Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

[Wavelength]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_bl...stnews;title;1

Games, whether they be electronic or otherwise, have at times been held up as excellent teaching tools due to their ability to convey many beneficial skills, including critical thinking, perseverance, and problem-solving. However, a new research study conducted by Iowa State University psychology professor Douglas Gentile and his father, retired psychology professor J. Ronald Gentile, indicates that along with the beneficial aspects of life-skill development, games are also teaching people to be more aggressive.

"We know a lot about how to be an effective teacher, and we know a lot about how to use technology to teach," said Douglas, the study's primary researcher. "Video games use many of these techniques and are highly effective teachers. So we shouldn't be surprised that violent video games can teach aggression."

In the Gentiles' study, 430 students in third to fifth grade, 670 eighth to ninth graders, and 1,441 college-age students with an average age of 19 were observed over a period of six months. Participants were administered surveys on two separate occasions during the six-month period, with questions pertaining to "the subject's aggressive thoughts and self-reported fights, and their media habits--including violent video game exposure."

The study found that among the youngest group participating in the study, violent behavior increased by 73 percent over the duration of the experiment, as rated by teachers and peers, for those who played primarily violent games, when compared to those who mixed in nonviolent games. That percentage spiked to 263 percent when compared to those who played only nonviolent games. The released study findings did not indicate the behavior of the older subject groups.

The complete results of the Gentiles' study, titled "Violent Video Games as Exemplary Teachers: A Conceptual Analysis," can be found in an upcoming issue of the scientific publication Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

The methodology on this seems sound, especially given the large number of kids in the study, making this a lot more serious than a few stupid anecdotes. Particularly interesting is that "all violent games" was a massive increase in 'violent behavior' as opposed to "some violent games." But I'm thinking that the results aren't as generalizable as they'd like to think:

*They didn't compare the results to people who played no games at all during this period
*They didn't note (at least in this article) what happened to kids who have been regularly playing games all their lives
*Nor did they say, in the article, what happened with the older groups of kids
*Like every article to date, they ignored the cathartic effect of violent games for people who are already stressed

Please discuss.

[Red Dragon]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

They didn't compare the results to people who played no games at all during this period

Don't even bother with study without SOME sort of a control.

[JPS]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

Violent Video games does not make violent kids, thats rediculous, its just some people wanting to get all the violent video games off the shelves, theyve ben trying it for years, and its ultimately a waste of time because the US cannot put a ban on violent video games, all they can do is put mandatory ratings on games, and thats already been done, now its the parents responsibility to make work, it aint our fault if the parents dont care or dont see a point in it.

[lil_das]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

Ya I didn't brutally beat and/or rob that old woman yesterday because of GTA! I am just f*cking crazy!

[Duel]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

If a kid plays Mario, it would be funny if that kid went around stomping on turtles.

That's actually sad

[JPS]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

I used to go around selling doors off of peoples bedrooms while they were in there so they would die.

(Looks at mopar55)

[Wavelength]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

Don't even bother with study without SOME sort of a control.

And that's always a good point. I suppose it could be argued that the "Only Non-Violent Games" group could be seen as the Control Group, but yeah, that's not exactly good experimental design.

its just some people wanting to get all the violent video games off the shelves, theyve ben trying it for years

Ya I didn't brutally beat and/or rob that old woman yesterday because of GTA! I am just f*cking crazy!

The thing that struck me as most interesting was the huge difference between kids who played all kinds of games and kids who played only violent ones. That wouldn't be an argument for pulling anything off the shelves entirely, but merely an argument for teaching kids about the balance of violence and peace in life, or something.

