Violent Video Games

playing-video-games

Photo by Jaren Wilkey

A new study suggests that people get frustrated when they are offered the opportunity to cheat or steal and that chance is then taken away from them.

Other studies have shown that blocking people from achieving their positive goals increases frustration, which is not surprising. But this is the first to show that even denying people the chance to commit forbidden behaviors can increase frustration.

That’s not all. The researchers also found that people who are frustrated in their attempts to cheat or steal are more likely than others to be attracted to violent video games.

“We made new discoveries in what makes people frustrated and aggressive, but also what people do when they’re feeling this frustration,” said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University.

“Our results help us understand why people are attracted to violent entertainment in the first place – they feel they can take out their frustration virtually.”

Bushman conducted the study with Jodi Whitaker, a graduate student at Ohio State, and Andre Melzer and Georges Steffgen of the University of Luxembourg.

Their results appear online in the journal Psychological Science.

The researchers conducted two experiments. The first involved 120 male college students, who were given 30 minutes to complete a multiple-choice history exam. They were told that those who did well on the exam would earn chocolates or apples (their choice).

All of the participants were given the exam in an envelope. But half of them received a completed exam with a score of 100 percent marked at the top – the test had no name on it, so they could claim it as their own.

After five minutes, the experimenter interrupted participants and said: “Sorry, I gave you the wrong copy of the exam.” The participants handed back their exams in the envelope, and were given another envelope with the exam. This exam was also either scored 100 percent or left blank.

Of those who initially were given the chance to cheat on the exam, half still had the chance to cheat, while that chance was withdrawn for the other half.

After turning in their tests, the students waited to receive their grades.

The question was: How would those people who lost their chance to cheat react? To find out, the students were told they could complete a brief study about video games while they waited for their test results.

Participants read descriptions of eight fictitious video games, four violent and four nonviolent, and rated how much they wanted to play each game on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 10 (extremely).

Those students who had the chance to cheat withdrawn were more attracted to the violent video games than those in the other two groups (never had a chance to cheat, or had a chance to cheat the entire time). The latter two groups did not differ in their attraction to violent video games.

None of the three groups differed in their attraction to nonviolent games.

Bushman noted that none of the students admitted to cheating, or having the chance to cheat, even though they did cheat (as evidenced by their scores). But the students who were denied the chance to cheat obviously had a different view than others on their video game choices.

“Because violent video games permit aggression, they may be especially attractive to people who experience frustration,” Bushman said. “We believe students felt frustrated when they didn’t get a chance to cheat on the test.”

The researchers looked more closely at the link between frustration and attraction to violent video games in a second experiment that included 141 male college students. This experiment involved stealing rather than cheating. Students used a bowl of quarters to demonstrate their estimate of how many coins would weigh the same as an object.

In a similar setup to the first study, some students had the opportunity to steal coins, while others had that opportunity taken away from them. The remainder never had the opportunity to steal.

Afterwards, the students completed a “mood” form, in which they were asked to rate on a scale of one to five how much they felt various feelings, including frustration. They then rated how much they wanted to play the same eight fictitious video games used in the first study.

First of all, students who did have the chance to steal tended to do so – an average of between about one and three quarters, depending on their level of access, Bushman said.

Those who had the chance to steal withdrawn from them showed higher-than-average levels of frustration than those in the other two groups – and they were more likely to be attracted to the violent video games.

“The prevention of taboo behaviors like stealing produces frustration, just as does the prevention of more desirable goals,” Bushman said. “This is a new finding that adds to our understanding of what causes frustration and aggression.”

The results also help explain the appeal of violent video games.

“Many people believe that violent video games are a kind of catharsis, allowing them to alleviate angry feelings,” he said. “Research findings suggest this isn’t true, but that’s part of the appeal to many people.”

Ohio State University

playing-video-games

Photo by Jaren Wilkey

A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis of long-term effects of violent video game play on the brain has found changes in brain regions associated with cognitive function and emotional control in young adult men after one week of game play. The results of the study were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

The controversy over whether or not violent video games are potentially harmful to users has raged for many years, making it as far as the Supreme Court in 2010. But there has been little scientific evidence demonstrating that the games have a prolonged negative neurological effect.

“For the first time, we have found that a sample of randomly assigned young adults showed less activation in certain frontal brain regions following a week of playing violent video games at home,” said Yang Wang, M.D., assistant research professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. “These brain regions are important for controlling emotion and aggressive behavior.” [continue reading…]

Violent games emotionally desensitizing

videogame controllerAfter excessively violent events, shoot ‘em up games regularly come under scrutiny. In Norway, several first-person shooter games actually disappeared from the market for a while after the killings. Does intense fighting on a flat screen display also result in aggressive behavior in real life? Researchers from the University of Bonn found brain activity patterns in heavy gamers that differed from those of non-gamers. The study’s results have just been published in the scientific journal “Biological Psychology.”

“First-person shooter” games have been discussed in connection with violence over and over. Participants take on the role of a shooter fighting opponents in a war-like situation using different weapons. The Norwegian killer is said to have participated in such worlds intensely before he killed dozens of people in Oslo’s government district and on the vacation island of Utoya. And after the shooting sprees in Erfurt, Emsdetten and Winnenden, the debate whether violent games lower the inhibition threshold and result in violent behavior was revived again. Psychologists, epileptologists and neurologists from the University of Bonn studied the effect of shoot ‘em up game images and other emotionally charged photos on the brain activity of heavy gamers. “Compared to people who abstain from first-person shooters, they show clear differences in how emotions are controlled,” reported lead author Dr. Christian Montag from the Institute of Psychology at the University of Bonn. [continue reading…]

The impact of video games

Photo: Adam Filipowicz

Photo: Adam Filipowicz

Some video games can make children kinder and more likely to help—not hurt—other people.

That’s the conclusion of new research published in the current (June 2009) issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, a top-tier, peer-reviewed academic journal.

The article presents the findings of three separate studies, conducted in different countries with different age groups, and using different scientific approaches. All the studies find that playing games with prosocial content causes players to be more helpful to others after the game is over. [continue reading…]