Psychology Study Blames Games for Aggressive Behavior
- Thread starter Greg Tito
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this reminds me of how "studies" have shown that coffee can both increase and decrease cancer rates.
Because my brain knows the difference between fictional violence and real violence.9Darksoul6 said:
The other day, I was chopping mutated humans into little pieces in Dead Space 2 without blinking an eye.
The other week, I saw a man with a broken leg, the bone sticking out of the skin and I almost threw up.
It's all about context.
I agree that my playing violent video games, or watching violent movies desensitizes me to violence on screen, and I can watch some pretty gruesome stuff on TV, but it hasn't desensitized me to real world violence. I still get light headed when I see open wounds in real life, but I'm fine with it on screen, so I would say that there is a difference, based on personal experience.9Darksoul6 said:
I'm sorry, but was any of that even remotely necessary? Not only do you miss his point, you try to inject common sense into a field where that can easily be challenged. This is my main grievance when discerning between whether the Escapist wants to be an editorial site or a news one, and this is just demeaning to journalism. We don't care if any of this makes any sense to you, you're not a trained psychologist or cognitive researcher. You are an objective journalist, you are not in a position to say whether it makes sense or not and doing so is purely opinion based, making it not an objective news report. Not only that, but you clearly attempt to paint Mr. Bartholow as one of those "anti-game" radicals against all things fun, which is hardly what his point was. He even states that all media does the same and that it would be silly to think that video games are the sole factor. But it is a factor, and that is the crux of his research. And yes, familiarity with violent imagery is exactly what desensitization is. And in the end, you insultingly attempted to catch "victory" just as you claimed Dr. Bartholow had when he did no such thing. I suggest that you, Mr. Tito, keep working on this, and I say this with utmost sincerity.Greg Tito said:
Instead of just simply stating your opinion, ask us our opinion. Go "So what do you think? Is this study bunk, or does it warrant some notice? What do our scientists thing about the write-up? Leave your comments below!" or something like that. Don't give us your (obvious biased, as this is a gaming site) opinion on whether it has merit or not as that just puts us in the unmovable mindset that "this man is wrong! He is doing everything wrong!"
On top of that, every single time we get some sort of "anti-game" research statement, all of a sudden we all get defensive. We always go "Dude, like, we already knew that! Of course games cause you to be more aggressive, that's, like, common sense yo!" and go on and demonize them because they're "wasting money on something so clearly obvious!". And every time there is a "pro-game" research, we all go "Oh ho ho! This proves that games aren't as bad as the naysayers say they are!" and completely disregard any negative effect that they may have. It's absolutely hypocritical of us. This study, while done before, was, as far as I can see, much less agenda driven and put forth with the data at interest, not because they wanted to prove something.
Here's the thing; games have both positive and negative effects, that is absolutely undeniable. When it comes to aggression and/or violent behavior, what we haven't found out is whether those effects are long- or short-term. Of course someone who has played Call of Duty 10x as much as someone else can become more aggressive, but the question is why does it affect him more than someone else? Other people play Call of Duty the same amount of time yet are totally chill. This is all a mystery to us, and the dramatic effects that video games, and all media, cannot be denied.
Now, when the politicians and agenda-driven researchers come in, they tend to blow things out of proportion. Those are studies try to push their own beliefs as to what video games can do, and this if prevalent on both the anti- and pro-gaming sides. Whenever there is a "video games cause aggression" research thing, we always get defensive and point out every single flaw it has while bemoaning the fact that they're "wasting time!" not researching about cancer or some bullshit, and yet when a "video games help eyesight" suddenly, and hypocritically, we're all for it and mock the others for even thinking that video games could somehow be negative in any way and we don't scrounge the experiment with the same amount of scrutiny as the previous one. It's disgusting, to be frank.
I don't mean to question your science but if you do manage to prove a significant correlation between how loud sound is played and types of games then the only thing you prove is that violent games make people play loud sounds. You have to link loud sound to increased violent tendency before you jump all the way over there. Also, brain wave activity is a subject with so many variables that trying to prover a link like this is kind of sketchy. It would take a very controlled test to positively prove anything and even then might not hold up to future research. The fact that nobody has been able to prove this either way should tell us something about the exercise as a whole.
I find it interesting how he starts with the statement that "scientists have known for years that playing violent videogames causes players to be more aggressive" and then goes on to use this conclusion to back up his later claim. Did I miss the part where this was actually established rather than being a very contentious issue?
What was the Control? or was one not defined .. some individuals have slow neurological responses to stimuli regardless of Medium
If you were playing Viva Pinata and all of a sudden somebody showed you a pic of somebody with a gun of course you are going to be more SURPRISED (which is a sensitive reaction) then if you were playing a game as gun-filled as Call of Duty. And CoD is neccesarily violent; just full of guns.
