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Does Violence in Video Games Lead to Players Becoming Violent?

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Does Violence in Video Games Lead to Players Becoming Violent?

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This is a question that has been around as long as video games started to become more complex and more can be shown and demonstrated through more advance game engines and technology.  This question, however gained even more attention when games like Mortal Kombat, Doom, and Duke Nukem  had the capability of showing graphic violence to people of all ages. But now, in the modern era, instead of just graphic violence, there are often sexual situations as well as violence in video games. A prime example being games like Grand Theft Auto, Saints Row, etc.
However in my opinion, I believe that violence in video games does not lead to violent individuals. While I was researching I came across a very good argument made by Steve Pinker, PHD at Harvard University. In a Youtube video, a clip from his show "Office Hours" in an interview he states that "if consuming violent media made you violent, then we should prevent adults from reading The Illiad, or for the matter The Old Testament." (Pinker 00:28). I saw this point as very true and valid. If seeing, reading, or playing media that is violent, makes you violent, then we should avoid it at all cost. However, this goes to show how violence is actually a very real part of everyone's lives.
This transitions into my next point. Whether it be violence depicted in video games or sexual situations I feel that it doesn't make the player replicate what is happening in the video game. Everyone should have a right to play. However, this doesn't mean that younger kids should be going to GameStop and picking a copy of Grand Theft Auto 5. I feel like it should be a mutual decision between parents on what they allow kids to play. And when they have this discussion, it is important to know that the child is mature enough to handle what is in the video games. They should know that things like violence are a part of everyday life, however it is bad and should never replicated. Once a child adopts this mindset, they are less subject to being violent. I can vouch for this because it's something that I went through. When I was younger, my parents were always scared that violent video games would make me a violent child. However as I got older I started to realize that violence was a very bad thing and should never be replicated and that games are simply for entertainment only. Not to be replicated. My parents and I had a good conversation when I was around 11 or 12, and here I am now. Another point that I'd like to bring up is from is how subjective is violence is to another person. For example, a gamer who lives in a worse neighborhood then others where there is a lot of violence, can see things happening in a video game to be less violent compared to another kid who has been sheltered all of his life in a nice gated community full of safety and harmony. The perception of violence is what makes violent people violent. Violent people think that violence is normal and alright, contrary to ordinary people. Video games don't promote this message, even providing warning labels about the content yet to be experienced in the video game. No one is violent by nature, there is no way someone can suddenly become violent because of things like video games. It's all about their mindset and how much control over it.
According to the Huffington Post, there was a study done in the Netherlands where "children and their parents were surveyed for their overall gaming habits, exposure to "violent" games, as well as various mental health related outcomes, including aggressiveness" (Ferguson Para. 2). According to Fergurson, by the end of the post there was no coordination between aggression/violent tendencies one year later (Ferguson Para. 3).
The last thing I want to bring up is the point that on-screen violence is a hell of a lot more different than violence in real life. According to an article on Forbes "anyone who has actually engaged in real violence---a fight at school, for instance--- will know just how different it is than the violence we experience on screen" (Kain Para. 10). According to Kain, in real life it's scary and a lot dirtier (Kain Para. 10). How can we become violent if we don't even experience real violence in the first place?
All in all, I believe that violent video games are not the cause of violent personalities. This is due to the fact that the perception of violence is what makes someone violence, as well as their mindset. Violence is so common in media and if violent media does make people violent, than we'd stay away from the bible to Shakespeare, something so ridiculous I can't even fathom.

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In the early aughts (2000s), some researchers confidently asserted that clear evidence linked 'violent' video games (an emotional but vague term) to aggression in children. Since then, the research evidence has fractured considerably with more and more studies coming out finding no evidence that video games meaningfully influence aggression. Longitudinal studies that track children over time have, for the most part, found little convincing evidence that children experience harm due to playing 'violent' games. Now, a new study from the Netherlands adds to this pool of good news.

The study consists of 194 children from the Netherlands (one of the highest per-capita game consuming countries apparently.) Children and their parents were surveyed for their overall gaming habits, exposure to 'violent' games, as well as various mental health related outcomes including aggressiveness. Children were about age 9 at the time of the first assessment, with the longitudinal follow-up coming a year later.

