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Study: Video Gamer Aggression Result of Game Experience, Not Violent Content
An anonymous reader writes "A new study published in the March edition of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology indicates that a gamer's experience of a video game and not the content of the game itself can give rise to violent behavior. In other words, 'researchers found it was not the narrative or imagery, but the lack of mastery of the game's controls and the degree of difficulty players had completing the game that led to frustration.' Based on their findings, researchers note that even games like Tetris and Candy Crush can inspire violent behavior more so than games like World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto if they are poorly designed and difficult to play."
Now every games will be made so even a 4 year old kid can beat them easily.
It's lack of self-control that inspires violent behaviour. Whether it's a game or a nagging spouse that sends a person into a rage, the problem still resides with the individual, so enough with the scapegoating.
The original NES must have raised a generation of cold-blooded killers.
You mean like the infinite spin that has been a standard rule in Tetris since 2001?
That makes sense. No wonder why @dongatory was bombed by so many threats from ignorant users.
:)
(Ghosts & Goblins for you older folks)
How many lives were destroyed because of these games?
Completely disagree. I love minesweeper and play it in two modes. First one is pop a couple and then use time and logic to try to continue. Second is pop a few and then do a snap decision type thing and speed through. It's really pretty easy to play as there is a logical formula to determine where the possible mines are.
I should know: I've played Assassin's Creed.
fucking camera. fucking ezio, going in the wrong fucking direction. running into fucking walls. jumping off fucking roofs. fucking FUCK.
says that teenage males display undulating aggressive behavior due to high and fluctuating levels of testosterone.
A fact of life for young males for over 100000 years now.
Turns out video games is just a contemporary outlet for this aggressive behavior.
They're also inexcusable. Hell, it's already a computer and in a PvE situation, it has the hands down advantage on reflex and targeting.
In my day we didn't have these video games. We played Buzkashi with a goat carcass.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
they took the 'video game' factor out of the experiment, in a sense, by testing with different control factors
they tested whether it was **the game** or **frustration with technology** and **frustration with losing**
they tested across all kinds of games, Candy Crush to Call of Duty....same result...aggression comes from frustration
however, "poorly designed gameplay" does indeed equate to aggression...which mirrors non-gaming behavior as well..ex: BSOD
so no, they don't "make" you turn violent...they cause you to express aggression for the same reason **other things** do
Thank you Dave Raggett
And when it doesn't work, put a firecracker on your computer and light it. Minesweep this!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
I'm sure we can scientifically link **ALL** bad technology design to negative behaviors.
And those negative behaviors, like feeling frustration repeatedly for a routine task, correlate in a proven way to high blood pressure & all kinds of other health problems.
Bad design is ruining our health now too...we have the data to prove it.
Thank you Dave Raggett
So, all videogames should be banned.
Yes, but only as a subset of everything.
You can't master a game, you get pissed.
Big surprise!
Atari E.T. inspired violence. And now they are trying to dig it back up.
How many ballistics experiments were performed with a Rubik's Cube?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Watching sad movies makes you sad. Listening to happy music can cheer you up. Reading a sad book can make you unhappy.
Video games are just another entertainment form.
I appreciate that TFA is referring to a lack of mastery of the controls makes you aggressive (or frustrated)...but so does lack of mastery of anything you spend time on.
And my bugbear is XCOM classic ironman... damn those aliens.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
In other words, people with little emotional self control over themselves in general, also have little emotional self control while playing games. Surprise surprise. Just because video games can place a person in a "stressful" situation in which failure happens often, and thus triggers the person's natural behavior that may not occur as often in less-stressful day to day real-life situations, does not mean video games *caused* that person to have that tendency.
Better known as 318230.
In my day we didn't have these video games. We played Buzkashi with a goat carcass.
I'll just leave this here: Goat Simulator Official Launch Trailer
I have to disagree with that. I strongly doubt poorly designed gameplay/games will make you turn violent.
As for hard games? Games were much "harder"/tougher to complete (overall) 20 years ago than they are now and we're seeing a much higher level of violence in today's youth.
Umm, no we are not seeing a much higher level of violence in today's youth. Violent crimes peaked in the 1970's and has dropped ever since then.
http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/ind...
Rage Quit!!!1
They're using their grammar skills there.
I always did say that even the darkest, bloodiest, goriest games have nothing on Mario Kart.
.. is a recipe for busted keyboards, peeled off mouse buttons, broken monitors, and bloody knuckles.
Wonderful review of the most masochistic platformer I've ever seen. (NSFW Language)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Nope. Lack of self control causes violence. But lack of game control causes the anger and frustration that leads to a need for self control.
Basically this, if proven as opposed to found once and reported, explains why all studies that blamed video games found the same results consistently. Not because it was bad science, but poor design.
