Another Study Links Violent Videogames to Violent Behavior
Another Study Links Violent Videogames to Violent Behavior
Posted 03/02/2010 at 5:39am
| by Paul Lilly
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Maybe it all started with the 1997 Atari 2600 title Combat, in which you were tasked with blowing up your best friend (or whoever you invited over) with a tank, bi-plane, or jet. Or maybe it was something else, but no matter what videogame first began shaping our feeble minds, one thing's for sure - violent videogames increases our violent thinking, attitudes, and behaviors, says a new study. Oh, and those shoot-em-ups you've been playing do absolutely nothing to promote positive social behaviors.
To come to the above conclusion, psychologist Craig Anderson of Iowa State University and his team combed through the results of existing studies of 130,000 people from the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Anderson says he found an association between exposure to violent games and aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive "affect."
"Videogames are neither inherently good nor inherently bad," the study says. "But people learn. And content matters."
Naturally, not everyone agrees with Anderson's findings. Two such critiques include Christopher Ferguson and John Kilburn of the department of behavioral applied science and criminal justice at Texas A&M International University. Ferguson and Kilburn point out flaws in Anderson's study, including what they believe is a selection bias, as well as a weak connection at best. Furthermore, Freguson says that violent crime in the U.S. and other developed nations has decreased over the decades, even though videogames are becoming more popular than ever.
More info here.
Image Credit: scottpehnke.com
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nadako
March 02, 2010 at 3:36pm
a parent then i am going to limit what my kids play on video games i am currently at school for making video games. I dont believe games stimulate violence greatly but i would not let my kid play Grand Theft Auto just because your playing a gang member and there is alot of hookers in their! But i would probly allow them to play Crackdown. I would also make my kids wait untill they are 16 before i let them play online for the 360/console. I always hatted little kids playing rated M games online with their high pitched voice. So in all Its up to the parents to decide what games their kids play dont blame video games for the parents own wrong doing!
Boot Camp for Gamers: Digipen - its hell in here!
Zazubovich
March 02, 2010 at 12:48pm
I think the real truth of the matter is that video games don't cause violence, but I think they can reduce inhibitions for some people and definitely train people in how to execute violent activities. Like Dance Dance Revolution, for example. It might not train you to dance, but it trains you to move your feet around in a fashion like dancing, that with training could result in real life dancing. Area 51 in the arcade version with the light gun trains for eye-hand coordination and rewards success with more play and failure costs 50 cents. I think that playing games like that, or Cabela's big game hunting, even, give users some muscle memory and visual cue training that gives users a baseline skill set. Should the user be prone to violence already, they may self-select for activities that stimulate these tendencies. America's Army was based on this notion as a training tool for people with an infantry inclination. But ultimately a game can't make a user commit violence. How many people played Risk yet never managed to conquer even Australasia?
Caboose
March 02, 2010 at 3:12pm
Since you menioned Risk, I'm sure someone, somewhere, has tried to link Hitler's actions because he played an early version of Risk!
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
Cooketh
March 02, 2010 at 12:35pm
Guns don't shoot people, people shoot people. Same logic applies here.
Throw this garbage out.
stradric
March 02, 2010 at 11:52am
There's obvious bias on Anderson's part. He has spent most of his career trying to link violent behavior to video games.
Caboose
March 02, 2010 at 3:09pm
Sounds like he's trying to become another Jack Thompson!
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
Havok
March 02, 2010 at 11:00am
I view video games as a double edged blade. As more games being released are becoming increasingly aggressive and violent, it kinda is important to really monitor what you play. If say, an over-worked, tired-at-the-end-of-his-workday average Joe picks up a copy of TF2 and starts mowing down a room full of the BLU team, it's viewed as a chance to blow off steam so he doesn't go postal on Friday. But if a 12 year old kid is having the time of his life sniping scouts out of midair and racks up an impressive frag count, it's viewed as being overly addicted to a form of intentionaly violent behaviour. He could potentially become a crazed gun-man.
People's views of these things are very flip flop.
CLICK.
Biceps
March 02, 2010 at 12:47pm
People just get upset because those 12 year olds have such fast reaction times... if those kids weren't always slaughtering us ricket old fogies, no one would care at all. Except soccer moms, but we can all agree that no one listens to soccer moms.
TheZomb
March 02, 2010 at 10:57am
Do they just sit around and go "Lets comb through the results of existing studies pick the cases that support our hypothesis and call it a day." This is a big joke.