[gray]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

study: 100% of serial killers had mothers that were women



study: breathing air makes you more likely to murder your neighbor



study: people who read studies probably don't study

[peachy]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

i think its far more likely that its not actually the games causing the discrepancy between the violent games only kids and the mixed kids, but the environment which they are raised.

a kid who doesnt play the violent video games of today is likely to have grown up in a more sheltered environment where the parents are actively watching out and actively raising their children. if a kids parents doesnt let him play violent video games, im sure they are not going to be extolling the virtues of violence etc. etc. where a kid who is playing only violent video games will have a less favorable environment in fostering a non-violent attitude.

what the article also says about video games teaching aggression and violence isnt too far fetched either. if a video game shows that responding with aggression and violence is an appropriate response to certain situations, does it seem unlikely that whoever playing the game is going to take something from that? you should of course have parents telling their children and teaching them and all of that, but i think that the exposure of kids to these elements does develop certain attitudes towards violence and aggression in them.

im not talking about the notion of violence within video games. the games i played in high school are undoubtedly violent (starcraft and counterstrike). however, i think you can deconstruct these games to look past what is happening in the game and more of the action of playing it, ie looking past the symbols that the computer is created and looking at the game from a playing standpoint. these are the sorts of games that i dont feel would create any aggression, or would create any sorts of violence.

but is it really so ridiculous to assume that a game with gratuitous and celebrated violence (im not familiar with video games these days so i dont know of anything i could name) would influence kids into responding to everyday situations with aggression? that they would start to see violence as an acceptable response to the various things that happen in their lives?


this is sort of off-topic and entirely hypothetical, but if reliable studies were to draw a correlation, and say with a good deal of confidence that there is a definite link between playing violent video games and a rise in aggression and violence in those that play them (in the sort of way that smoking leads to cancer), would your thoughts on the subject change?

[Bon]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

Don't even bother with study without SOME sort of a control.

So, this entire experiment is obselete? Thank God!

[orius]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

Eh, most of this whole "video games makes kids violent" is a load of crap that ignorant parents eat up anyway. I've also read statistics that say a large majority of parents don't play games with their kids, which is probably why a lot of them can be suckered into believing this stuff. There's always something that's targeted for problems with kids, back in the '50's parents were scared by silly statements that comic books with brain eating zombies would turn their kids bad, and more recently there'ven been equally silly arguments about movies and television.

Of course, this is one of the reasons we HAVE game ratings in the first place. If you're going to get a game for your kid, open your eyes and actually READ the game packaging. If it's rated M and says something like, "Pervasive Realistic Violence" and "Blood and Gore", then it's probably a bad game for Junior. Those ratings aren't part of the freaking box art, they're there for panicky soccer moms to make an informed decision.

Though for the most part, this goes for pre-teens. Adolescents will be under less parental control and have an easier time getting their hands on this stuff unless the stores actually card buyers of M games. But then adolescents aren't exactly little children any more and should have enough responsibility and moral capacity to know better than to emulate graphically violent behavior in visual media.

[Wavelength]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

i think its far more likely that its not actually the games causing the discrepancy between the violent games only kids and the mixed kids, but the environment which they are raised.

a kid who doesnt play the violent video games of today is likely to have grown up in a more sheltered environment where the parents are actively watching out and actively raising their children. if a kids parents doesnt let him play violent video games, im sure they are not going to be extolling the virtues of violence etc. etc. where a kid who is playing only violent video games will have a less favorable environment in fostering a non-violent attitude.

Time for a quick lesson about experimental design. Hope this will clear things up a bit for ya.

The reason you have different experimental groups in a study (and usually a control group as well), and also the reason you work with large numbers of subjects (and divide them *randomly* into groups), is to spread the subjects' innate characteristics and backgrounds between the different groups.

For example, let's say 600 kids were placed into the "only violent games" group. Some of them might have only played non-violent games in the past, some mixed, and some may have only played violent games. This might be based on their upbringing and background, but each upbringing/background was, in theory, split nearly equally between each experimental group.

Then, you impose experimental conditions upon each group. That "only violent games" group could only play violent video games--no others, presumably--for six months. And at the end of the study, despite the mix of backgrounds going in--that group ended up showing more violent tendencies (according to teachers and such) than the kids in the other experimental groups.