Results indicated that exposure to 'violent' video games at age 9 was not predictive of aggression or reduced prosocial behaviors one year later. Overall gaming, likewise, was unrelated to most mental health issues including attention problems or reduced social functioning, or total mental health difficulties. However, gaming was slightly related to increased mood symptoms like depression and anxiety, although the relationship was a small one.

So, overall the news is good. The relationship between overall gaming and mood issues isn't necessarily causal (depressed kids may stay home and play video games all day.) But it does suggest that when kids are overdoing it...playing excessively even compared to other kids...it may be time for parents just to check in and make sure everything is ok. This doesn't mean that every preoccupied young gamer is a basket case (again, the correlation was small) but no harm in having a conversation.

The study isn't perfect...like most studies, the term 'violent' video game is used rather bluntly, and I would have liked to see more 'control' variables (age, sex and parent education were controlled in the analyses). But the study benefits from using standardized outcome measures which reduce experimenters' abilities to fiddle with the results to get results they want (a common problem in psychological research, much of which, in fairness, experiments do unconsciously rather than consciously.) More such studies that have the ability to reduce what are called 'researcher expectancy effects' would be welcome.

I keep putting 'violent' in annoying air-quotes because, though the term is in common usage, it doesn't really have much conceptual value. Indeed, its value seems to be mainly emotional...convincing the audience to loathe the games before data is even presented. After all, we don't really talk about 'violent books' because what would that term even mean? Would we include the Bible and Hindu Ramayana with Stephen King, with Shakespeare, with comic books, with Harry Potter, with Grimms' Fairy Tales, with just about any book on history, with the Red Badge of Courage, etc., and assume these are all conceptually the same because they happen to include violence? That's nonsense. Yet we do this with video games (and I've been guilty of it as well, in fairness.) Using the term 'violent video game' whips up audiences unfamiliar with games, but has little scientific conceptual value (though that doesn't stop scholars from using the term.) 'Violent' video game is such a broad term it includes almost all games, from Pac Man, through Oregon Trail, right up to Grand Theft Auto 5 and beyond.

Undoubtedly, the massive flood of video game studies that followed in the wake of the Columbine Massacre of 1999 is far from over. With virtual reality on the horizon (well, technically it's already here), there's a whole new level of immersion to worry over. But, for the most part, for parents the news is good. You've got plenty of bigger things to worry about than video games.

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'Violent' Video Games Don't Cause Later Aggression in Kids, According to New Longitudinal Study

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In the early aughts (2000s), some researchers confidently asserted that clear evidence linked 'violent' video games (an emotional but vague term) to aggression in children. Since then, the research evidence has fractured considerably with more and more studies coming out finding no evidence that video games meaningfully influence aggression.

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Article from Psychology Today; More info!

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Article from Psychology Today; More info!

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Violence is a strategic act. What I mean by this is that a threat to employ physical aggression against someone else unless they do what you want is one that needs to be credible to be useful. If a 5-year-old child threatened to beat up her parents if they don't stop for ice cream, the parents understand that the child does not actually pose a real physical risk and, if push came to shove, the parents would win a physical contest; by contrast, if you happen to be hanging out with a heavy-weight MMA fighter and he demands you pull over for ice cream, you should be more inclined to take his request seriously. If you cannot realistically threaten others with credible claims of violence - if you are not likely to be able to inflict harmful costs on others physically - then posturing aggressively shouldn't be expected to do you any favors; if anything, adopting aggressive stances you cannot back up will result in your suffering costs inflicted by others, and that's generally an outcome to be avoided. It's for this reason that - on a theoretical level - we should have expected research on power poses to fail to replicate: simply acting more dominant will not make you more able to actually back up those boasts, and people shouldn't be expected to take such posturing seriously. If you apply that same logic to nonhumans - say Rams - a male who behaves dominantly will occasionally encourage another male who will challenge that dominance. If neither backs down the result is a physical conflict, and the subsequent realization that writing metaphorical checks you cannot cash is a bad idea.

