Video Games Can Improve Terror Attack Preparedness, Even If You Don't Play Them

vrml writes: A study just published by the Computers in Human Behavior journal explores the potential of video games as terror attack preparedness materials for the general public. In the video game that participants tried (screenshots can be seen in the paper), players started a normal day going to a train station and performing actions such as purchasing a ticket and finding a train. Then, they suddenly found themselves in a bombing scenario that they had to survive. In addition to showing that playing the game greatly increased players' knowledge about preparedness, the study also considered a second group of participants who did not play the game but watched instead a video of the game play. Results indicate that passively watching someone else play the game is as effective as actively playing the game in terms of learning preparedness knowledge. However, they also point out a significant difference concerning psychological effects on threat appraisal: general perception of personal vulnerability to terror attacks and their severity increased more in those who actively played the game rather than those who passively watched game play.

Comments

Preparation, Preparation, Preparation

[Doofus]

ShanghaiBill,

Your home or the high-rise in which you work are unlikely to be consumed by fire. Are fire drills important?

Is it important to know where, for example, the nearest exit is on an airplane or in a theater, even though it is extremely unlikely that you will be confronted with a disabled airplane or a theater massacre-in-the-making?

Preparation for disasters - whether in terms of visualizing the scenario or actual drills to practice response - can be extremely effective in boosting survival.

If you are interested in some of the academic study on this and related topics, see this book, The Unthinkable - Who Survives When Disaster Strikes, and Why. The author did a tremendous amount of research, distilling academic papers and studies of recent and not-so-recent disasters to explore human behavior both culturally w/r/t preparedness and engineering, and in the context of the disaster events.