By: Shengtian Wu
Do you play video games? Based on your understanding, do the video games relate to aggressive behaviors? In regard to this issue, researchers have been discussing positive and negative effects of video games. While much more research regarding negative outcomes of video games appeared in the literature, it is difficult to decide to make a conclusion on the impact of video games on aggressive behaviors. The blog presents empirical evidence to discuss positive and negative sides of video games.
Background
Predominantly, researchers believed that video games would result in a negative effect (e.g., increase aggressive behaviors) on gamers. Traditionally, two models have been used to explain the role of video games on aggressive behaviors. Anderson and Bushman (2002) proposed the General Aggression Model. This model indicates that observing violent behaviors in video games would increase aggressive knowledge structure for games. Hence, gamers would tend to be aggressive more frequently than those who do not play violent video games. Another model is the Catalyst Model, which proposes that video games, as a catalyst, would be more likely attracted to individuals with aggressive personality than those who do not have an aggressive personality. An issue (i.e. Brown v. the Entertainment Merchants Association) heated the debate if violent games sufficiently predicted aggressive behaviors. The Supreme Court, in this case, decided that the evidence of a causal link between violent video games and aggressive behaviors were not compelling, and did not allow the state of California to ban violent digital games.
Negative Impact of Video Games
Due to lack of long-term studies of the association between violent video game play and aggression in the past 20 years, Willoughby, Adachi, and Good (2012) conducted a well-controlled long-term study that lasted roughly 2 years while simultaneously resolving several previous methodological limitations. First, the study examined the impact of video games and personality of gamers on aggressive behaviors. Because previous research showed inconsistency in the results, it is important to re-examine if violent video games or human personality plays the most critical role. Moreover, instead of a vague definition, the study clearly defined the each term (e.g., direct aggression, violent video game play, non-violent game play, and overall video game play) and the way these behaviors were measured. As results, the adolescents who played violent video games have significantly higher aggressive behaviors than those who did not play video games, when the impacts of other factors (e.g., gender, parental education, number of computers at home, academic grades, and depressive symptoms) were not counted. Moreover, adolescents with a higher level of aggressive behaviors did not play more violent video games than those who rarely engaged in aggressive behaviors.
Targeting the Supreme Court's decision that the evidence was not enough to make a causal link between violent video games and serious aggressive behaviors (e.g., murder), Delisi and his colleagues (2012) conducted a study to examine the relationship between violent video games and serious aggressive behaviors among juvenile offenders. As consequences, the frequency of violent game play and a preference for violent video games (e.g., how much the youth enjoys playing video games) could predict delinquent behaviors (e.g., assorted drug, stole vehicle, drugs, or items worth more than $50) and serious violent acts (e.g., fighting, hitting a teacher, parent, or other students). Most importantly, even though other factors (i.e. age, race, a history of psychopathology, years of video game play) have been considered in the research design, the study still did not show a strong evidence for a causal link between violent video games and serious violent behaviors.
While neither study provided an explanation on the impact of game contents on aggressive behaviors, Hartmann, Krakowiak, and Tsay-Vogel (2014) explored the impact of game contents. They found that violence was justified in the violent games. For example, the gamers had to protect others from enemies’ attack. Hartmann and his colleagues also reported the consequences of violent behaviors were distorted in violent games. For instance, gamers could only hear the victims’ screaming when being killed. The painful process and other cruel scenes of dying were not presented in the games. Furthermore, violent behaviors occurred in a humorous context in violent games. For example, the death of a character was depicted as humorous in some of the violent games. Overall, these contents in violent video games tend to corrupt morals of gamers.
Positive Impact of Violent Video Games
A study showed that American adolescents played games in order to satisfy their fantasies by controlling attractive game characters (Olson, Kunter, & Wagner, 2008). Moreover, gamers did understand the consequences of killing others were serious in reality than in the games. Colwell and Kato (2003) found that Japanese adolescents tended to play games for substituting real friendship during they were alone, instead of being social isolated. Moreover, Durkin and Barber (2002) reported that American adolescents game players tended to have higher levels of family cohesiveness, activity involvement, attachment to school, and positive mental health, less risky friendship networks, and more favorable self-concept than those who do not play video games. Furthermore, Gentile and the colleagues’ study (2009) indicated that Singapore adolescents’ game players exhibited more helping behavior, cooperation, sharing, and empathy compared to non-game players. However, studies mentioned above did not examine the positive effects of violent video games. Thus, it is still difficult to generalize the positive effects when it comes to violent video games.
Conclusion
Overall, video games have negative and positive impacts on human behaviors, based on contents of the games. A violent game might lead to aggressive behaviors, although there seems to be no causal relation. Positive impacts, such as a higher level of cooperation, flow, self-concept, friendship, helping behaviors, and problem-solving skills might also be found in violent games too. Nonetheless, the conclusion regarding the positive impact of violent games should be made with caution because prior studies did not specifically examine the effect of violent video games.
References
- Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2002). Human aggression.Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27–51. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135231
- Colwell, J., & Kato, M. (2003). Investigation of the relationship between social isolation, self-esteem, aggression and computer game play in Japanese adolescents. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 6, 149-158. doi:10.1111/1467-839X.t01-1-00017
- Durkin, K., & Barber, B. (2002). Not so doomed: Computer game play and positive doi:10.1016/S0193-3973(02)00124-7
- Delisi, M., Vaughn, M. G., Gentile, D. A., Anderson, C. A., & Shook, J. J. (2013). Violent Video Games, Delinquency, and Youth Violence: New Evidence. Youth Violence & Juvenile Justice, 11(2), 132-142. doi:10.1177/1541204012460874
- Gentile, D. A., Anderson, C. A., Yukawa, S., Ihori, N., Saleem, M., Ming, L. K., Shibuya, A., & Sakamoto, A. (2009). The effects of prosocial video games on prosocial behaviors: International evidence from correlational, longitudinal, and experimental studies. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 752-763. doi:10.1177/0146167209333045
- Hartmann, T., Krakowiak, K. M., & Tsay-Vogel, M. (2014). How Violent Video Games Communicate Violence: A Literature Review and Content Analysis of Moral Disengagement Factors. Communication Monographs, 81(3), 310-332. doi:10.1080/03637751.2014.922206
- Willoughby, T., Adachi, P. C., & Good, M. (2012). A Longitudinal Study of the Association between Violent Video Game Play and Aggression among Adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 48(4), 1044-1057.