Psychology Study Blames Games for Aggressive Behavior
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
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.
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.
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.
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.Greg Tito said:
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.
Dude I thought I was the only one XD! I hate the sound of lawnmowers, vacuum cleaners, leaf blowers, drills, etc.cerebus23 said:
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.
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.
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."Greg Tito said:
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.
Personally, I don't think violent video games make people aggressive; I think frustrating games (i.e. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on Veteran) make people aggressive, just like trying to drive in rush hour or being stuck behind an old lady at the shops who takes five minutes to count her money (I've actually served someone who did that), but you don't see someone people try to propose those from being banned because its just silly.
From experience, I am generally aggressive after a really frustrating round of BFBC2 full of spawn-rape and horrendously powerful clans who don't give you a chance to move from the spawn than dismembering mutants for a couple of hours of Fallout: New Vegas. In fact, I believe that the latter is a good stress release and allows me to get on with life during difficult times without becoming frustrated enough to end up venting it out at someone who doesn't deserve it.
I'll use Yahtzee's argument from the Mortal Kombat review which is; Do violent video games truly make little kids think that its OK to know each other's heads off or fire fireballs at them? That's not to say that I don't think there are some games out there that are messed up, but until I see someone without an agenda conducts a truly unbiased experiment and use a reasonable test group, I'm just going to ignore both sides; besides video games are big business and I highly doubt that these naysayers will be able to get anything significant done without a fight or some sort of backlash, either from the consumers or the companies.
From experience, I am generally aggressive after a really frustrating round of BFBC2 full of spawn-rape and horrendously powerful clans who don't give you a chance to move from the spawn than dismembering mutants for a couple of hours of Fallout: New Vegas. In fact, I believe that the latter is a good stress release and allows me to get on with life during difficult times without becoming frustrated enough to end up venting it out at someone who doesn't deserve it.
I'll use Yahtzee's argument from the Mortal Kombat review which is; Do violent video games truly make little kids think that its OK to know each other's heads off or fire fireballs at them? That's not to say that I don't think there are some games out there that are messed up, but until I see someone without an agenda conducts a truly unbiased experiment and use a reasonable test group, I'm just going to ignore both sides; besides video games are big business and I highly doubt that these naysayers will be able to get anything significant done without a fight or some sort of backlash, either from the consumers or the companies.
Ok. I call it like I see it.
THIS IS LAZY SCIENCE.
Everyone has blamed TV, cartoons, Elvis,rock n roll, the beattles and videogames for violence/down fall of society...depending what's new on the menu.
It has no basis, no merit, to easily skewed but whom is giving the grant money.
You put on a fake study, show your funder what they want, collect money.
It's like the lame never ending fox/cnn stories of
Cheese burgers make you fat, Try this instead!
A plagiarized cut and pasted story/study just regurgitated because the author/lead researcher can't think of anything real, so just throws it out there to show they are pretending to work...
I tend to only get aggressive when people skirt out on their own personal responsibility. GTA didn't make you steal a car, pac-man didn't turn you into a binge eater... you did that yourself not the games.
THIS IS LAZY SCIENCE.
Everyone has blamed TV, cartoons, Elvis,rock n roll, the beattles and videogames for violence/down fall of society...depending what's new on the menu.
It has no basis, no merit, to easily skewed but whom is giving the grant money.
You put on a fake study, show your funder what they want, collect money.
It's like the lame never ending fox/cnn stories of
Cheese burgers make you fat, Try this instead!
A plagiarized cut and pasted story/study just regurgitated because the author/lead researcher can't think of anything real, so just throws it out there to show they are pretending to work...
I tend to only get aggressive when people skirt out on their own personal responsibility. GTA didn't make you steal a car, pac-man didn't turn you into a binge eater... you did that yourself not the games.
I'm going to call B.S. on this study. 1. Desensitization does not mean a person will be more violet, they are just not act so disturbed by seeing violence.
Unfortunatly, I forgot my other points I was going to make. Curse my crappy memoery. *sigh*
(-_-)
Unfortunatly, I forgot my other points I was going to make. Curse my crappy memoery. *sigh*
(-_-)
Wow will these psychologists just GIVE IT UP! Work on something more important for fox news to exploit.
People of the world, I bring you news that you can use!
Namely, we've been through this before, time and time again. You will never make the link that games equal violence! Games equal therapy AGAINST violent action through simulation. They make you feel better, which is why they are a form of entertainment. In other words, to say that any game has MADE violence happen is entirely backwards in thinking and WRONG.
Namely, we've been through this before, time and time again. You will never make the link that games equal violence! Games equal therapy AGAINST violent action through simulation. They make you feel better, which is why they are a form of entertainment. In other words, to say that any game has MADE violence happen is entirely backwards in thinking and WRONG.
I was working on a series of papers on this same subject for a semester of my English class, and while reading a lot of these studies, you see the same methods for testing showing up in every study.
I think it's shocking to see the same methods recycled to reinforce the same point, partly because I've seen studies that show that the methods researchers are using are unreliable, unproven, and only theoretically indicative of anything.
Plus these researchers also apply laboratory results directly to real-life situations, assuming that the situations are the same. Try playing video games alone and with people studying you. It will definitely be a very different experience.
In addition, all of these studies are done on people who have not committed an act of violence. Therefore, the studies don't include a real link to violence, just a theoretical one.
I think it's shocking to see the same methods recycled to reinforce the same point, partly because I've seen studies that show that the methods researchers are using are unreliable, unproven, and only theoretically indicative of anything.
Plus these researchers also apply laboratory results directly to real-life situations, assuming that the situations are the same. Try playing video games alone and with people studying you. It will definitely be a very different experience.
In addition, all of these studies are done on people who have not committed an act of violence. Therefore, the studies don't include a real link to violence, just a theoretical one.
Until their research the correlation of desensitization and violent behavior was never proven. After their research, IT STILL WASN'T PROVEN. Okay, video games may cause hearing impairment. Come back when you've got a better test structure and a better test of aggressive behavior, and when you've got a broader test group than Call of Duty fans. To say this was lazy is like saying dark space is cold.
Given the kind of world we live in, I do not think a desensitization to violence is necessarily a bad thing. As he said it does not cause violent behavior, but in my opinion it merely keeps people from being shocked or mentally scarred from violent images; which is not necessarily a negative trait this day and age.
This is fucking stupid! Agh! I'm going to find that psychologist and RIP his FUCKING head off and shit DOWN HIS NECK!
Fuck I'm pissed now! I'm gonna go watch My Little Pony. Friendship all up in that ************!
Fuck I'm pissed now! I'm gonna go watch My Little Pony. Friendship all up in that ************!