Violence in Videogames and Aggression
By Katie Malling
For many years, there has been speculation that violent videogames can cause aggression and could further lead to violent acts.
Sometimes the use of violent videogames has been to blame for tragic events. As early as the 1990’s, President Bill Clinton required the federal agencies to investigate violent videogames. Additionally, the National Rifle Association CEO Wayne Lapierre said the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was possible because of exposure to violent videogames. Furthermore, President Trump suggested violent videogames were to blame for the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Highschool in Parkland, Florida. He followed it up by overseeing a roundtable discussion with executives of video game companies and conservative activists to discuss the relations between games adding to violence (Iszy, 2019).
Brad Bushman, psychologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, conducted more than 300 studies of video media effects, has found that regardless of what kids say, violent video games are harmful. According to Bushman, many scientific studies clearly show violent video games make kids more likely to yell, push, and punch(Sohn, 2007).
Because TV has been for a longer period of time than videogames, researchers have more data on the long-term effects of violent TV shows or movies versus violent videogames. In 1977, the University of Michigan recorded the TV-watching habits of first and third graders. After 15 years, the researchers looked at the development of these elementary schoolers. According a literature review conducted by Sohn (2007), by the time they reached their early 20’s, women were four times as likely to have punched, choked, or beaten other people than the women who didn’t watch violent TV as children. For male participants, they grew up to be three times as likely to commit crimes than the men who didn’t watch violent TV as children (Sohn, 2007).
Moreover, violent playing is more powerful than violent watching, according to Bushman. Going through the videogame requires children to take action, identify with a character, and also respond to rewards after violent or inappropriate behavior. Getting involved in those types of activities aids to effective learning(Sohn, 2007).
Identifying with a character creates aggression, such as doing the same things a criminal or aggressive person would do. Examples of this include pulling the trigger, stabbing, kicking, and others. Additionally, many games have options to customize their character, sometimes people will make it look like themselves, further hammering in the notion of identifying with a character (Sohn, 2007).
Another of Bushman’s studies had to do with inflicting punishment. In the study, kids were randomly assigned to play either a violent videogame or a nonviolent game for about 20 minutes. After, each child competes with an invisible partner on a task that challenges them to push a button as quickly as possible. Whoever won got to punish the other with a blast of noise and could decide how long and how loud it would be on a scale from 1-10. The results found that kids who played the violent game first, delivered louder noises to the competitors. Some of the kids who played violent videogames and also had a strong connection to their characters delivered a blast of noise at level 8 or above, which was told to be enough to make their invisible partner suffer hearing loss or go deaf (Sohn, 2007)
Moreover, researches from the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis assigned a similar study were 22 teenagers were to play a violent game for 30 minutes, and the other 22 to play a nonviolent game. What they found was that players in the violent game group, a part of the brain called the frontal lobe was way less active. The frontal lobe is what helps us stop ourselves from acting out aggressively such as hitting, kicking, and other acts (Sohn, 2007).
Age can determine access to a video game, for example if it is R rated, a 7-year-old would not be able to walk into a store and buy it alone. But age is not only a determination of accessibility, it is also related to aggression. Studies have shown that aggression peaks in early adolescence and the long-term relation between violent games and aggression may be different during adolescence and adults because of changes in the brain during these two different periods (Sohn, 2007).
Most violent videogames contain levels, and the progression through those levels requires one to engage in violent acts poses an additional risk of increasing levels of aggression. Two psychologists, Carnagey and Anderson found out that by rewarding violence in most of these games including rewards for killing other drivers and pedestrians in the race-car video game Carmageddon 2, it increased levels of hostile emotion, aggressive thinking and aggressive behavior Hollingdale, 2014). Other video games that show human violence were linked to increased levels of aggression, potentially due to higher rates of action, and subsequent heightened nonspecific arousal(Hollingdale, J., & Greitemeyer, T. (2014).
Most violent videogames contain levels, and the progression through those levels requires one to engage in violent acts poses an additional risk of increasing levels of aggression. Two psychologists, Carnagey and Anderson found out that by rewarding violence in most of these games including rewards for killing other drivers and pedestrians in the race-car video game Carmageddon 2, it increased levels of hostile emotion, aggressive thinking and aggressive behavior Hollingdale, 2014). Other video games that show human violence were linked to increased levels of aggression, potentially due to higher rates of action, and subsequent heightened nonspecific arousal(Hollingdale, J., & Greitemeyer, T. (2014).
First Person Shooter (FPS) is one of the most popular types of violent video games where the player sees the screen as though it is through the eyes of the main player. FPSs additionally have been recognized to significantly increase hostility and aggression. Reports indicate the popularity of FPS games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which made $550 million in the first five days it came out. Later, this was dwarfed by Call of Duty: Black Ops, which made $650 million and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which made $775 million in sales (Hollingdale, J., & Greitemeyer, T. (2014).
A study was conducted as to whether playing violent video games offline versus online would increase aggression levels. At the end of the study, it was concluded that playing video games online increased the levels of aggression (Hollingdale, J., & Greitemeyer, T. (2014).
Two different but widely popular video games, Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) and The Sims were used in a study to determine the short-term effects of violent video game exposure compared to non-violent games. The findings however stand against some experimental studies, where short-term effects of violent videogame exposure have been tested and where aggressive thoughts and decreases of helping behavior have been found. However, these effects of violent videogaming on level of aggression, if present at all, seem to be rather short-lived, potentially lasting less than 15 minutes(Kühn, S., Kugler, D. T., Schmalen, K., Weichenberger, M., Witt, C., & Gallinat, J. (2019).
References
Hollingdale, J., & Greitemeyer, T. (2014). The effect of online violent video games on
Iszy, H. L. (2019). Aggression and video games: Do violent video games induce
Kühn, S., Kugler, D. T., Schmalen, K., Weichenberger, M., Witt, C., & Gallinat, J.
(2019). Does playing violent video games cause aggression? A longitudinal intervention study. Molecular Psychiatry, 24(8), 1220-1234.http://dx.doi.org.rocky.iona.edu:2048/10.1038/s41380-018-0031-7
Sohn, E. (2007, Jan 24). Video game violence ; playing violent video games may have
Data Journalism 395 