New Study Fails To Show That Violent Video Games Diminish Prosocial Behavior

trawg writes "A new Australian study on the effect of violent video games on Australia has just been published, failing to find any evidence that playing video games affects prosocial behavior. The study compared groups who played different types of games, including notably violent titles like Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty, as well as non-violent titles like Portal, comparing their behavioral response through a simple pen-drop experiment. In a follow-up interview, the researcher said his perspective on how violence might affect people has changed since he started the research: 'I've played video games for most of my life and got into this research because I couldn't believe that violent video games could make me do something I didn't want to do, that is, be aggressive. My attitude has changed somewhat. These days I find it totally plausible that violent video games could influence people's behavior, but the real question is whether their influence is harmful, and I'm not yet convinced of that.'"

Comments

I didn't need a study to know what I already knew

[ArcadeMan]

Violent video games do not make me aggressive, so shut the fuck up or I'll punch you in the face!

in that case...

[larry bagina]

I'm off to play some leisure suit larry!

cowboys and indians

[alen]

before video games kids played cowboys and indians. we learned at an early age to kill off the idiots trying to kick us off their land

Re:cowboys and indians

[venicebeach]

First of all, of course people do get emotionally attached to the characters in live plays. However, I don't know why you've singled out emotional attachment to characters as the important phenomenon.

In terms of the "different parts of the brain" engaged by play acting, its quite the opposite with respect to some of the relevant brain systems. One important aspect of how the brain understands what we are seeing is by simulation. For example, motor neurons that control action will fire when they observe the corresponding being performed by someone else (see mirror neurons). This is what makes watching action a very real kind of practice for the brain. Our brains understand what we are seeing by pretending to do it on some level. In contrast to your argument, these simulation systems are more engaged the more veridical an observation is -- for example, engagement is more robust watching live action compared to a video of the same action. That fact may actually insulate us from some of the effects of video games... until they get more and more realistic. For example, I'd like to see a comparison of the effects of a violent video game played in 3D to one played in 2D.

Re:cowboys and indians

[mjr167]

On the other hand, prior to the rise of easy access porn, sexual behaviour was a lot different. So, the question is if watching sexual activity influences our own ideas and mores about sexual practices, is it that far of a stretch to expect that it does likewise to other mores and values including violence?

Because the sexual moors of the early 20th century and prior are something we want to return to? Because droit du seigneur is somehow better than modern sexual behavior? As was the inability of a man to rape his wife? Oddly, we have easy to porn and yet women appear to have more rights and be more highly valued than ever before. Just because the Victorian era shoved a stick up everyone's but and told us sex is bad, doesn't mean that Victorian men (and women) were any less kinky. It means people didn't talk about it. Granted, they didn't have access to jumper cables, but I doubt that has anything to do with porn. I'm also pretty sure bukaki has been around way longer than the internet.

Re:cowboys and indians

[devent]

A normal human can distinguish real stuff and virtual stuff really easy. That is why we can laugh at slaughter blood bath movies but are horrible shocked by a real massacre. Researchers (and politicians) tried to identify any connection between virtual stuff and real stuff for decades and come up empty. There is no reason to believe that there should by a connection.

Why should anyone apply the logic virtual -> real. There is no evidence on that.
Look at a horror movie or a catastrophe movie, like an air plane crash movie. Then compare your reaction to the movie and reactions from air plane survivors. There is no comparison. The one group is slightly entertained, the other group is shocked for life.

With virtual stuff you are totally disconnected. Because you know it is not real. You are not think: a headshot of the person. No, you are thinking: a shot of a player. Virtual and real are totally disconnected.

PS: that is why drone strikes are so dangerous and inhumane. The operator is totally disconnected from reality and can do horrible things.

Re:cowboys and indians

[Nyder]

before video games kids played cowboys and indians. we learned at an early age to kill off the idiots trying to kick us off their land

Actually, playing cowboys and indians is different because in the end you know you are play acting. ,,,

I don't know about you, but when I play video games, I know I am PLAYING. I do NOT feel that it is real. I know that I am not really killing other people, anymore then when my character dies, it's me that is dying. If you can NOT tell the difference between real life and video games, or for that matter, real life and TV/Movies, then you have problems, and those problems might be related to video games, but video games are not the cause of it.

People need to to responsibility for their actions. If you are being violent in RL, then you probably have anger issues you need to work on. Blaming it on video games or TV/Movies is bullshit.

 

Violence

[Anonymous Coward]

Games dont make us violent, lag does

Can we face the fact People Violent Creatures?

[oxnyx]

Having recently finished as BA in history I feel it safe to say people are violent creatures. You can read about the Ancient Greek's Gymnasium, Roman Gladiators, Europe Divine Right Trials - who won the duel won the law case b/c God won't let the wrong person win, the range of piting animal v's animal fights, the military as the solution when talks break down and a host of belief around pain removing sin. Let face it the only thing violent video games allow is people who aren't very good not to get scared up physically while learning. Possible less people die too.

