Psychology Study Blames Games for Aggressive Behavior

[Cyberjester]

Also, I'd like to know how many people they had in their study, you only see one.

lolwut. Did you even click on the link? You are not entitled to post unless you've read the link.

First sentence of the third paragraph, so just after the introduction.

During the study, 70 young adult participants were randomly assigned to play either a nonviolent or a violent video game for 25 minutes.

 

[Meric]

Oh, I wasn't having anything directed at the study. I was just feeling like making fun of the bullshit social sciences. Ie, social psychology, which is closely linked to Sociology.

relating it to Marxism in your first post showed how little you know about it.

 

[shadow741]

There's too much entertainment and media associated with murder or violent behavior for video games to be the main cause of it. Hell, in Roman days they watched unarmed men fight lions for entertainment. Also, people shouldn't take the games so seriously.

 

[CosmicCommander]

Oh, I wasn't having anything directed at the study. I was just feeling like making fun of the bullshit social sciences. Ie, social psychology, which is closely linked to Sociology.

relating it to Marxism in your first post showed how little you know about it.

Not really. Social Psychology and Sociology are fundamentally left-leaning fields. I was just bringing up Marx as he is usually seen as quintessential leftist.

And note I never related it to Marxism. I related it to Marx. The man and the ideology. Just about every bloody Sociology thesis in the history of man has quoted or rehashed something Marx said.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Also, I'd like to know how many people they had in their study, you only see one.

lolwut. Did you even click on the link? You are not entitled to post unless you've read the link.

First sentence of the third paragraph, so just after the introduction.

During the study, 70 young adult participants were randomly assigned to play either a nonviolent or a violent video game for 25 minutes.

I was being lolz, obviously. Why the fuck would they only have 1 person in their study? Besides compared to the 307,006,550 (july 2009, US census) people in the U.S. 70 people is one of the crappiest subject sizes ever, not to mention they only picked young adults. -> And thats my point: this "study" should've been shot down at the gate, it fails in almost everyway statistically possible.

 

[nbamaniac]

Meh.. Statisticians are the greatest trolls ever. Dont feed em

 

[Janktrio]

There was already a cracked article about this. Playing violent video games does make a person more aggressive in the short-term but playing video games that revolve around doing something good makes people nicer in the short-term as well. It works both ways.

 

[NightHawk21]

IS this a new study, cause I swear to god this has been done before, with similar results. People who played violent videogames were more desensitized to violent images. However, I believe it was also shown that they showed lower aggression in everyday situations.

 

[Phyroxis]

Correlation =|= causation. That is a fact.

That doesn't mean anything though. It's still valid as evidence in science

And you continue to disregard what I say. This is over.

 

[Erana]

Then what does butchering an animal for soup do to me? Its dead and headless, but I'm still dismembering it.

But society would say, "Oh, what a good little cook. You'd make a good mother some day."

 

[I.N.producer]

Basing psychology only on correlation would make no sense because it doesn't make sense to me so therefore it isn't true.

That's what I saw when I read your post.

You could actually read my post and argue instead of misquoting me and dismissing my point, that's just a bit arrogant.

Here's what I actually said:

Astronomy is based on correlation because everything is absurdly far away. You can't conduct proper experiments, so you make observations, draw conclusions, and revise these conclusions as new information is revealed by observation.

Basing psychology only on correlation would make no sense because it is testable. That example is a little out of context.

One problem with basing psychology only on correlation is that there are so many correlations that results can be blamed on the wrong coincidence. If someone had grown up in a bad neighborhood, had abusive parents, had siblings involved in gang activity, played violent video games, and killed someone, it's not right to blame the murder only on video games.

If correlations are being made, the whole picture needs to be looked at. These studies do not include every aspect of the participants' lives and upbringings, and therefore, looking only at correlations is unwieldy at best.

That is why I said basing psychology only on correlation would make no sense, not the "my opinion is fact" reason you assumed.

 

[AdamRBi]

Do any of these modern day Psychology Studies go back and take a look at Comic Books or Music to see if the claims from the 50's still hold up? Or are the modern threats more concerning because they didn't grow up with it?

I'm still amused by the claim that "Desensitized to Violence" = "Agressive Behavior." As if you can't have one without the other.

So, wait, if he claims that Video Games aren't the only cause (I did not take time to watch the video I'm going my mentions from other posts) then has he done studies on other causes? Have those been published and just not bought to our attention because it's not video game related?

 

[Weaver]

My problem with the study is implication's he's drawing where he shouldn't.
The gamers were desensitized to violent imagery they were not desensitized to violence itself. There is a world of difference.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

The person in the beggining is playing Mortal Kombat with the analog sticks that's just weird

 

[M920CAIN]

On the contrary, violent video games make me a nicer person because I relieve all of my stress while playing the game & I don't feel like killing people after that. I used to kill 14-16 people a week before I played violent games. Now I only kill about 2 or 3. My doctor says I'm on the right track. Also I don't threaten my parole officer's family anymore. Violent games have definitely made me a better person.