Atomike
March 02, 2010 at 11:22am
Why is it a joke? I love video games, but I'm not threated by the fact that they may cause some violent behavior. It's possible. Let's not pretend it's impossible just because we love games. No need to stop our brains from acting logically. Has anyone here done a study that PROVES that games don't cause violent behaior?
So what if they do? Congress won't ban them - they're protected by free speech rights. It seems to me that everyone here is SO afraid of anything which may threaten their games, that they are willing to throw out all research in favor or gut-feelings and circumstatial "evidence".
So what if the study is right? Is it worth the loss of your objective logical thought process?
nekollx
March 02, 2010 at 10:27am
i loved the counter argument "violence is down eventhough games are more popular." Kidna flies in the face of the study that prove that gaming is bad ne?
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
Atomike
March 02, 2010 at 11:17am
Even though violence is down, this does not logically imply that video games do not cause violence. In fact, lowered violence rates say nothing about video games at all. There MAY be a connection, but anyone who knows anything about logic knows that correlation does not prove causality.
Video games may in fact cause violent behavior, but it may not. I think that when we simply assume that it does not cause violent behavior, we are equally guilty of fact-bending and illogical thought than those who do the opposite.
It's just silly to do that. It makes gamers look like illogical kids.
nekollx
March 02, 2010 at 12:10pm
actually it is logical. If games cause any notable rise in violent behavior that violence rates would have shot up or been stable. Only if the effect is negligible does a delcine occur
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
Atomike
March 02, 2010 at 12:57pm
No no no. this is bad logic. What if violence went down for other reasons? Let's say that video games cause 100 people to be more violent. Yet, less alcoholism or some other variable causes 200 people to be less violent. Games could still cause violence, yet other factors make the rates go down.
This is basic logic - correlation does not equal causation. You should all be familiar with this concept. If you're not, stop using the internet (or at least forums) until you are.
Your statement makes the weird assumption that if games cause violence then they must be one of the primary causes of violence (i.e. a "notable" cause). Games could cause violence, but simply less than other factors like economics or substance abuse. Video games could still be a very notable cause of violence, yet less so than other, more notable, causes.
Biceps
March 02, 2010 at 2:45pm
Nekollx, don't fall for the Atomike trap... Atomike=troll (if a happy troll).
Atomike, you are referring to the fact that you can't prove something with statistics... CORRECT! However, you CAN DISprove something.... like the fact that videogames cause violent behavior. I have to back Nekollx on this one.
Atomike
March 03, 2010 at 6:59am
I'm sorry, but you don't understand statistics. Statistics can show a correlation. They can't PROVE OR DISPROVE anything since you aren't accounting for all variables. They show a trend. That's it. Print out this thread and show it to your math teacher (I'm assuming you have a math teacher). He'll probably cry.
I give up.
nekollx
March 02, 2010 at 1:04pm
and you mised my entire point, if Games do cause violent it's so negligible that geing worked over it is a falacy. It's like comaring all those old 1960 "tv causes violence" pudits, same difference
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
Atomike
March 02, 2010 at 2:24pm
I got your point. Your point is simply wrong. Violence caused by games COULD be quite common - but other factors are possibly MORE commonly the cause of violence. And those causes may have declined.
Go back and read this thead again. I simply don't feel like repeating myself or teaching you the basics of logic. Go ask anyone else who's taken a logic class. You're just wrong.
Either you are just kidding, or else you really can't see what I'm saying. Either way, I don't know what to do. I can't teach you the entireity of logic in a forum thread.
Biceps
March 02, 2010 at 2:49pm
If videogames really caused violence, I would so be in jail right now. I do not believe that there is a link between violent video games and violent behavior in real life, however, I DO think that we can, without a doubt, prove empirically that Atomike is a troll. :-)
Caboose
March 02, 2010 at 3:08pm
Lights off! There's a witch near by!
*hunts emo kids*
I'm sorry officer, I didn't realize that this wasn't a video game. I coulda sworn I was playing Left 4 Dead! LOOK OUT... BOOMER!!
*pushes cop out of the way and attacks a random very overweight person*
Sorry, I relapsed again...
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
Chris_B
March 02, 2010 at 10:16am
Not having read the study I was wondering if it started tracking the subjects' behavior prior to the video game "experience" or could it be that folks prone to aggressive/violent behavior tend to gravitate to violent games? Personally, I've *learned* that playing L4D and other violent games have helped defuse the stress and tension in my life.
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