't the video games. The real problem is high school.
Troll trolling for Trolls.
Most these school shootings involve kids on legal drugs instead of real treatment of their mental conditions (likely cultural and parental factors are involved as well or even exclusively.) Notice how we suddenly had shooting problems and how rare it was previously?? The drugged kids started around then and shortly afterwards the media also made it into the BEST way to get your message the most attention you could ever want-- instead of just killing yourself you can make people HEAR your last words and give them added emphasis by some crazy act... still... most of them were/are on legal drugs. These days it seems that its just nutters getting ideas from the media... plus the hard times drives those closer to the edge as well.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I can't really ever win a FPS unless I'm pissed off. To be good at them you really have to get some adrenaline going.
Why do we need studies like this to state the obvious? I mean I guess this is good to convince the unwashed masses, but all of the people I consider friends know this by simple observation.
If you were to read the actual study (not publicly accessible), you'd see the EXACT experiment done :
1) first he measured how violent 60 college students are
2) then he let them play 4 games :
* Mortal Kombat versus DC Universe
* Left 4 Dead 2
* Marble Blast Ultra
* Fuel (this one in case you're wondering)
3) he tested the violent behavior again.
Observation violent behavior increased, except in the case of "marble blast ultra". There's a "big surprise" in the data.
Note that this experiment *does* prove causality, if it sufficiently excludes other influences between steps 1 and 3. It is not mere correlation (you're only stuck with correlation if you can only do passive experiments. This is an active experiment : you actually influence those people)
The "big surprise" is
1) while every group showed increase violent responses there was a subgroup that showed an extreme increase (they basically went from 50% acted "violently", to 100%, which is the source of their "check the personality type" comments. This was known before, of course, but in this study it's a pretty huge increase (only mental patients showed increases like this before, so this is probably a measurement error, or they have some seriously unstable college students in Canada)
2) the game "Fuel" was more effective in creating violent responses than Left 4 Dead 2 (but what was left out is that there are 2 possible allowed tactics : either you race, or you try to destroy your opponents). But "Mortal Kombat" took the crown spot, and left 4 dead 2 still increased violent responses.
Politics refuses to accept the answer that media (whether it's movies, video games, punk rock, comic books, etc.) is just not as influencing of behavior as they like to believe. People need to be able to blame something other than themselves for the perceived "immorality" of young people today ...
Cute, very nice way of throwing in the assumption that games don't have any effect. Nicely done. Of course, the position of psychology science is just the opposite, so isn't your response a very good example of letting your politics override your common sense ?
Of course, parenting is a much bigger influence, but let's hope your kids will resist the urge of simply throwing around inapplicable soundbytes when they don't like scientific results anyway ("correlation doesn't equal causation", when no such principle was used in the research).
I hate when children are playing video-games
http://jamegame.com/ Free Online Games
If you were to read the actual study (not publicly accessible), you'd see the EXACT experiment done :
Well, until I read the study, I'm not just going to take your word on it.
Observation violent behavior increased, except in the case of "marble blast ultra".
How was 'violent behavior" measured? One of the biggest problems with many of these studies is that the "measurement of violent behavior" is often ridiculous, convoluted, and stupid. Many times they are measuring aggression not violent behavior, but calling it violent behavior anyway. Giving someone "explo_e" and seeing who puts a "d" for explode versus an "r" for explore doesn't measure anything, yet there was a study that used that as part of its measure of "aggressive thoughts."
Note that this experiment *does* prove causality, if it sufficiently excludes other influences between steps 1 and 3. It is not mere correlation (you're only stuck with correlation if you can only do passive experiments. This is an active experiment : you actually influence those people)
Really? What was the control group? You listed four experimental groups. If there was no control group then this can't prove causation because it did not sufficiently exclude other influences. Also, how did they chose who got to play which game? Did the subjects know specifically what they were being tested for? Do they account for this? How do they explain the studies which don't show this increase for violent video games? You want to back the study off your own interpretation of what things mean, answer the questions.
the game "Fuel" was more effective in creating violent responses than Left 4 Dead 2 (but what was left out is that there are 2 possible allowed tactics : either you race, or you try to destroy your opponents). But "Mortal Kombat" took the crown spot, and left 4 dead 2 still increased violent responses.
Racing and running an opponent off the road or causing him to crash is just not comparable to shooting/gore/beating up/etc. Unless the racing game in question is arming the cars with guns and explosives, I would not call it a violent game. Aggressive perhaps, but not violent. If the scientists who ran the study didn't consider it violent, then either you're calling into question their methodology at which point all of the results are suspect and need to be gone over again, or you're wrong.
Politics refuses to accept the answer that media (whether it's movies, video games, punk rock, comic books, etc.) is just not as influencing of behavior as they like to believe. People need to be able to blame something other than themselves for the perceived "immorality" of young people today ...
Cute, very nice way of throwing in the assumption that games don't have any effect. Nicely done. Of course, the position of psychology science is just the opposite, so isn't your response a very good example of letting your politics override your common sense ?
Hmmm, nice way of twisting my words around. I stated that they are just not as influencing of behavior as people like to believe. I did not state they "don't have any effect." I did however state they have no greater effect than that of movies, books, comics, etc. To which you had no response. I also gave you the example that the position of Psychological studies is not settled. There is no consensus by psychologists that video games do or do not cause violent behavior. There are many who believe it does and there are just as many who believe it does not. There are flawed studies that attempt to show video games increase violence and there are flawed studies that attempt to show they do not. Do not go around stating the falsehood that it is settled and agreed by psychologists that violent video games cause violent behavior. You are attempting to claim that it's "common sense" that violent video
I did not state they "don't have any effect." I did however state they have no greater effect than that of movies, books, comics, etc.
