Violent Videogames Cause "Macbeth Effect"

[M0rp43vs]

I had head about the Macbeth effect from a cracked article a while back
Number 4 here, http://www.cracked.com/article_18991_6-weird-things-that-influence-bad-behavior-more-than-laws.html

Why are people here getting so defensive? Guys who are not used to violence and get freak outed by violence want to feel clean. Guys who are used to this stuff and know it's fake don't worry.

I don't see where the article says it causes us to kick babies or steal candy from kittens. I doubt there'd be any outcry if it said "Violent videogames cause people to become wonderfully handsome and sexy".

The thing that bothers me about this thing though is the fact that the sample size is so small(76?) and the fact that we already know of the Macbeth effect. Sounds like a sensationalist article than a real study

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Who gives deodorant and toothpaste as a gift for people? I guess if those people's teeth are falling out and they smell like skunks, but other than that, get them something they actually want.

I've never understood giving "need" type items as gifts. Unless they are dirt poor and can't afford the "need" items, gift giving is for "wants" or the extra means to get wants.

If I getting hygiene products or other need items, it tells me that the giver knows nothing about what I like but thinks it isn't "classy" to give money or gift cards(which I think is stupid, because I see it as great respect and thoughtfulness to let me decide what I want), or is one of those people that think it is inappropriate to give me the things I want for whatever stupid reason. The last one one being my parents when I became an adult(child to 17 I got the things I wanted, toys and video games and other interests, then 18 to now, I get gloves, boots, blankets, socks.....yeah...thanks).

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Oh no somebody is doing some research into violence in games. Quick, somebody mock them with poorly thought out attacks or the world will not know they should not take them more seriously than you.

 

[Inkidu]

I can see this being good in a lot of ways, if gamers tend to tie a cathartic or cleansing event to their violent game playing how is that bad?

 

[Sneezeguard]

I wonder if there was a control group during this experiment who were given non-violent games to play and then asked to select gifts or a group given no games to play and ask to select gifts

 

[Ryuzaki]

This study might have been slightly interesting if they had performed it properly. As it is it shows nothing or very little at all because they have no control group. They have 2 different groups doing exactly the same things, one group of experienced gamer's, one group of novices, but they don't have 2 corresponding groups of gamer's and non-gamer's just picking out gifts with-out playing any violent games. Without this you do not know what the prevalence?s are for the 2 different groups of people on gift buying without the impact of playing the violent game. It also does not say who they were meant to be buying the gift for. In a study like this it really should be for some hypothetical person who is the same profile for each case to lesson any external factors. If they were just prompted to pick a gift out for a friend then the results could be partially skewed.

 

[saintdane05]

Completely unrelated, but that is Patrick Steward on the Main page pic for the article, right? Because that would make The Escapist even more awesome.

 

[SpAc3man]

Pussies. A bit of virtual ultra-violence never hurt anyone. Let alone made them dirty.

Interesting results in all seriousness though.

 

[Skratt]

When a person does something they are ashamed of they try to psychologically cleanse themselves? Yes, we know this. Unless you are a sociopath, you've experienced shame in your life and that shame probably led you to do strange things to feel better or alleviate the shame.

Eventually, given enough time you stop being ashamed. Sometimes people accept a normal disposition to whatever act previously caused them shame, others go all crazy and dive right in.

Shame is a natural reaction to perceived wrong or foolish behavior. Once a person no longer perceives an act as wrong or foolish, they stop having feeling of shame about that subject.

Once you have overcome the shame of an act, it is your MORAL behavior that dictates the type of person you are. Take sex for instance, since that seems to be the topic of the month here on the escapist. Some people feel shame when they have or think about sex. Once they overcome that shame and realize it's no big deal, they go on with a normal life and sex is just a part of it. If you are bat shit crazy you might start actively seeking out sex anywhere you can find it or in extremely rare cases go all Floyd Hansen (+1 geek level if you get the reference).

I'm curious to see how exactly not being ashamed of consuming violent media is a bad thing. Some of my favorite things are probably some of the most violent media out there. I watch Spartacus, Breaking Bad & Sons of Anarchy and play some of the most arguably violent and inappropriate videos games on the market and yet somehow I've managed not only to not get any tattoos, but I also haven't raped, maimed or killed anyone yet either. In fact, the thought of hateful violence like racism, rape and nationalism really turn my stomach and I wish we could find a way to shed them.

