children today play very violent games. this must be the reason for the increase in violence and...
Do violent video games lead to real-life violence? Most gamers would argue vehemently that they do not, and that might be true. But two studies conducted on gamers this year came up with some surprising results about how the brain reacts to video violence. Could all those conservative groups have a point after all?
Conservative groups have argued for years now that playing violent video games leads young people to real violence. It is true that many people who commit such acts have played violent video games (the high school students from Columbine come to mind as one of the more obvious examples), but this does not prove that playing the games caused them to act violently. Some argue that people who have violent tendencies naturally gravitate toward violent games.
However, there is a growing body of research that seems to be turning up signs of a causal link. Indeed, the results of some recent experiments are inciting more than a bit of controversy. While I would not call them conclusive, they are certainly suggestive. And you can bet that conservatives will use them as ammunition in their campaign against violent video games.
The experiments were conducted by psychologist Bruce Bartholow from the University of Missouri-Columbia and his colleagues. They recruited 39 experienced gamers and gave them questionnaires, first to determine how violent their five favorite video games were, and how aggressive they themselves were. That second questionnaire asked the gamers how much they identified with statements such as “I easily fly off the handle” and “If somebody hits me, I hit back.”
After answering the questionnaires, subjects were shown a series of images. Some of these were neutral (a mushroom, a man riding a bicycle), some were violent (a man holding a gun to another man’s head), and some were disturbing but not violent (a dead dog). While the subjects viewed these images, the researchers measured their brain activity, specifically their p300 response. The p300 response reflects our split-second evaluation of the emotional content of an image. According to Bartholow, the p300 response is larger if the viewer is surprised or disturbed by an image.
The results were at least somewhat predictable. The gamers who had the most experience with violent video games had the smallest p300 response to violent images. “People who play a lot of violent video games didn’t see them as much different from neutral,” Bartholow observed. When viewing disturbing images that were non-violent, however, these gamers still responded normally.
Subjects were then told they were playing a game against an opponent that tested how quickly they could push a button in response to a tone. The competitor who pushed the button more slowly would be punished by receiving a blast of noise through their headphones of varying loudness and duration. The length and intensity of the noise was determined by the winner of the previous round. In fact, there was no opponent. Researchers found that those with the greatest reduction in their p300 response meted out the worst punishments, even when they controlled for their subjects’ natural hostility.
This study by itself, even when the second part is factored in, has failed to convince some people. According to Jonathan Freedman, a psychologist from the University of Toronto, Canada, “We habituate to any kind of stimulus. All we are really getting is desensitization to images. There’s no way to show that this relates to real-life aggression.”
On the other hand, the study results become more suggestive when combined with another study whose results were published in June 2005. Klaus Matthiak at the University of Aachen in German recruited 13 gamers, aged 18 to 26, who played video games on average for two hours every day. He had them play a violent video game in which they were proficient while having their brains scanned by magnetic resonance imaging. Matthiak was able to check the gamers’ reactions scene by scene, and therefore could see the differences in brain reactions to more and less violent scenes.
The results are interesting enough to quote from the New Scientist article in which it was published. “He found that as violence became imminent, the cognitive parts of the brain became more active. And during a fight, emotional parts of the brain…were shut down. This pattern is the same as that seen in subjects who have had brain scans during other simulated violent situations such as imagining an aggressive encounter. It is impossible to scan people’s brains during acts of real aggression so Matthiak argues that this is as close as you can get to the real thing. It suggests that video games are a ‘training for the brain to react with this pattern,’ he says.”
In other words, when you play a violent video game, your brain is reacting as if the violence is real. Also, playing violent video games seems to desensitize people to violence. This doesn’t mean that playing violent video games actually encourages people to commit violence. But it is very suggestive, especially when you factor in the roleplaying element to some degree (and take a look at the research that has been conducted which relates to that topic).
One of the primary methods used for brainwashing a person is roleplaying. When a person is made to pretend or do something enough times, it becomes less of an act and more a part of their regular behavior – a part of their “self,” if you will. This is a technique that Manson and others have used. It’s worth noting that it also has positive applications in psychology, such as when a person is attempting to replace maladaptive behaviors and habits with better ones.
Roleplaying can take on a life of its own, however. The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted in 1971, is a case in point. A classic in psychology, the experiment started when Philip Zimbardo recruited male students at the University of Stanford to act as “guards” and “prisoners” in a prison modeled out of the basement of a building. Scheduled to continue for two weeks, the experiment was ended after six days because the guards, prisoners, and even the observers of the experiment were getting too deeply into their roles. You can find more information about this experiment at http://www.prisonexp.org/.
It’s important to note that these males started out the same: all healthy, well-adjusted youths, with nothing to distinguish the ones chosen to be “guards” from the ones chosen to be “prisoners.” And as college students, they were all around the prime age for gamers. What does this say about playing violent video games, assuming your brain really does react to the violence as if it were real?
It’s true that many roleplaying games offer the immersive experience of being in another world. World of Warcraft is a good example. Some players spend more time playing this game than they do interacting with other people in real life. We have to wonder what psychological and emotional effect this has on players.
One of the primary methods used for brainwashing a person is roleplaying. When a person is made to pretend or do something enough times, it becomes less of an act and more a part of their regular behavior – a part of their “self,” if you will. This is a technique that Manson and others have used. It’s worth noting that it also has positive applications in psychology, such as when a person is attempting to replace maladaptive behaviors and habits with better ones.
Roleplaying can take on a life of its own, however. The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted in 1971, is a case in point. A classic in psychology, the experiment started when Philip Zimbardo recruited male students at the University of Stanford to act as “guards” and “prisoners” in a prison modeled out of the basement of a building. Scheduled to continue for two weeks, the experiment was ended after six days because the guards, prisoners, and even the observers of the experiment were getting too deeply into their roles. You can find more information about this experiment at http://www.prisonexp.org/.