So, although we can all agree that things like upbringing will determine your propensity to play violent video games, that should not, in theory, taint this study at all.

im not talking about the notion of violence within video games. the games i played in high school are undoubtedly violent (starcraft and counterstrike). however, i think you can deconstruct these games to look past what is happening in the game and more of the action of playing it, ie looking past the symbols that the computer is created and looking at the game from a playing standpoint. these are the sorts of games that i dont feel would create any aggression, or would create any sorts of violence.

A very good point, of course. Whether games like Starcraft, Pokermon, Civilization, and Final Fantasy have the same "violent" effects as games like Mortal Kombat, Manhunt, and Grand Theft Auto, is another discussion, and probably one worth having. I agree with you: I believe there's probably a huge difference. But there have been practically no studies done on the matter.

but is it really so ridiculous to assume that a game with gratuitous and celebrated violence (im not familiar with video games these days so i dont know of anything i could name) would influence kids into responding to everyday situations with aggression? that they would start to see violence as an acceptable response to the various things that happen in their lives?

Yeah, it's not such a ridiculous assumption to make. But video games get an unfair amount of flac for it. There's violence all around us in society--in the media, but also in our role models, local and global. Unfortunately, there are people out there who want to ban violent games and then sit on their laurels, thinking they've just removed the problem from society.

this is sort of off-topic and entirely hypothetical, but if reliable studies were to draw a correlation, and say with a good deal of confidence that there is a definite link between playing violent video games and a rise in aggression and violence in those that play them (in the sort of way that smoking leads to cancer), would your thoughts on the subject change?

My guess is that if this were to come to pass, you'd have a lot of hardcore video game advocates claim that the studies were flawed and didn't prove anything. And then there would be a smaller number that would flip and admit that the studies did prove something.

On the other hand, if reliable studies proved that there was no correlation whatsoever (some would argue that these studies are already out there), I don't think Jack Thompson or Joe Lieberman would be quick to back down and admit they were wrong all along.

[peachy]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

Time for a quick lesson about experimental design. Hope this will clear things up a bit for ya.

The reason you have different experimental groups in a study (and usually a control group as well), and also the reason you work with large numbers of subjects (and divide them *randomly* into groups), is to spread the subjects' innate characteristics and backgrounds between the different groups.

For example, let's say 600 kids were placed into the "only violent games" group. Some of them might have only played non-violent games in the past, some mixed, and some may have only played violent games. This might be based on their upbringing and background, but each upbringing/background was, in theory, split nearly equally between each experimental group.

Then, you impose experimental conditions upon each group. That "only violent games" group could only play violent video games--no others, presumably--for six months. And at the end of the study, despite the mix of backgrounds going in--that group ended up showing more violent tendencies (according to teachers and such) than the kids in the other experimental groups.

So, although we can all agree that things like upbringing will determine your propensity to play violent video games, that should not, in theory, taint this study at all.

this isnt an experiment.

this is research.

[Wavelength]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

this isnt an experiment.

this is research.

Experiments are a type of research.

And this *was* an experiment. To quote the article, "violent behavior increased by 73 percent over the duration of the experiment." Note that this wasn't asking kids whether they played violent games and then noticing that those were also the kids who displayed hotheaded tendencies. Instead, they actually had a group of kids play violent games over 6 months (and other groups play non-violent or mixed games), and observe how their behaviors changed based on this experimental treatment.

I'm not trying to argue here--I just want to make sure it's clear that the kids' backgrounds coming into the experiment were accounted for by the experimental design.

[peachy]

Re: Study: Violent Games Teach Hotheaded Behavior

However, a new research study conducted by Iowa State University psychology professor Douglas Gentile and his father, retired psychology professor J. Ronald Gentile, indicates

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the gamespot article is too vague and you need the actual study to really find out what went on, and what conclusions, if any, you could draw from it.