Posted on 01/09/2006 8:52:32 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Violent games 'affect behaviour'
Violent computer games may make people more likely to act aggressively, a study says.
Previous research has found people who play such games are more likely to be aggressive but some say this just shows violent people gravitate towards them.
But a team from the University of Missouri-Columbia said their study which monitored the brain activity of 39 game players suggests a causal link.
The findings were published on the New Scientist website.
The researchers measured a type of brain activity called the P300 response which reflects the emotional impact of an image.
When shown images of real-life violence, people who played violent video games were found to have a diminished response.
However, when the same group were shown other disturbing images such as dead animals or ill children they had a much more natural response.
When the game players were given the opportunity to punish a pretend opponent those with the greatest reduction in P300 meted out the severest punishments.
Psychologist Bruce Bartholow, the lead researcher of the study which will be published in full in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology later this year, said: "As far as I'm aware, this is the first study to show that exposure to violent games has effects on the brain that predict aggressive behaviour.
"People who play a lot of violent video games didn't see them as much different from neutral.
"They become desensitised. However, their responses are still normal for the non-violent negative scenes."
The findings will back up what many have argued over recent years with the growth in games with scenes of graphic violence.
Killer
The parents of murdered Leicester teenager Stefan Pakeerah blamed his killer's obsession with a violent video game called Manhunt for their son's death in 2004.
But some experts still remain unconvinced of a link.
Jonathan Freedman, a psychologist from the University of Toronto in Canada, said: "All we are really getting is desensitisation to images. There's no way to show that this relates to real-life aggression."
And Professor David Buckingham, an expert on the media and children at the Institute of Education, added there was still no consensus on whether violent games caused aggressive behaviour or were just played by violent people.
"The debate we are seeing is very similar to the one that has raged for years about TV. The truth is there are many factors that can lead to violence, such as being withdrawn and isolated, so it is hard to say it is because of one thing.
"In the absence of any proof, I think we have to be agnostic about it. However, I think there is an argument about the morality of some games.
"Some actually encourage amoral behaviour to win the game and I think parents should be talking to their children to make sure they realise this is a joke. Children are generally good at telling fantasy from reality, but parents should be discussing this."
Lets see. I'm a postal employee. I used to take Prozac. I'm Proficient in Counterstrike, Doom, Quake, Battlefield, Unreal Tournament, Mortal Kombat, Planetside....
I haven't even punched someone since middle school.
Ping
Grand theft Auto makes kids violent, Tigers Woods Pro tour makes them proffesional golfers.
Correlation does not prove causation. Just because agressive boys play agressive games, does not mean one causes the other. Both may be increased by some unidentified outside factor.
This week on TV is a special on how boys "are at risk!" Apparently, grades are falling, they are getting into trouble, and are "acting out." For forty years, the Women's Movement and their fellow travelers have be feeding us the lie that we are all the same, and trying to engineer aggression out of men. Well, boys are boys, OK, America? They are going to roll around on the ground and punch each other. We are hardwired that way.
Boys are being gelded because men are being made ashamed of what they are. The Red Foreman Dad who told you that you were expected to make something of yourself, to get out there and fight, to strive and achieve has been replaced by weak-willed and apologetic men, or all too often, by moms who are taking up the slack from Dads who won't be Dads. The end result is that the natural aggression wired into men's brains is sloping out over the sides into other behavior where it's more acceptable, or at least it was until this additional kind of nonsense takes even that away.
These whiny lab rats and their Feminazi collaborators can have my gamepad when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.
You can get aggressive playing football, too - MUST BAN ALL SPORTS!! Cripes.
Video games do not cause violence. Violence causes video games.
I'm a non-violent person who plays violent games, but I might just get violent if you make me play 20 hours of Tiger Woods Pro Tour.
The anti-gamers forget that for many violent games are a form of catharsis.
I really enjoy violent video games. "Shrugs" at the article.
I wonder about the conclusion that they're desensitised. After all, if I go to a jazz festival, I don't come out of it desensitised to jazz music. If I spend an afternoon at the zoo, I don't get desensitised to monkeys if I happen to run into one outside of the zoo enironment.
But somehow if I play some Counter Strike, suddenly my ability to recognize real world violence gets skewed and I walk around town just itching for a fight?
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