Recent research on violent video games is pretty conclusive and you’re not going to like it: there’s good evidence that people if you play violent video games you might be less likely to a) notice aggressive events, b) perceive fewer or less severe injuries, c) feel less sympathy for violence victims, and d) have less negative attitudes towards violence. In this video I take a close look at this research as well as one study which claims the complete opposite: that violent video games are perceived by players as merely “rough and tumble play” and that violence actually enhances performance. Who should you believe? The video is about 28 minutes long.
Resources on Video Game Violence
- Feel free to download the presentation I used in this video episode. You can download them in Apple Keynote format: Violent Video Games, in PowerPoint format: Violent Video Games, and in PDF: Violent Video Games.
- You’ll find links to lots of resources on violence video games at Craig Anderson’s web site.
- Center for the Study of Violence
- The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence
- Here is Dr. Wolfgang Bösche’s homepage, author of Violent content enhances video game performance. The site is in German, but you can download the pdf of the article from this site.
- Carnagey, N.L., Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2006). The Effects of Video Game Violence on Physiological Desensitization to Real-Life Violence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
- Anderson, C.A., & Dill, K.E. (2000). Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 772-790.
- Violent video games and desensitization from the Cognitive Daily web site.
- Safer Children in a Digital World: the report of the Byron Review
- Violent video games linked to child aggression
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Very interesting episode!
So is the general slant of research done so far that violent video games make people/younger people have more violent behaviour/reactions?
If so, does this just suggest that we adhere more stringently to age restrictions on video games for young people or does this apply to all of us?
Also to what extent should the research be taken beside personal experience? I’m a sample size of one but if I’ve never noticed my behaviour change due to the violent video games I play does this mean I don’t have to worry about playing them?
Thanks,
Matt
I love your video lessons! i would recommend posting the time/length of each one. I’m wanting to use the Violent Video Game segment but am not sure how long it is without watching the whole thing and am not sure how much time to allow myself to prepare for class. You do an excellent job!
Matt: good questions. I think the research does point to a greater adherence to age restrictions on video games and more parental involvement in children’s video game playing. Also, I think research on how older vs. younger ages are affected by violent video games is worth investigating. Like you, I’ve played some violent video games and enjoyed them, and not noticed any negative effects, but I was in my 30s-40s at the time. I’ll wager that younger players are more negatively affected.
Tasha: glad you liked the episode. This one definitely did go longer than I usually like to go. Good suggestion for putting information regarding the time/length. I added that info to the notes just above the video player. I hope you are able to use the video for class and if you and/or your students have any feedback I’d be happy to hear it!
Parental Control is probably the best solution to lessen the negative effects of video games to younger generation. I’m sure most of you will agree. By the way, I’m a gamer myself, anticipating for the release God of War III. I’ve seen its trailer and it’s just perfect, though there are some disturbing scenes which are not suitable for the young ones.
Aion: hard to argue with that. Some people can handle violent video games – perhaps because of age/personality/maturity, or family support – and others are just more vulnerable and therefore just shouldn’t be playing them.
As a psychologist-in-training myself, I certainly take stock of the findings in the first paper he talks about, but I would be extremely hesitant about generalizing an increase in short-term desensitization to subsequent violent behavior in the real world. Now we do know from studies such as those conducted by Albert Bandura, that children will ‘model’ violent behavior exhibited by adults, playmates, or movie/tv-shows, and videogames — but the effect is always short-term unless the children are subject to chronic exposure in the form of parental abuse or conflict and is not more pronounced in videogames. I would imagine, although I do not know for sure, that the same would apply with regard to this desensitization effect, so long as similar ‘reward states’ were presented during exposure to the violent stimulus.
Also, I can’t see how these studies were actually making conflicting arguments, and I thought that the latter, despite its methodological flaws such as small sample size, was the more enlightening of the two, since it ties quite nicely into animal and evolutionary psychology, as well as multi-disciplinary research into play. It goes some of the way towards providing an account for why we find videogames enjoyable (i.e. they are an extension of the types of play that we, as predatory social mammals, naturally enjoy engaging in), whereas the Carnegie study merely documents a response curve which may or may not be revealing about certain types of violent behavior.
Love this site (I’ve been coming here for awhile). I really like the recent episode but, like the poster named Purgatori, I did not see a “true” conflict between the two articles. Clearly, Carangie and colleagues were arguing that exposure to violent videogames decreases sensitivity to real-life violence. This seems, to me, to be different from Bosche saying that violence increases interest (liking) for a game and thus, players are more accurate.
In other words, I don’t think Carangie et al. would claim that people are NOT interested in violent content, only that it has negative consequences in terms of desensitization. Although, in some sense you could argue that one study highlights the “darkside” of violent games and the other shows possible “positive effects” (i.e., increased accuracy) of violence.
Again, this is a tremendous site for psychology–keep up the GREAT work!
I liked this episode and the new video format is interesting. It’s a little awkward listening in the car, but the only part of the presentation that really relied on visuals were the two graphs.
Anyhoo, it occurred to me that a podcast on the psychology of anger management would be really interesting and possibly relevant to many of your listeners (especially fathers of small children, like me).
All the best and keep up the great work.
I’ve certainly noticed that if I play Quake III (a first-person shooter) now I get very jittery – a little sweating, strong fast heartbeat, maybe even a little tunnel vision – so I won’t play for very long. I used to play it every lunchtime about 5 years ago and although I reacted to it then I think I react more now (in my early 30s).
@aion database: I agree wholeheartedly. IMHO parents have a responsibility to monitor and control what their children are exposed to and to discuss it so if they are exposed to something disturbing then they can work through the experience and be better prepared or better able to deal with it next time. It ties in with the whole internet censorship debate, which is very pertinent at the moment in Australia with the federal government wanting to introduce mandatory filtering, simply assuming parents aren’t up to the job. (Sorry, a little hobby horse of mine.)
I agree with you both, Ramsey and Purgatori, evidence that violence in video games is enticing but that it affects how you react to further stimuli are non-mutually exclusive things, especially with regard to an evolutionary perspective. Evolutionarily, we should be extremely happy to overeat sweet and fatty foods to our detriment because out on the savannah they were rare, so if you did find them it made sense to eat them all. We just haven’t evolved to live in the city yet (not in every respect anyway – rates for short-sightedness are over 90% in China’s city-based youth).
Great ep, Michael.