This cursory analysis already suggests there might be a theoretical problem with the idea that people who are exposed to violent content in media will subsequently become more aggressive in real life. Yes, watching Rambo or playing Dark Souls might inspire some penchant for spilling fantasy blood (at least in the short term), but seeing violence doesn't suddenly increase the advisability of your pursuing such a strategy, as you are no more likely to be able effectively employ it than you were before your exposure. Again, to place that in a nonhuman example (always a good idea when you're dealing with psychology research to see if an idea still make sense; if it only makes sense for humans, odds are it's lacking in interpretation), if you exposed a male ram to media depicting males aggressively slamming their horns into other males, that doesn't suddenly mean your subject ram will be inspired to run out and challenge a rival. His chances of winning that contest haven't changed, so why should his behavior?

Now the matter is more complex than this analysis lets on, admittedly, but it does give us something of a starting point for understanding why violent content in media - video games in particular - should not be expected to have uniform or lasting impacts on the player's subsequent behavior. Before I get into the empirical side of this issue, however, I think it's important I lay my potential bias on the table: I'm a gamer; have been my entire life, at least as far as I can remember. I've played games in all sorts of mediums - video, card, board, and sometimes combinations of those - and across a variety of genres, including violent ones. As such, when I see someone leveling accusations against one of my more cherished hobbies, my first response is probably defensive. That is, I don't perceive people who research the link between violent games and aggression to be doing so for no particular reason; I assume they have some specific goals in mind (consciously understood or not) that center around telling other people what they shouldn't do or enjoy, perhaps even ranging as far as trying to build a case for the censorship of such materials. As such, I'm by no means an unbiased observed in this matter, but I am also something of an expert in the subject matter as well, which can provide me with insights that others might not possess.

That disclaimer out the way, I wanted to examine some research today which examines the possibility that the relationship people have sometimes spotted between violent video game content and aggression isn't causal (Przybylski et al, 2014; I say sometimes because apparently this link between the two is inconsistently present, possibly only short-term in nature, and the subject of some debate). The thrust of this paper focuses on the idea that human aggression (proximately) is a response to having one's psychological needs thwarted. I think there are better ways to think about what aggression is, but this general idea is probably close enough to that truth to do us just fine. In brief, the idea motivating this paper is that people play video games (again, proximately), in part, because they provide feelings of competency and skill growth. Something about the challenges games offer proves sufficiently motivating for players to get pleasure out of the experience. Importantly, this should hold true across gaming content: People don't find content appealing because it is violent generally, but rather because it provides us abilities to test, display, and strengthen certain competencies. As such, manipulating the content of the games (from violent to non-violent) should be much less effective at causing subsequent aggression than manipulating the difficulty of the game (from easy/intuitive to difficult/confusing).

This is a rather important factor to consider because the content of a game (whether it is violent or not, for instance) might be related to how difficult the game is to learn or master. As such, if researchers have been trying to vary the content without paying much mind to the other factors that correlate with it, that could handicap the usefulness of subsequent interpretations. Towards that end, Przybylski et al (2014) report on the results of seven studies designed to examine just that issue. I won't be able to go over all of them in depth, but will try to provide a general adequate summary of their methods and findings. In their first study, they examined how 99 participants reacted to playing a simple but non-violent game (about flying a paper airplane through rings) or a complex but violent one (a shooter with extensive controls). The players were then asked about their change in aggressive feelings (pre- and post-test difference) and mastery of the controls. The quick summary of the results was that aggressive content did not predict change in aggression scores above and beyond the effects of frustrations over the controls, while the control scores did predict aggression.

Their second study actually manipulated the content and complexity factors (N = 101). Two versions of the same game (Half-Life 2) were created, such that one contained violent content and the other did not, while the overall environment and difficulty were held constant. Again, there were no effects of content on aggression, but there was an effect of perceived mastery. In other words, people felt angry when they were frustrated with the game; not because of the content. Their third study (N = 104) examined what happened when a non-violent puzzle game (Tetris) was modified to either contain simple or complex control interface. As before, those who had to deal with the frustrating controls were quicker to access aggressive thoughts and terms than those in the intuitive control condition. Study 4 basically repeated that design with some additional variables and found the same type of results: perceived competency in the game correlated negatively with aggression and that people become more aggressive the less they enjoyed the game, among a few other things.The fifth study had 112 participants all play a complex game that was either (a) violent or non-violent, but also gave them either (b) 10 minutes of practice time with the game or no experience with it. As expected, there was an effect of being able to practice on subsequent aggression, but no effect of violent content.