Its like showing a picture of a dead body to somebody who just watched CSI and somebody who just watched My Little Pony.
Or showing punching a Professional Boxer in the chest and punching a 12 year old in the chest.
And 25 minutes? Come on, there is no way you can get any fesible amount of data from almost anything after 25 minutes.
If I slapped you in the face for 5 minutes youd be much more "de-sensitized" to a slap at 5:01 minutes than somebody I had been giving hi-fives to for 5 minutes then slapped.
Edit: Plus, if you played a violent video game for 25 minutes (lets say mortal kombat 2011) if 5 hours later somebody whips off their face and yells "Toasty" you are probably just as likely to shit yourself as the person next to you.
Its like showing a picture of a dead body to somebody who just watched CSI and somebody who just watched My Little Pony.
Or showing punching a Professional Boxer in the chest and punching a 12 year old in the chest.
And 25 minutes? Come on, there is no way you can get any fesible amount of data from almost anything after 25 minutes.
If I slapped you in the face for 5 minutes youd be much more "de-sensitized" to a slap at 5:01 minutes than somebody I had been giving hi-fives to for 5 minutes then slapped.
Edit: Plus, if you played a violent video game for 25 minutes (lets say mortal kombat 2011) if 5 hours later somebody whips off their face and yells "Toasty" you are probably just as likely to shit yourself as the person next to you.
Also, I'd like to know how many people they had in their study, you only see one.Googooguru said:
Hmm... one thing that is constantly being lost here is that these studies never seem to make any effort to see if their subjects have a clear distinction between reality and fiction.
As it is... I only have myself to speak of as a case study.
See... when presented with a violent image of something I believe is fiction or somehow artificial, I don't usually have that much of a reaction to it.
But when presented with a violent image of something I'm convinced is real... or just hearing about real violence... and I'm absolutely horrified.
Why is this?
Its because I know the difference between reality and fiction.
Example: one time my granddad was telling me about a local cenagouge that had been bombed, and he was laughing his ass off about it because the investigators had bungled their jobs at first and had trouble deciding if it had been a bombing or not. (They eventually decided it was a bombing)
Now me... when I heard that... I was horrified, both at hearing about the bombing itself and my granddad's reaction to it.
I play a lot of violent videogames... my granddad doesn't.
Now which of us sounds more "desensitized?"
Also... isn't fiction where violence belongs?
As it is... I only have myself to speak of as a case study.
See... when presented with a violent image of something I believe is fiction or somehow artificial, I don't usually have that much of a reaction to it.
But when presented with a violent image of something I'm convinced is real... or just hearing about real violence... and I'm absolutely horrified.
Why is this?
Its because I know the difference between reality and fiction.
Example: one time my granddad was telling me about a local cenagouge that had been bombed, and he was laughing his ass off about it because the investigators had bungled their jobs at first and had trouble deciding if it had been a bombing or not. (They eventually decided it was a bombing)
Now me... when I heard that... I was horrified, both at hearing about the bombing itself and my granddad's reaction to it.
I play a lot of violent videogames... my granddad doesn't.
Now which of us sounds more "desensitized?"
Also... isn't fiction where violence belongs?
the real problem with these studies is that there are two many variables to be able to say what is and what isnt, this is the real folly of psychology. without a truly "clean" control group it is impossible to really find any answers.
The most concerning thing in this video is how they talked about the increased rate of violence. In the U.S. the rate of violent crimes has been dropping for a while now.
This seems wholly disingenuous. I'm inclined to call bullshit on the entire experiment. They're just trying to confirm their bias it seems.
This seems wholly disingenuous. I'm inclined to call bullshit on the entire experiment. They're just trying to confirm their bias it seems.
Here's a thought: Maybe being desensitized to violence means you'll be more likely to make a clearheaded decision when in a stressful situation. It's not like being desensitized to something means you agree with it, I don't think people who play violent games are going to think that doing that to a random person in real life is okay. Real life and fantasy are two completely different things and people will do things in fantasy that they will NEVER do in real life. Here's another idea: Compare reactions to a picture of someone with a gun in their mouth to someone walking into the testing room and ACTUALLY sticking a gun in their mouth. Betcha you'll get a brainwave jump then.
HUnh. I'll give a for instance that happened not that long ago.
Recently, the top news story was the anniversary of a gruesome murder in which someone from my area had stopped a family of five as they went into their house. The man then shot the father, raped the mother and two of her children in front of her, and then killed all of them. The fifth was a baby (age 7 months). The two children were ages 11 (boy) and 9 (girl). The murders were sadistic in nature, to the point where it looked like a scene from saw.