Perhaps there is a link to shame and violence that maybe if we can conquer shame, we can conquer violence? I mean after all, haven't some of the worst crimes in the history of Humanity come from a violent reaction to shame and embarrassment?

 

[Skratt]

This study might have been slightly interesting if they had performed it properly. As it is it shows nothing or very little at all because they have no control group. They have 2 different groups doing exactly the same things, one group of experienced gamer's, one group of novices, but they don't have 2 corresponding groups of gamer's and non-gamer's just picking out gifts with-out playing any violent games. Without this you do not know what the prevalence?s are for the 2 different groups of people on gift buying without the impact of playing the violent game. It also does not say who they were meant to be buying the gift for. In a study like this it really should be for some hypothetical person who is the same profile for each case to lesson any external factors. If they were just prompted to pick a gift out for a friend then the results could be partially skewed.

I had a thought - a gift of soap means the person things you need to bathe more. Plus, if the gift was an under $10 type of thing, maybe it was just the easy way out. I agree with you - no control group is a shitty experiment.

 

[Thanatos5150]

Finally a study on violent video games that doesn't "prove" they are the bane of society.

Interesting about the Macbeth effect though (shouldn't it be called the "Lady Macbeth" effect?), I'm surprised this is a thing.

I did a paper on this genre of research. There's some solid science behind the claims, and there's quite a few studies which set out to disprove that violent video games cause violent impulses. What there's a distinct lack of, however, is a study on the comparative effects concerning other violent media.
For example, there's nothing that says gamers are any more violent after media exposure than, say, people who watched a slasher movie.
And there are studies that say people are inclined to more "violent" behaviour shortly after watching a slasher. And the results are statistically significant.

This "MacBeth" study does have some interesting points, but I'm not sure what they hoped to prove using this type of sample, and what their threshold for "Experianced" and "inexperianced" is, also: what were the other choices for gifts? What type of exposure did they have to the other subjects? What were they told about the other subjects? They were selecting the hygiene products as gifts, after all, maybe there was some use of the "Smelly gamer" stereotype at work here?

 

[Ickorus]

I've noticed that people who don't play games tend to buy lots of hygiene products as presents anyway where most gamers I know tend to give stuff with a little more thought in them.

 

[Farther than stars]

Not that I'm saying that the results of this study are either right or wrong, but don't you need 211 people to scientifically deduce statistical value from an experiment, not 76? As far as I'm concerned, if your testing pool is under 300 people this could all just be a big coincidence.

 

[kasperbbs]

Not sure how to feel about this. On a more important note who would want a cleaning product as a present? If i was gifted such a present i would assume that i have bad hygiene or at least that he thinks that i do. Or that person is simply a cheap bastard who grabbed the only thing resembling a present in a convenience store.

 

[Paul Barclay]

I'm interested in why the author of this article (the Escapist writer, Andy Chalk)has chosen to characterize the item-choosing task as "they were told to select gift items for others." The article he links to the University of Luxembourg press release says,

"Current research from the University of Luxembourg, found that when participants were asked to select gift products after they had played a violent video game, inexperienced players selected more hygienic products, such as shower gel, toothpaste and deodorant and felt higher moral distress from playing violent games."

This says nothing about other people receiving the gifts. Additionally, the previous articles by the researcher that are linked in this piece indicate that in previous studies the participants have been asked to rate the desirability of items for themselves. In another study on the same effect, "Participants engaged in the same recall task as in Study 1 [Asked to recall a time they had acted unethically] and were then offered a free gift and given a choice between an antiseptic wipe and a pencil."

I think that Mr. Chalk mischaracterizes the study in this piece, and then the lot of you commit to attacking it based on his mischaracterization. This is a press release, not a scientific article. It unfortunately does not feature things like confidence intervals, effect sizes, or detail descriptions of the methodologies, i.e. control groups.

 

[kyogen]

"Future studies ... will help to reveal..."
That was poorly worded. If you've reached your conclusion before doing your research, what's the point?

A Macbeth effect doesn't really surprise me. People do that sort of thing all the time and for all sorts of reasons. If you're not used to certain types of representation, you'll react to them differently than someone who is.

 

[ProtoChimp]

I... I dont really get the point, in this.

 

[JET1971]

So the study says that people who play a violent video game for the first time will have better hygene after? So does that mean that gamers who regularly kill in games are cleaner people?

the study can be looked at in that way too.