Re:Can we face the fact People Violent Creatures?

[epyT-R]

just because someone likes playing mortal kombat doesnt mean they "aren't very good" which im assuming means "low functioning individual." if this is what you meant, you are dead wrong.

  violence has always been a part of life. the problem is that the soccer mom hamsters running things now ('prosocial' is a newspeak term) naively assume that whitewashing away all aggressive expression and capability from society will eliminate violent action. it doesnt. if anything, the resultant bottling up that occurs when people try to comply with such inhuman expectation triggers more extreme responses to mundane situations. there is nothing wrong with having outlets no matter what the oprahs and dr phils preach. they provide a needed pressure release valve do today's ever more passive aggressive culture, which, for the high functioning rational people who must live in it, is essential. the people who cant or wont see this are the low functioning hamsters.

Re:Video game influence

[Anonymous Coward]

But advertising is totally able to influence everything you d... oh wait, tampon commercial is on, gotta go buy another box, not that I know what I'm doing with the other 500 boxes I've already bought.

Find volunteers to start a soup kitchen for vampires

Re:Guess the military can save millions then.

[Trepidity]

Does the military actually use videogames for desensitization? I can't find anything about that. From what I can tell their desensitization approach is much more about meatspace practice to make certain actions feel rote and normal.

The only mention I can find of the military seriously using videogames is more along the lines of educational games, e.g. simulation games to train Arabic learners how to interact in social situations.

Same old song and dance

[sl4shd0rk]

Like anything else, a large majority of people can easily shift from fantasy to reality and maintain a reasonable and healthy social morale. If you take a sample size from a pool of kids who have been bullied and constantly picked-on you're going to find a propensity to act out whether it be video games, TV or learned behavior from their environment.

The constant "Does too!" and "Does Not!" debates from both sides of the gaming==evil_people debate are pointless because both arguments have some truth to them yet aren't directed at fixing the actual underlying problem. All this debate does is perpetuate the rising cost of games, or end up in stupid regulation which falls short of fixing anything.

Re:Guess the military can save millions then.

[tlhIngan]

If violent games don't impact behaviour, then the military can save millions on all of those desensitizing programs (games) that they use. Of course their research probably differs from this study as they, the military aren't trying to show that violent games don't impact "pro" social behaviour. Wouldn't the proper study have been that violent video games impact anti-social behaviour? But then, maybe I missed the frames in GTA where you have to pick up pens from the ground?

That's the problem with violence in videogame studies. There's so many subtle differences between each that none really answer the question. And many are NOT mutually exclusive, either.

This study simply says if you have a well adjusted person, letting them onto video games will not affect friendships and other positive social behaviors.

The military studies say that exposing soldiers to violence desensitizes people to the violence so when they're exposed to it in real life they won't flinch and run away. Or when they've trained their sights on the enemy, they won't hesitate to shoot.

In fact, the two are completely compatible with each other - you can have healthy relationships with people and still be able to pick up and gun and shoot an enemy.

And then there are studies to see if violent video games promote antisocial behavior, another orthogonal question.

One says there's no impact to existing social relationships, the other says it helps desensitize people to the violence (so they don't react as strongly), and the third asks if promotes the use of violence.

Very different questions. No wonder the research is all over the map. And when you mean to measure one, you may be inadvertently measuring something else.

Re:Guess the military can save millions then.

[alen]

there is some, but mostly kids at 18 are still dumb

i went to basic training in 1992 and lots of people thought learning how to shoot and kill people was cool, me included. same with lots of infantry guys i knew. most of them were normal family people except when they got orders to go to war. then they went to shoot people because the orders said to. they came back to their wives and kids afterwards.

i knew a few people who fought in Panama and Kuwait in 1990, killed people and were normal people afterwards. and they would do it again. the screwed up ones are mostly the ones who came very close to death themselves in a firefight or had to kill someone at very close quarters where it was personal

Portal is not violent?

[Shandalar]

I think I died 500 times in Portal.

Can we face the fact, People are Social Creatures?

[Geoffrey.landis]

Having recently finished as BA in history I feel it safe to say people are violent creatures....

Yes, but humans are also social creatures. We interact based on the patterns we pick up from our society, and the positive and negative feedback cues that our social interactions give us. If you spend a lot of your time interacting with video games, you learn to interact based on the patterns you learn in video games. That's not the only influence on your behavior; it's not even the main influence on your behavior-- but it is one influence on your behavior.

Unless you spend more than eight hours a day playing violent video games. In that case, it probably is the main influence on your behavior.

And some people do play more than eight hours a day of violent video games.

Re:Triple negatives make me antisocial

[Turbio]

Sure: "New study fails to show anything due to low statistical power and is published anyway"