Now, this was on the news, and they had showed some after autopsy photos of the father, because the mother and two children were unrecognizable and the baby was well... a baby. My friends and I were hanging out at one of my friend's houses, and we had the tv on as background noise. We heard and said thats a shame (mainly cause it was rather common knowledge now), but my friends younger brother (12) cried his eyes out (partly cause he knew the family, and partly cause it was horrible). The paper ran a longer article on it, and with more images.
The News. The LOCAL News. That ANYONE of ANY AGE can watch, an a story like that. Meanwhile, the only games we could campare it to (manhunt or postal) were not (legally) accessible to such a young demographic.
While its nice to say that videogames can cause a violent turn (and you can say they do), and while he does acknowledge that other media can cause it, I dont htink Videogames are the worst we should worry about, since at least those are (attempted to be) enforced and kept out of the hands of minors and given to people who (should) have the mental capacity to not do something like that. How about instead of just launching this witchhunt against video games, we either go for all media, or no media.
EDIT:
And way to make that test one sided. You took a war game (the thing things like like Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down are based on) and compared it to (i'm going to guess) a not war game. Gee, I wonder which will make someone feel more violent. Perhaps we should stop people after they walk out of the aforementioned movies and see how many people violent.
Recently, the top news story was the anniversary of a gruesome murder in which someone from my area had stopped a family of five as they went into their house. The man then shot the father, raped the mother and two of her children in front of her, and then killed all of them. The fifth was a baby (age 7 months). The two children were ages 11 (boy) and 9 (girl). The murders were sadistic in nature, to the point where it looked like a scene from saw.
Now, this was on the news, and they had showed some after autopsy photos of the father, because the mother and two children were unrecognizable and the baby was well... a baby. My friends and I were hanging out at one of my friend's houses, and we had the tv on as background noise. We heard and said thats a shame (mainly cause it was rather common knowledge now), but my friends younger brother (12) cried his eyes out (partly cause he knew the family, and partly cause it was horrible). The paper ran a longer article on it, and with more images.
The News. The LOCAL News. That ANYONE of ANY AGE can watch, an a story like that. Meanwhile, the only games we could campare it to (manhunt or postal) were not (legally) accessible to such a young demographic.
While its nice to say that videogames can cause a violent turn (and you can say they do), and while he does acknowledge that other media can cause it, I dont htink Videogames are the worst we should worry about, since at least those are (attempted to be) enforced and kept out of the hands of minors and given to people who (should) have the mental capacity to not do something like that. How about instead of just launching this witchhunt against video games, we either go for all media, or no media.
EDIT:
And way to make that test one sided. You took a war game (the thing things like like Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down are based on) and compared it to (i'm going to guess) a not war game. Gee, I wonder which will make someone feel more violent. Perhaps we should stop people after they walk out of the aforementioned movies and see how many people violent.
First off, the research seems to ignore one principle rule:
Correlation does not imply causation.
They've discovered a correlation, but I don't see any plausible causation. Why would being desensitized to violence make one more prone to violent or aggressive behaviour? At most they have less of an aversion to it, but that does not mean someone will be more aggressive.
What probably IS the cause of increased aggression is the nature of the games being played. Not because they're violent, but because they're competitive online games (Call of Duty definitely, Killzone... I think so; I don't play either, but FPS games are known for being both violent and very competitive when it comes to online play). Increased competitiveness would almost certainly increase one's aggression as well, because winning games (video games or sports) tends to favour those who are constantly pushing forward; patience is very seldom the reason one wins a match. Throw in online-gamings well-known lack of restraint, maturity, and sportsmanship, and you have a hyper-competitive environment where aggressive combat with a strong focus on killing eachother (particularly for something like an FPS) runs rampant.
The researchers should come up with a good explanation for their correlation, not one which overlooks many key details.
Correlation does not imply causation.
They've discovered a correlation, but I don't see any plausible causation. Why would being desensitized to violence make one more prone to violent or aggressive behaviour? At most they have less of an aversion to it, but that does not mean someone will be more aggressive.
What probably IS the cause of increased aggression is the nature of the games being played. Not because they're violent, but because they're competitive online games (Call of Duty definitely, Killzone... I think so; I don't play either, but FPS games are known for being both violent and very competitive when it comes to online play). Increased competitiveness would almost certainly increase one's aggression as well, because winning games (video games or sports) tends to favour those who are constantly pushing forward; patience is very seldom the reason one wins a match. Throw in online-gamings well-known lack of restraint, maturity, and sportsmanship, and you have a hyper-competitive environment where aggressive combat with a strong focus on killing eachother (particularly for something like an FPS) runs rampant.
The researchers should come up with a good explanation for their correlation, not one which overlooks many key details.
I'm going to be much more desensitized to violence in games, not in reality (although that execution with the parents and child in the opening of Homefront was pretty shocking). Chainsaw a man in front of me in Gears of War and I'll be cheering you on. Take me outside and do the same think and I guarantee I'll shit myself.