 

[Elosandi]

Desensitisation isn't a bad thing for most people. Being overly sensitive to violent images likely means that you'll panic and react badly if such a situation ever occurs, and possibly lash out without thinking in order to cause harm. If you're desensitised, it makes sense that you would be calmer and more rational if violence was forced upon you.

The reason we don't go murdering people isn't because we're shocked by the sight of violence, it's because we think things through, know that it's a bad idea, and value human life. Desensitisation is only an issue for people that already have mental problems, everyone else is probably less dangerous because of it. Perhaps a game licence would be better fitting, where your emotional stability is assessed.

Even if video games did cause aggressive behaviour, I think it might be better to focus on other sports like hockey or boxing.

 

[Macgyvercas]

The experiment Bartholow conducted exposed some young adults to violent games like Call of Duty and Killzone (not sure which versions) while others played non-violent games. Bartholow then showed subjects violent images and neutral images - the examples given were a dude with a gun in his mouth and a man on a bike - and measured their brainwaves to gauge their reaction. The group of subjects who played the violent games had a demonstrably lower reaction to the violent image, which Bartholow said proves they were "desensitized" to violence.

In the next phase of the experiment, subjects engaged in a competition where they could blast noises at each other at whatever decibel level they chose. The group who played the violent games employed louder noises than the control group, which Bartholow believes proves that games cause aggression.

Taking the bolded bits, and leaving aside for the moment that in my opinion psychology is only a science is the absolute loosest definition of the term, I must point out that because he said "proves", we can disregard him. The goal of science is not to "prove" anything, merely to explain a particular phenomenon through observation and experimentation.

We can perform tests until the cows come home, and always get the same results, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we are completely right. What it means is that we are right to best of our understanding. And just because something always happens (like, for instance, the sun rising everyday), that doesn't mean that it will always and forevermore happen like that.

 

[WorldFree55]

My lawnmower makes me violent its a piece of crap. THey should study my brainwaves while trying to mow the lawn, they would be frghtened to death.

Dude I thought I was the only one XD! I hate the sound of lawnmowers, vacuum cleaners, leaf blowers, drills, etc.

 

[XxSummonerxX]

It may, but just because they had "lower brainwave action" or whatever to the violent picture, doesn't mean they're desensitizes for violent.

I myself am a high school student, as such I have dissected creatures, had broken bones, and I did work experience at a vet's office (saw some orthopedic surgery, I don't recommend watching it btw) and I play heaps of violent video games.

As such, I am used to the sight of blood, broken bones, the concept of pain, etc. am I a violent person? No.

 

[DanDeFool]

...

Bartholow also mentioned that subjects who already play a lot of violent games had less reaction to the violent imagery, which apparently means something more significant than mere familiarity. "Those individuals are already so desensitized to violence from habitually playing violent video games that an additional exposure in the lab has very little effect on their brain responses," he said.

...

I'm sorry, this makes no sense to me. If someone watches a lot of CSI, and then is shown a picture of a dead body, of course they are going to have less of a reaction than those who have never seen anything like that. That doesn't mean that these people are "desensitized" to violence, it just means there is a basic familiarity with those kind of images.

Here's another theory; perhaps people who play violent video games aren't 'desensitized' to violence, but just aren't affected by violent imagery. In other words, if you show them an obviously staged picture of a man with a gun in his mouth, their brains go, "Oh, this is staged. It's just a picture, no need to get worked up about it."

Maybe a better way to test their reactions would be to take them into a coroner's office and show them a real cadaver of someone who was violently murdered, and gauge their reaction to that. I won't presume to guess what the results would be, but gauging their reactions to the end results of real-life violence, 100% in the flesh, would probably give you more useful data.

Another idea: You could do to your test subjects the same thing EA's marketing department did to Yahtzee; stick them in a room with a source of constant annoyance that can only be removed by open aggression or, say, by solving a moderately complicated puzzle, and see who becomes aggressive and how long it takes them to become aggressive.

EDIT: A personal anecdote; I have a relative who (at least used to) get road rage CONSTANTLY. I almost had to wear ear-plugs every time I rode in the car with them. Every time anyone so much as turned a corner slowly they would explode in obscenities, and I think threats of violence were a common component of these outbursts. I think this tendency actually got this person in some trouble at their job recently.

Anyway, this person never started playing games until Bejeweled and FarmVille came out.

I realize this isn't exactly a statistically significant cross-section of the population, but this little slice of personal experience suggests to me that anger issues and violent behavior, whether they're influenced by media exposure or not, are probably much more significantly influenced by other factors.