Study 6 asked participants to first submerge their arm in ice water for 25 seconds (a time period ostensibly determined by the last participant), then play a game of Tetris for a few minutes that was modified to be either easy or difficult (but not because of the controls this time). Those assigned to play the more difficult version of Tetris also reported more aggressive feelings, and assigned the next subject to submerge their arm for about 30 seconds in the ice water (relative to the 22 second average assignment in the easy group). The final study surveyed regular players about their experiences gaming over the last month and aggressive feelings, again finding that the ratings of content did not predict aggressive self-reported reactions to gaming, but frustrations with playing the game did.

In summation, then, violent content per se does not appear to make players more aggressive; instead, frustration and losing seem to play a much larger role. It is at this point that my experience as a gamer comes in handy, because such an insight should be readily apparent to anyone who has watched many other people play games. As an ever-expanding library of YouTube rage-quit videos document, a gamer can become immediately enraged by losing at almost any game, regardless of the content (for those of you not in the know, rage-quitting refers to aggressively quitting out of a game following a loss, often accompanied by yelling, frustrating, and broken controllers). I've seen people losing their minds over shooters, sports games, card games, board games, and storming off while shouting. Usually such outbursts are short-term affairs - you don't see that person the next day and notice they're visibly more aggressive towards others indiscriminately - but the important part is that they almost always occur in response to losses (and usually losses deemed to be unfair, in some sense).

As a final thought, in addition to the introductory analysis and empirical evidence presented here, there are other reasons one might not predict that violent content per se would be related to subsequent aggression even if one wants to hold onto the idea that mere exposure to content is enough to alter future behavior. In this case, most of the themes found within games that have violent content are not violence and aggression as usually envisioned ( like The Onion's piece on Close Range: the video game about shooting people point blank in the face). Instead, those themes usually focus on the context in which that violence is used: defeating monsters or enemies that threaten the safety of you or others, killing corrupt and dangerous individuals in positions of power, or getting revenge for past wrongs. Those themes are centered more around heroism and self-defense than aggression for the sake of violence. Despite that, I haven't heard of many research projects examining whether playing such violent games could lead to increased psychological desires to be helpful, or encourage people to take risks to save others from suffering costs.

References: Przybylski, A., Rigby, C., Deci, E., & Ryan, R. (2014). Competent-impeding electronic games and players' aggressive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 16, 441-457.

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Violence In Games Does Not Cause Real-Life Violence

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Violence is a strategic act. What I mean by this is that a threat to employ physical aggression against someone else unless they do what you want is one that needs to be credible to be useful.

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Over at Vice's Motherboard gaming website, writer Teodora Stoica is just the latest to trot out a bunch of nonsense about video games and violence without bothering to even question broad, sweeping assumptions.

It's baffling that video game websites keep publishing such one-sided malarkey, but as people like to say these days, "It's 2016."

Apparently "It's 2016" justifies a whole lot of mumbo jumbo.

"In 2016, technology and media have turned genocide viral," writes Stoica, failing to point out that genocide is actually a real thing that has never been caused by video games. "The video game Mortal Kombat X features spines being snapped, heads crushed and players being diced into cubes. In Hatred, gamers play as a sociopath who attempts to kill innocent bystanders and police officers with guns, flamethrowers and bombs to satisfy his hatred of humanity. Characters beg for mercy before execution, frequently during profanity-laced rants."

I always knew the game Hatred, which basically nobody played, would be used more to condemn video games than anything else, an unwitting pawn in agenda-driven articles like this one. It's one reason the game has always irritated me to no end.

Stoica's argument, which delves into only one side of the never-ending debate on video games and violence, boils down to this:

Since the Korean War, the military has altered basic training to help soldiers overcome existing norms of violence, desensitise them to the acts they might have to commit, and reflexively shoot upon cue. Even the drill sergeant is portrayed as the consummate professional personifying violence and aggression.