It’s important to note that these males started out the same: all healthy, well-adjusted youths, with nothing to distinguish the ones chosen to be “guards” from the ones chosen to be “prisoners.” And as college students, they were all around the prime age for gamers. What does this say about playing violent video games, assuming your brain really does react to the violence as if it were real?
It’s true that many roleplaying games offer the immersive experience of being in another world. World of Warcraft is a good example. Some players spend more time playing this game than they do interacting with other people in real life. We have to wonder what psychological and emotional effect this has on players.
One of the primary methods used for brainwashing a person is roleplaying. When a person is made to pretend or do something enough times, it becomes less of an act and more a part of their regular behavior – a part of their “self,” if you will. This is a technique that Manson and others have used. It’s worth noting that it also has positive applications in psychology, such as when a person is attempting to replace maladaptive behaviors and habits with better ones.
Roleplaying can take on a life of its own, however. The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted in 1971, is a case in point. A classic in psychology, the experiment started when Philip Zimbardo recruited male students at the University of Stanford to act as “guards” and “prisoners” in a prison modeled out of the basement of a building. Scheduled to continue for two weeks, the experiment was ended after six days because the guards, prisoners, and even the observers of the experiment were getting too deeply into their roles. You can find more information about this experiment at http://www.prisonexp.org/.
It’s important to note that these males started out the same: all healthy, well-adjusted youths, with nothing to distinguish the ones chosen to be “guards” from the ones chosen to be “prisoners.” And as college students, they were all around the prime age for gamers. What does this say about playing violent video games, assuming your brain really does react to the violence as if it were real?
It’s true that many roleplaying games offer the immersive experience of being in another world. World of Warcraft is a good example. Some players spend more time playing this game than they do interacting with other people in real life. We have to wonder what psychological and emotional effect this has on players.
Not surprisingly, these studies, particularly the first one I described, have inspired a lot of comments from the group of people being studied, gamers. While there are some who say the studies are a load of crap (usually saying something along the lines of “I’ve been gaming forever and I don’t go around killing kittens, so what does that study prove?”) others have contributed more thoughtful responses. For instance, one respondent to New Scientist’s article about the study observed that “If anything, video games can be beneficial, teaching people to understand their violent tendencies and control them, not necessarily to propagate them.”
Another respondent seemed to ignore the implications of the second half of the study and insisted that “The evidence reported does NOT suggest a direct link between video game violence and aggression. Rather, the evidence suggests a higher level of tolerance for VIEWING real life violence. Sort of a `nothing shocks me anymore’ response. In no way does it point toward actual violent action.”
Other respondents did pick up on the second part of the study, and pointed out that all it showed was that players with more experience of violent games tended to be more violent within the context of a game. How violent they would be in real life is another question. There are certainly players of violent video games who wouldn’t hurt a fly in real life.
So can we say that these two studies, even taken together, are meaningless? No, not by any means. True, the small samples in both studies may lead us to question the conclusions. But the findings are suggestive; indeed, more research in this area would be welcome. I can’t believe playing violent video games would be enough reason for somebody to kill a person, but I’d really like to know what spending a lot of time blowing up opponents on a video screen is doing to my brain.
The main evidence for the link between video games and violence is found in lab studies in which participants are assigned to play violent games, then take tests that measure aggression. One recent meta-analysis of 98 different studies found that most — but not all — showed a positive relationship between exposure to violent games and increased aggressiveness.
Some studies have also indicated that playing violent games might reduce gamers' self-control. One recent Italian study, for example, found that people who played Grand Theft Auto V were more likely to cheat in a raffle and commit aggressive acts toward other gamers (specifically, blasting them with loud noises through headphones) afterward, compared to those who played a pinball or mini-golf game. "This suggests to us that when people play violent video games, they show less self-restraint, andbehave dishonestly more easily if they have the occasion to," says Alessandro Gabbiadini, the study's lead author.
At the same time, there are a few caveats to keep in mind when considering these studies. One is that they use aggression and self-control as proxies for real-world violence, because researchers can't actually allow violence to occur in a lab. The idea is that, in increasing aggressiveness, these games make it more likely that someone considering violence will be pushed over the edge and actually commit it. But there's a huge difference between blasting someone with a loud noise, or scoring higher on a questionnaire intended to measure aggressiveness, and actually resorting to violence in the real world.
Additionally, these studies mainly focus on a subset of video games. Just as with movies, TV shows, or books, some video games are violent, and some aren't.
Further, even violent games often require players to help others at times. And severalother lab studies have found that these episodes can actually reduce aggressiveness in gamers. A 2013 study, for instance, had participants play a game in which they killed zombies to protect other players. Afterward, researchers found, they were slightly less aggressive.
Some video games teach kids the wrong values. Violent behavior, vengeance and aggression are rewarded. Negotiating and other nonviolent solutions are often not options. Women are often portrayed as weaker characters that are helpless or sexually provocative. Games can confuse reality and fantasy.
1.首先游戏不一定有暴力元素。大多数的游戏是非暴力的。
2.游戏有了暴力元素不一定就会导致现实世界的犯罪增长。也许孩子玩这样的游戏不仅不会导致增长反而因为在游戏里看过血腥的场面，对现实世界的事物有更多的珍惜和怜爱。
3.即使导致犯罪增长了，游戏也不是唯一的途径。
图书，音乐，电影这些媒体很多都是暴力的。
非媒体的其他原因，比如宗教，比如生活环境，比如家庭教育，比如基因遗传。
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