Study: Gaming May Increase Moral Sensitivity

[Something Amyss]

http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2014/06/037.html

?For instance,? [Matthew Grizzard] says, ?an American who played a violent game ?as a terrorist? would likely consider his avatar?s unjust and violent behavior ? violations of the fairness/reciprocity and harm/care domains ? to be more immoral than when he or she performed the same acts in the role of a ?UN peacekeeper.??

This is an interesting concept: that gamers recognise bad choices in games and actually feel guilt for them. Does this sort of thing play out here? Do you feel bad for the actions you take in games? Does it make you consider the consequences of similar acts in the real world?

This is weird to me. I sometimes feel bad for acts I take in games, but they're things I'm already predisposed not to do. On the other hand, I just spent an evening playing GTA and shooting at cops and civilians, mowing people over with vehicles, and slapping C4 of my fellow players. These are not acts I would do in the real world, but then, it's not the real world.

I suppose, maybe, any medium can provoke thought about the actions involved, and in games you are usually the one undertaking them, so maybe it makes sense.

In any case, it's an interesting notion to think that rather than making people more violent, they could potentially make people more considerate.

But then I think of Xbox Live, and I have trouble believing it again.

 

[Racecarlock]

I don't because I don't want severe PTSD and a guilt complex. I know what would happen. I'd go to jail or death row or a war crimes court or straight to the grave.

What we've essentially invented in video games is a space where you're effectively immortal. Suicide? No big deal, respawn at the nearest checkpoint or hospital? Killed ten thousand people? Go back a checkpoint or hospital or jail for maybe an afternoon.

It's a space where you can indulge in any stupid urge you feel like without consequence and I love it. I really don't like it when people tell me to feel for NPCS because it strikes me as trying to shame pokemon players for animal abuse. Except even worse here because they're asking me to feel sorry for things like GTA pedestrians which respawn infinitely. I killed a dude? His exact clone will be arriving any minute. Why should I care?

If it was a real person I would probably have to kill myself out of guilt. But NPCS are not real people. They can respawn, they can be reborn exactly as who they were with a simple load of a save file or even just waiting for a GTA pedestrian to respawn. If you felt so inclined to wait for that particular pedestrian to respawn. They don't have any real world value.

It's like how I don't feel concerned about the quarters I use on virtual pinball because I'm not spending real money.