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Do Video Games Really Spark Bad Behavior?

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Do Video Games Really Spark Bad Behavior?

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There should be less violence in video and computer games sold to kids, says the American Psychological Association.

The group adopted the resolution just as thousands of psychologists descend on Washington, for this week's annual APA meeting.

Private-practice psychologist Elizabeth Carll, PhD, and a past president of the of APA's media division, led the effort.

"Generally, the research shows that violence in video games increases children's aggressive behavior and decreases their helpful behavior," Carll tells WebMD.
Media Violence May Affect Children's Minds Game Violence Worse for Kids Than TV Violence?
Carll says that kids who watch violent television shows become more aggressive and less empathic. But learning theory says that actually participating in violence - as kids do when playing many video and computer games - has a much stronger effect.

"If you are actively involved in learning, you remember things better," Carll says. "So in a game you do things over and over again, whereas in the movies or on television you watch it once. And in the game there is reinforcement for it. So if it is killing people that you're doing, you get a reward for that."

That's true, says Kevin M. Kieffer, PhD, professor of psychology at Saint Leo University in Saint Leo, Fla. Kiefer presented a paper to the APA that reviewed psychological studies of kids who play violent video and computer games.

"The bottom line is we see three things," Kieffer tells WebMD. One is short-term change toward more aggressive behavior. Two, there are gender differences: Boys play more often and they are more likely to be at risk of behavior changes. And three, some more vulnerable kids are drawn to these games - kids who are already more violent, and those with low self-esteem."
Soaking Up the Media: Full-Time Job for Kids Parents, Game Makers Should Act
The APA calls on parents to make their kids more "media literate." This, Carll says, will let them better understand the consequences of violent acts.

"It is important for parents and educators to review what the kids are viewing and to teach them," Carll says. "For example, a parent could play a game with a child. When someone gets killed, the parent could say, 'You know, this is just a game, and the dead person comes back the next time you turn on the game. But in real life, if you kill someone, he is dead forever.' Teaching empathy, this is what is missing from these games. Teach your children what it would mean in real life if you killed somebody."

Here's what the APA wants:

· Parents should teach kids media literacy.

· Game designers should make bad things happen to characters who do violent things.

· Game makers should improve their ratings system. Games should be rated for their actual amount of violence.

· Game developers should face up to the possibility that their products may have stronger effects on children than either television or movies.
Too Much TV May Make Kids Bullies Study: Violent Games Not Linked to Aggression in Older Players
Kieffer and Carll admit that not all studies link violent video and computer games to problems. And Kieffer notes that there aren't any studies that look at the effects of playing these games over a longer period of time.

The first study actually to do this got surprising results. A month of playing a particularly violent computer game had no effect on player aggressiveness, finds Dmitri Williams, PhD, assistant professor of speech communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Williams looked at a particular kind of computer game - a multiplayer online role-playing game (MMRPG) called Asheron's Call 2 or AC2.

This kind of game is quickly becoming the most popular form of online game. The environment is constantly "on," and a player creates an alter ego - an avatar - that gains power as play goes on. Huge numbers of players are in the virtual game world at any one time. Cooperating with other players is essential for success.

Violence in AC2, Williams says, is nearly constant. Players must fend off attacks from various monsters armed with different weapons. When killed, the monsters gush blood and writhe in agony. However, players rarely fight against one another.

"AC2 is typical of its genre, but it's pretty middle-of-the-road for its violence," Williams tells WebMD. "The typical MMRPG player plays for 22 to 25 hours a week."

The typical computer game player, Williams found, does not conform to the video game player stereotype. Over 60 percent of Americans regularly play some form of interactive game. Nearly a third of game players are over 35. Almost half of all Internet users have played an online game - and this includes 38 percent of Internet users over the age of 65.

The study did not target children. The 213 participants ranged in age from 14 to 68; the average age was 28. None of these 167 men and 45 women had ever played an MMRPG before; some were entirely new to video/computer games.

Williams' study appears in the June issue of Communication Monographs.
Kids Need an Hour of Exercise a Day A Month of Violence
Williams gave copies of AC2 to 75 study participants; the others acted as a comparison group. He asked them to play the game for at least five hours a week; more than two-thirds of the players played more. Overall, the players averaged 56 hours of game playing over the month of the study.