Do not go around stating the falsehood that it is settled and agreed by psychologists that violent video games cause violent behavior.
Wait ... what ? Is there an effect, or isn't there ? If you expose people to violent video games, is increased violent behavior the result or not ?
You're not making your opinion very clear.
My opinion is extremely clear.
Violent video games do not cause an increase in violent behavior in someone who does not already have a problem with violent behavior.
They can however, as do movies, books, comics, music, and basically all other media (not restricted to violent) cause an increase in aggression temporarily. Not permanently, and not significantly.
However this is my opinion based on my interpretation of the many studies I have read, and the results they have found. I would not presume to state that my opinion is the "settled" opinion of the science by psychologists, because there is no settled and agreed opinion that violent video games do or do not cause violent behavior. Which is the point I've been saying all along. You are claiming that they "definitely cause violent behavior" and that it is "settled science" and anyone who disagrees with you is "ignoring common sense". All of that is completely wrong.
Either they gave up on using video-games as a scapegoat for neglectful parenting, or they finally figured out that video-games don't turn teenagers into psychopaths. It's sorta of obvious, at least to me that if a person with already existing psychological problems is exposed to increased levels of violence or violent images, and is easily impressionable bad things are going to happen!
Then please explain why you know better than 40 years of psychological research. You disagree with long accepted theories, without any explanation, and without doing any research of your own (and despite agreeing that "there is an effect" whatever you mean by that). Books, comics do not, in general, cause any negative psychological effects, as far as is known. I don't know why you keep bringing them into the discussion, since that's entirely beside the point.
Significance is simply a mathematical property of 2 series of numbers as far as I'm concerned. It is generally considered to be whatever amount of difference is required to ensure 95% chance that one series is bigger than another, assuming both follow a normal distribution. Given the law of large numbers, this may not be perfectly accurate in the short term, but it's pretty fucking accurate in the long term even if you screw up the distribution.
I personally think everybody is entitled to their own opinions about scientific theories. You are not entitled to your own opinions about facts. If you wish to have this theory, great ! But please explain why the vast majority of studies, including the one this article is about, find significant increases in violent behavior. As to whether this effect is technically "permanent", obviously video games do not exist for longer than a human lifespan yet, which would be the smallest reasonable measure that'd be effectively equal to a permanent change, so that's an open question. The increase in violence effect of playing video games lasts at the very least 10 years, though. Studies to check for effects after 15 years are in progress, but frankly, I seriously doubt you will find them agreeing with your theory.
Also let me ask the obvious question : what would it take for you to change your mind about this ?
Also let me ask the obvious question : what would it take for you to change your mind about this ?
Evidence. Nice, simple, evidence. You continue to say that I'm disagreeing with long accepted theories, that "majority of studies" find "significant increases in violent behavior". Yet you continually have no evidence to back up your claim. You are convinced that games definitively do increase violence yet have provided not a shred of evidence. The people who performed the study this article is about claimed that they only saw an increase in competitive aggression, and it was not limited to the violent games. Now you say the study itself is not freely readable. Well, then I'll take their word for the results of the study and not yours, if you don't mind.
Then please explain why you know better than 40 years of psychological research.
I never said that I did. I only said that after that 40 years of psychological research, the people who are performing the studies STILL don't agree with each other. Some remain steadfast that they increase violent behavior, others don't.
You disagree with long accepted theories, without any explanation, and without doing any research of your own (and despite agreeing that "there is an effect" whatever you mean by that).
What long accepted theories am I disagreeing with? I'm merely agreeing with one set of studies, and you agree with a different set of studies. The fact that so many studies can have such wild variety in results when studying the same thing means someone is making mistakes somewhere either in interpretation of results, methodology, or whatever. But what it does mean, is that there is no "accepted" theory yet. There are merely a few different theories that each have their own following of small numbers of people. I've done research of my own! :)
There's two studies here, complete with hypotheses tested, studies carried out, etc. The first study was to determine whether short-term aggression in a laboratory environment could be replicated for violent vs non-violent games (hmmm, sounds vaguely familiar). They determined that males were more aggressive than females. However ther was no evidence to suggest that people who play and prefer violent games are innately more aggressive than those who do not, aside from the biological effect of males being more aggressive than females. The second study examined whether video game violence exposure retains a predictive value regarding violent crime (controlling for family violence exposure, trait aggression and gender). Turns out it doesn't.
Here's a lovely paper about the overinterpretation of these "studies" and the myths about video game violence.
This one is a meta-analysis of a few different studies, showing some flaws in both the methodology, conclusions, and how these could be fixed to get better, more accurate studies. In addition, adequately explaining certain variables and theoretical questions that need to be addressed before any study could adequately explain the effects of violent video games.
I can provide more if you like. If you'll actually read them or care what they say. Essentially, there's a publication bias to keep producing studies and papers that claim video games cause violence. While there's also a publication bias to keep producing studies and papers that say they don't. So far neither side has conclusively proved anything. This one covers that angle and also talks about the limits to the ability of actually testing and measuring violence and aggression caused by video games.
Your move, if you decide to respond. I've provid