The same training takes place unconsciously through contemporary video games and media. Young children have unprecedented access to violent movies, games and sports events at an early age, and learning brutality is the norm. The media dwells upon real-life killers, describing every detail of their crime during prime-time TV. The current conditions easily set up children to begin thinking like soldiers and even justify killing. But are we in fact suppressing critical functions of the brain? Are we engendering future generations who will accept violence and ignore the voice of reason, creating a world where violence will become the comfortable norm?

No, dear god, no. The answer is no. It has always been and always will be "No."

Real violence and video game violence are not the same thing. The vast majority of people who play video games do not commit violent crimes or engage in violent acts. If they did, the 70 million copies of GTAV that have been sold globally would have thrust the world into chaos. Gamers' empathy remains as intact as anyone else's, which is to say there are bad apples in every bunch. I played Mortal Kombat as a child (yes, it was available in the early 90s' not just in 2016) and never once had the urge to snap spines in half.

Anyone who has actually engaged in real violence---a fight at school, for instance---will know just how vastly different it is from the violence we experience on a screen. Real violence is frightening and overwhelming and takes control of your entire body.

I was in a fight in fifth grade, and never again since, thank god. Three boys chased me into my friend's house after I tossed a bucket of water on them. They punched and kicked me. I wasn't really hurt, but it was scary. I literally cannot imagine taking another human life, and neither can most people. This is common sense. It doesn't matter how many digital avatars you've slaughtered in video games. So long as you're not a sociopath, which video games cannot create, you aren't going to have an easy time killing. Even soldiers, in war, struggle with the act.

The real makers of war and chaos are the politicians we elect, the policies we enact that promote violence like the War on Drugs. It's the religious fanatics and the hawks and the cowards who get other people to carry out their violence for them.

In any case, I've written extensively about the science behind all of this. I don't have the time or inclination to do it all over again. The truth of the matter is, for every study you show me about how video games can make people more "numb" to violence or more aggressive, I can show you one that says the opposite. I prefer to use basic reason and common sense. Show me your studies, I'll show you the world around us.

Every few months or so, somebody comes out with some fear-mongering jibber-jabber about how video games are corrupting our youth, making our young men terrible killing machines. They always ignore the fact that in nations with high rates of video game usage, violent crime is generally exceptionally low; that as video games have become more popular and realistic, violent crime has fallen; that in spite of the horrific shootings we keep seeing, these are never caused by video games, and have their roots in far more complex and difficult to understand phenomena.

So why do we keep seeing this propaganda? Why do we see it from both right-wingers and left-wingers alike these days? Why do liberal video game writers and conservative activists like Jack Thompson all ride the same bandwagon?

Because people have agendas. Because people are arrogant and self-assured. (Oh no, I know a dirty word!)

Because it's fun to get clicks and fun to stir up fear and fun to sit on a moral high horse and wag your finger at people who enjoy such crude things as first-person shooters or D&D. Surely these people are closeted killers, nerdy deviants just one thumbstick away from a massacre.

Hogwash. You have no proof. You have "studies" and accusations. You'll need to do better than that. And shame on gaming websites that promote this nonsense without at the very least presenting the other side.

/End Rant/

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No, For The Millionth Time, Video Games Don't Cause Real World Violence

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Over at Vice's Motherboard gaming website, writer Teodora Stoica is just the latest to trot out a bunch of nonsense about video games and violence without bothering to even question broad, sweeping assumptions. It's baffling that video game websites keep publishing such one-sided malarkey, but as people like to say these days, "It's 2016."

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Pick a Side! Pro's and Cons of Both Sides

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Pick a Side! Pro's and Cons of Both Sides

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Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence? - Violent Video Games - ProCon.org

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Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence? Read pros, cons, and expert responses in the debate.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ1yUDRHCf4

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Steven Pinker: The Impact of Violent Video Games on Kids

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Steven Pinker (@sapinker), Cognitive Scientist and Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, talks with Aroop Mukharji (@aroopmukharji) about violence and video games, war, and why academic writing is so bad. Listen to the full interview: https://soundcloud.com/belfercenter/sets/office-hours More about Steven Pinker: http://stevenpinker.com Belfer Center website: http://www.belfercenter.org Mukharji: What is the research on kids and violent video games?

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Video Games Don't Cause Violent Behavior