Compared to their own test results before they played the game - and also compared with nonplayers - the AC2 players did not become more aggressive.

"For aggression, I found really nothing," Williams says. "This is in terms of the acceptability of aggression as a way to solve problems, how often they got into arguments with a spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend, or how often they got speeding tickets. We used both attitude and behavioral measures."

Williams says his findings don't necessarily mean the APA is wrong to condemn violent video and computer games. But he does say that far too little is known about these games.

In addition, the new study findings don't tell us much about the possible long-term effects of violent video games on children since most participants were adults.

"The APA concern is based on this evidence showing increased aggression after a short play. But there has been no research on long-term play, or play outside labs, which is not representative of normal play," he says. "It doesn't mean there aren't harmful effects, but I am not convinced by the studies so far. And since I did the first [longer-term] study and found no effects, this gives me pause."
Visit WebMD's Parenting Center Social Effects of Gaming
Williams warns that not all games are created equal. In fact, not all games of the same type offer the same kind of experience. And it makes a difference, he says, whether a game is played in solitude or with others, in an arcade or at home, and whether the game requires players to meet and cooperate with other players.

With AC2, he found that players find the time to play by watching less TV and fewer movies, although they watch the news just as often. Players tend to "cocoon" - that is, to withdraw from casual interactions with others.

"That is sort of disturbing. However, they found a fair amount of community online with new people," Williams says. "So if a person needs exposure to a wider range of people, and already has good social support, this is good. But if this is someone with a lot of so-so friends and no strong friends, it is going to make this problem worse."

Williams also found that the more people play online games, the more they think the real world is like their virtual world.

"The classic case is someone who watches a lot of TV news and sees a lot of violence and crime. They tend to predict more crime for their neighborhood, even if they live in a low-crime area," he says. "And that is an effect I saw in the game. People who played were much more likely than the comparison group to think the world was a more dangerous place in terms of being hit with weapons."

That, too, could be good or bad.

"It is only good if they previously saw the world as safer than it really is," Williams says. "And it's bad if they previously saw the world as more dangerous than it is, and became paranoid. And a lot of these games encourage good social behavior. So imagine if they played and then thought people in the real world were much more likely to help each other than they really are. Does that make them gullible schmucks or better people?"
By Daniel J. DeNoon, Reviewed by Michael W. Smith, MD SOURCES: Williams, D. and Skoric, M. Communication Monographs, June 2005; vol 72: pp 217-233. Nicoll, J. and Kieffer, K. Presentation to the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C. Aug. 19, 2005. Elizabeth Carll, PhD, private practice psychology, New York; past president, media division, APA. Dmitri Williams, PhD, assistant professor of speech communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Do Video Games Really Spark Bad Behavior?

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There should be less violence in video and computer games sold to kids, says the American Psychological Association. The group adopted the resolution just as thousands of psychologists descend on Washington, for this week's annual APA meeting. Private-practice psychologist Elizabeth Carll, PhD, and a past president of the of APA's media division, led the effort.

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Violent Games At A Young Age Can Help Develop Aggressive Behavior

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Violent Games At A Young Age Can Help Develop Aggressive Behavior

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We can all agree that today's most popular video games convey some sort of violence, whether it is gun violence, or physical. Over recent years, violence in our society has increased greatly and I feel that video game violence plays a role in that. Although there really is no clear evidence stating video game violence could be a cause of these violent actions, teens and young children are affected by what they see on their screens everyday. The bloodshed and graphics in games they play cause them to be used to seeing graphic material. This results in them being less sensitive when these situations actually arise, and could ultimately lead to uncontrollable behavior.

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Kids And Teens Are Always On Their Devices Nowadays That It Not Only Affects Their Behavior, But Their Health As Well.

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Kids And Teens Are Always On Their Devices Nowadays That It Not Only Affects Their Behavior, But Their Health As Well.

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VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES AND BAD BEHAVIOR: THE EVIDENCE MOUNTS

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VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES AND BAD BEHAVIOR: THE EVIDENCE MOUNTS

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Still convinced that violent video games are harmless fun? You might want to put down that console and consider the findings of two new research papers.

