Violent Videogames Cause "Macbeth Effect"

[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.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Another moronic study. Jesus Christ, do something useful with your resources.

 

[AnarchistFish]

A recent study conducted by the University of Luxembourg had 76 people play violent videogames for 15 minutes, after which they were told to select gift items for others.

What do you mean, "cure for cancer"?

 

[Hugga_Bear]

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.

There's no magic number, given the prevalence of gaming (what was it, 47% of people?) you'd need a HUGE and varied pool to be able to produce anything with statistical significance, I mean we're talking in the thousands before anyone with a brain even pays attention. This kind of thing is only useful as a precursor to a study, to see if maybe, just maybe there's a connection there.

As an actual study this is paltry, I can get more people by wandering around my uni for a bit, I could have got more a couple of years ago. My AS level psychology I got over 50 participants in a day. Calling this a study is just...no.

 

[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.

There's no magic number, given the prevalence of gaming (what was it, 47% of people?) you'd need a HUGE and varied pool to be able to produce anything with statistical significance, I mean we're talking in the thousands before anyone with a brain even pays attention. This kind of thing is only useful as a precursor to a study, to see if maybe, just maybe there's a connection there.

As an actual study this is paltry, I can get more people by wandering around my uni for a bit, I could have got more a couple of years ago. My AS level psychology I got over 50 participants in a day. Calling this a study is just...no.

That's basically my point, but I was referring the minimum amount required to be academically viable. You're a psychology student. You should know the standard for what that minimum is.

 

[zombiesinc]

Although I'm all for psychology studies, especially when they center around video games and their effect, I was hoping the link would provide a more in-depth read. I have no doubts the study itself was done properly but the summary of the study and what was discovered feels way too condensed down for my liking.

 

[BoogieManFL]

Maybe people who play violent video games, which, depending on your definition, are probably most video games are more hardcore gamers in general who spend more time playing, and thus have less care for personal hygiene. Especially the hygiene of others.

And really, who gives things like deodorant and shampoo for a gift...? Personally I'm not big on essential living objects as gifts, things they'd just be eventually buying anyway. Maybe gamers who are in to those kinds of things are more aware of and give more thought to cause and effect and the consequences of their actions and realize that would be a terrible gift and choose something better.

 

[Zaik]

"different strategies to cope"

I honestly don't remember a time when I ever had to cope with the hypothetical moral issues of my imaginary violence on make believe people.

I'm serious. I've actually tried to think about this in a serious light, and I can not think of one second of lost sleep or excess soap buying where I felt bad for murdering like, a million billion fake people.

I've done some fucked up shit too. In no particular order:

-I destroyed...several NPC villages in minecraft with nuclear bombs.
-I destroyed Megaton like 12 times with the nuclear bomb there.
-I think I ran over something like 50 to 1 million pregnant women over various GTA/Saints row games.
-Sometimes I drive on the sidewalk in GTA/Saints Row games on purpose just to see the people go flying.
-I drove at least one race to total extinction in Mass Effect 1, at least until the ME3 came along and fucked everything up the ass.
-I sold kid(s) into slavery in Fallout 3.
-I sold adults into slavery in Fallout 3.
-I let a nutjob frame me for blowing up a monument in Saints Row 3 so I could kill some poor retard in a mask.
-I then killed the whole military and formed a city state in Saints Row 3.
-I murdered something like a thousand million brown people and russians that one time I played Call of Duty 4. I honestly don't even know why I did any of that to this day.
-I killed like a thousand baby necromorphs in dead space 1 and 2.
-There were several occasions I killed sentient ghouls just for being ugly. I even cleared out that entire building one time. Another time I "fixed" their robot and let him do it.
-I used at least one nuclear missile on Venezuela or wherever I was in Mercenaries 2. Maybe more, I can't remember because there were a lot of bombs in that game. People were literally just leaving bombs laying on hillsides and shit.
-I unwittingly ate 10 thousand people's souls or something so I could shoot electricity in Infamous, re-found the tool I did it with the first time, and then did it again.
-I killed every non superpowered human in the whole world in Infamous 2 just because I was better than they were.
-I lead the charge to mindlessly kill all the mages in DA2 while I was a blood mage myself.
-I killed like 50 little girls in Bioshock for a slight combat advantage that probably didn't even exist.
-and lots more shit that would get me locked up for a thousand lifetimes if any of it was real.

I'm pretty sure if this stuff had any real effect on you I would be the king of PTSD right now.