Prior studies were missing basic control groups that had input requirements similar to violent games with only the content different.
Every such study is now suspect at best, and more likely invalid. And, unless you see a flaw, this result means that anyone blaming purely the individual's self control is just as ignorant as blaming purely the game's violent content.
Minesweeper? Seriously? One of the easiest games, sure there's some guess factor on occasion but otherwise it's very simple.
Galaga Legions or Hard Corps: Uprising - those are some hard games.
That's why I always bring two pistols to a Monopoly game. One for the banker - you give a guy a position of power like that, sooner or later his inner nature will get the better of him and he starts skimming off the top.
The other's for that guy that sets his sights on developing Park Place and Boardwalk. You can't abide that shit. You know that it's just a matter of time before those houses turn into hotels and it will not end well.
Ever tried completing Super Mario Sunshine's Plinko's Pinball Machine the intended way?
Nuff said.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
It all boils down to the perception how much control of the situation I have lost.
In a public matchup situation, this sense trips rather quickly. When playing with friends almost never at all, and during solo game play it's my own fault, but I still get tweaked. Having been in the same room with friends, their reactions are different. *big shock* 1) One of them, he is grinning the whole time, for everything. He is the ubiquitous poster child for the "Serotonin! Fuck YEAH!" club. Hell of a lot of fun to be around. 2) Another friend, in anything multiplayer, he is Ghandi. Be the change you want to be type attitude, very helpful when others get tweaked about doing not so well or water off a duck type calm. Yet during single player, you'd think he is another person. Damn near that nerd rage from that viral video, screaming at the monitor, hyperventilating, has been known to break keyboards. 3) Another friend, has zen like concentration, and other than his fingers and his eyes moving, you'd swear he was a statue. Hell of a good player though.
So yeah, we all have different reactions to these type of situations. I'd hazard a guess it's related to how competitive we are, but that's not the whole picture either.
Nawh. Just slam your mouse down a couple of time and shout "Goddammit!" and continue. Big deal. It's not like an occasional burst of anger at either yourself or a game will make you into a murderer. Those that believe it does are the ones that lack the self-control. Stress can be dealt with by either sitting back and Ooohmmmming or beating up your mouse. Either way, it's gone.
Windows 8 will be responsible for several mass murders.
I disagree. The only systematic guess in the game is the first click. If you generally have to guess afterwards, you are doing something wrong and misunderstood the game. At most you'll have to guess once or twice, if at all, through the game.
Either a lot of researchers are really retarded or are living in a different world than me. This has been so obvious after so many years of Quake! No one became violent from this, only those who loses sulks and gets frustrated. That was always the case.
Am amazed at how money is spent in stupid researches like these when these things are pretty obvious. Pffft, I guess when funding is given for researchers, whoever manages to give head to whoever is funding, gets the money. There are so many interesting and worthwhile researches out there that shall benefit humanity more than dumb researches like this, and then you wonder, why bright kids start selling drugs to sponsor their own researches.
I saw people never as emotional as when you beat them nasty in the multi-player version of tetris. Some really physically attacked and tried to beat other people after that.
... is linked to insults, not abuse when growing up.
I won't repeat everything I posted elsewhere, but really, that's the stupidest research I've heard of in a long time. First of all, starting with calling a version of Half Life 2 where enemies evaporate "non-violent". So, if there's no blood it's not violence? If you just disintegrate people that's a non-violent game? That's such a basic problem with definitions that I feel that the researchers should be taken out and evaporated non-violently.
Then there's the conclusion. Sure, people can get angry when they are frustrated. You don't have to be a genius to know that. A more interesting question would be how well people deal with that frustration. Do players of violent game tend to have worse control of their temper in this respect than others? That would be more interesting than the stupid conclusions here.
(And I'd like to apologise to the researchers, I haven't read the research paper, just the articles on various sites, and it's possible that it's only the writers of these editorials who are jumping to conclusions. However I'm sure that the "non-violent Half life 2" is part of the original article, and as such I can believe that the rest of the stupidity also exists there.)
So this is perfectly normal.
And now it's scientifically proven..
Lack of self-control can easily be induced: the more control you have over them, the easier it is to deprive them of control over themselves.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
This, I am sure, will sound totally silly, but I've seen this in action. My wife's favorite games are the old "House Of The Dead" rail-shooters, and Angry Birds. House of the Dead noticeably relaxes her, and she doesn't hit much frustration it it. Angry Birds makes me fear for my life, practically, if she hits a losing streak. It's made worse by the social aspect - she gets furious if she is lower in the rankings than people she knows and competes against.
Note: My wife and I don't have fancy new gaming systems or high-powered computers. We're poor, which is fine with me, but it does limit our gaming options to things like the above.