The first, a meta-analysis of 98 studies with nearly 37,000 participants, concludes without equivocation that "violent video games increase aggression."

The second, which describes new research from Italy, provides further evidence of that troubling dynamic, and indicates they also lead to "decreased self-control and increased cheating."

"Many real-world decisions require self-regulation of moral behavior," writes a research team led by psychologist Alessandro Gabbiadini. "Our study indicates that playing violent video games can interfere with this ability."

"Participants who played a violent video game for only 35 minutes exhibited less self-control, cheated more, and behaved more aggressively than did participants who played a nonviolent video game."

The Italian study, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, featured 172 high school students. After 10 minutes of practice, each played a violent video game ( Grand Theft Auto III or Grand Theft Auto San Andreas) or a non-violent one ( Pinball 3D or Mini Golf 3D) for 35 minutes.

Participants were told they could snack from a bowl of M&Ms placed next to the computer as they played. However, they were also warned that eating too much candy too quickly was unhealthy. Their level of self-control was measured by noting how much of the chocolate they consumed.

After finishing play, they completed a survey designed to measure their level of moral disengagement. On a one-to-seven scale ("completely agree" to "completely disagree"), participants responded to a series of statements indicating a tendency to think of moral behavior in relative terms.

Examples include "Compared to the illegal things people do, taking some things from a store without paying for them is not very serious" and "It is OK to insult a classmate, because beating him/her is worse."

The experiment concluded with two tests designed to measure aggression and the tendency to cheat.

Participants were told they could earn one raffle ticket for each problem they solved on a 10-item logic test. They scored their own responses and took a lottery ticket from an envelope for each correct answer. Researchers measured cheating by comparing the number of tickets taken with the actual number of correct answers.

In addition, participants took part in a "competitive reaction time task" in which the winner of each round "could blast the loser with loud noise through headphones." Researchers measured aggression by how loud and long participants blasted the unpleasant sound.

The results were consistent across the board: "Participants who played a violent video game for only 35 minutes exhibited less self-control, cheated more, and behaved more aggressively than did participants who played a nonviolent video game."

Specifically, those who played the violent game ate more M&Ms, took more unearned raffle tickets, and gave their rivals a longer and louder blast of noise.

"Although very few teenagers were unaffected by violent video games," Gabbiadini and his colleagues write, "individuals high in moral disengagement were far more affected than those low in moral disengagement." This suggests a subset of players-those prone to find ways to justify their unethical behavior-are particularly susceptible to the effects of these games.

Given this new evidence, "it seems more appropriate to assess the consequences of violent video games on behavior in terms of a gradient of intensity of the effects, rather than just the presence/absence of such consequences," they conclude.

That last point provides interesting context for the meta-study, which was conducted by researchers Tobias Greitemeyer and Dirk Mügge and published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. It finds "strong evidence that violent video games do affect aggressive outcomes."

Aggressive behavior is multi-determined, with violent video game exposure being one source among many others (and some of them having a stronger influence than do violent video games).

On the other hand, even small effects-and the effect of violent video games is small to medium in its effect size-can have a negative impact on a societal level when many people are exposed to it, which certainly applies to violent video games.

Thus, in our view, violent video game play should be regarded as a risk factor for aggressive behavior.

The Italian researchers both expand on that notion-they find it's actually a risk factor for several types of negative behavior-and narrow it somewhat, suggesting certain players are more susceptible to such effects than others. These findings, which need to be replicated, potentially add important nuance to the debate.

But they don't change the fundamental equation: Violent video games can, and do, impact players' attitudes and behaviors. And not for the better.

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Violent Video Games and Bad Behavior: The Evidence Mounts

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Still convinced that violent video games are harmless fun? You might want to put down that console and consider the findings of two new research papers. The first, a meta-analysis of 98 studies with nearly 37,000 participants, concludes without equivocation that "violent video games increase aggression."

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Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence? 

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Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence? 

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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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Video Game Violence Linked to Bad Behavior

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Video Game Violence Linked to Bad Behavior

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Video game violence linked to bad behavior, study says