Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
:)
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.
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.
leading to even more frustration...
So, all videogames should be banned.
Yes, but only as a subset of everything.
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 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
That is what difficulty settings are supposed to be for.
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.
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.
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.