Then you will wake up into a world where unethical experiments are all the rage.
I see what you did there.
Hold my beer and watch this!
Problem with Minesweeper though is when you end up with problems like these (5x3 board with 4 mines) - then it's a 50-50 chance of the mine being the lower cell or upper cell, and no way of knowing which one. .FFF. .3[]3. .1[]1.
F - Flagged mine
[] - unopened square
. - Open, empty space
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
Propery formatted board:
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
Is this one of the few places where the Goat Simulator Expansion (GoatSE) is on topic?
Then i would have to say aggression. is contagious. The most frustrating aspect of video games (to me anyway. That is why i very rarely play multi-player) is not so much the interface but other players. Griefers, cheaters little kids with poor impulse control that scream obscenities at you through the voice chat, constant name calling and the likes. THAT degrades the gaming experience. Say you really like a game and would like to get better at it but it is multi-player only and every time you try to play, you have to contend with that. Would it not get on your nerves after a while? Sure you can pick another server but they are everywhere. And contrary to popular belief (or what my mommy told me when i was young) ignoring them does not make them go away. The only solution is to find another game to play.
Did the researchers also study aggression that result from job experience?
In my experience, frustration coming from you job is usually many times that which can come from a game, any game.
With a game, you can just give up and play another game if the frustration reached a certain level. With you job, most people don't have that luxury.
Oliver.
I'm assuming you've never played minesweeper, because if you had you wouldn't believe this. I'd guess that under 5% of advanced boards can't be solved without guessing. There are absolutely loads of situations in which guessing is necessary, for example any straight line of ones. Another common one is mentioned higher up in the thread
And yes I do know most (if not all) of the advanced techniques, they're not exactly that complex.
.FFF.
.3[]3.
.1[]1.
What's the problem with that? The '1' can't have 2 unopened, right? The solution is...
.FFF.
.3.3.
.1F1.
Aye. It could be:
But it could also be:
Both choices are equally valid.
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
Why do I get the feeling Slashdot is trolling me?
There are plenty of studies that prove violent content has a direct impact on immediate behaviour, and behaviour in the next hours.
I think that poor gameplay is only an additionnal factor to violent behavior linked to video game use.
They should take 5 goups, one playing GTA 5, one playing a non-violent videogame with a decent gameplay, and one playing a regular game (cards, monopoly, etc...) to check the difference.
BTW, violent video-games have not been proven to exacerbate violence, but to diminish empathy, which can be equally dangerous.
While it's not a 50/50 chance like the AC suggested, it does come down to probabilities in some cases give this a read and you'll see what I was talking about: http://nothings.org/games/mine...
Not really, today's youth are pussies especially the gamer culture. You might see more offensive language and trash talking, but that's more to do with the prevalence of anonymity + soapbox, and more accessible online multiplayer.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
Ah OK. ;) Thanks.
This study just reeks of poor design. After all, doesn't the violent content create the experience which then leads to gamer aggression? Sounds to me like a poorly conducted study to try and take the heat off of the gaming industry. It's almost as bad as guns don't kill people, people kill people. Come up with a logical argument. That much said, I'm fully for ownership of firearms and no regulation of video games.
Depends on what's the "linux version", there must be many of them. I have the Gnome 3 version here, it seems to require me to guess. I think Gnome 2's version would give you bomb on first click, which even the Windows 3.0 version avoided (I believe the board is generated after first click?)
I can tell you I've had more frustration just installing software over the years, let alone using poorly designed software or games. I'm not sure it's ever led to actual violence, but I have contemplated just hitting the stupid thing with a hammer on more than one occasion. The same level of frustration is induced trying to teach a relative about the difference between a wifi signal and an ISP; Trying to help non-tech people choose a new computer and weigh options, etc. So far, I have yet to go postal.
Video gamer and agression are two concepts that don't really match too well.
In any case it would result in extremely comical situations, because the last think on earth one could possibly be afraid of is of an obese soft couch dweller who brakes a leg just from trying to lift his butt from the sofa.
So, what's the point? They get aggressive? Who cares? They also get fucking fat.
-- 29A the number of the Beast
I'd guess that under 5% of advanced boards can be solved without guessing.
Oops
I would also say that everyone has limits. Backing individuals into impossible situations passive aggressively is something that modern society has become very good at.
...and then, there's the different ways that an individual will react and cope once the limits are broken.
To take the current subject: Video games.
Some will react violently to furstration, and angrily throw their controler accros the room.
Other will simply go "meh", consider the "unwinnable game" uninteresting and move onto something and not even mind.
Same could apply to lots of other situations in life.
Some people will just go mad. Other will just chose to ignore and move to something else.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
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