Does exposure to the intrepid Duke Nukem desensitize players to violence?

Psychologists, in my experience, just don’t like videogames. Some seem positively determined to discover some horrible outcome they produce, and even though we all know better, you still see people who want to interpret correlations as proving causality.

The most reasoned answer to the question “does playing a violent videogame make you violent” seems to me to be “it depends.” Many studies, such as work by Craig Anderson and Karen Dill [1], have demonstrated short-term effects of playing violent games. In the Anderson-Dill study, college students played either violent (Wolfenstein 3-D) or nonviolent (Myst) games before having an opportunity to punish another player with the blast of an airhorn. Students playing the violent game administered longer blasts. But it’s a big step from these short-term effects in typical people to the Columbine shootings.

Now Anderson has tried another approach, along with Nicholas Carnagy and Brad Bushman [2]. After 257 college men and women played violent and non-violent games, they watched violent scenes from movies and television while their heart rates and galvanic skin responses were measured to assess arousal.

The students who had just spent 20 minutes playing the violent games had lower heart rates and galvanic skin responses than students playing the other games. Anderson and his colleagues argue that these results demonstrate that playing videogames can desensitize a person to violence.

Once again, the timeframe of Anderson’s observations are very immediate. It would be interesting to see how long this result lasts.

On a personal note, I somehow find it easier to tolerate violence in videogames than in movies and TV. Okay, Zelda (my favorite) is not exactly Grand Theft Auto. But I am an absolute chicken when it comes to movie violence–I cried when the shoe got “dipped” in Roger Rabbit. Maybe the sense of control you have in videogames explains some of the differences–I always felt “trapped” by violence in movies.

In the meantime, the desensitization possibility remains troubling. I would like to see Anderson et al. compare the desensitization of videogames to watching violent TV and movies, too. I suspect there would be some differences there that might be interesting.

By the way, here are the violent games: Carmageddon, Duke Nukem, Mortal Kombat or Future Cop.

The non-violent games were: Glider Pro, 3D Pinball, 3D Munch Man and Tetra Madness.

[1] Anderseon, C.A., & Dill, K.E. (2000). Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 772-790.

[2] Carnagey, N.L., Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2006). The Effects of Video Game Violence on Physiological Desensitization to Real-Life Violence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2006.05.003 

 


4 Comments

cableguy · December 9, 2006 at 2:24 pm

This is a great article. I find the subject very interesting. I have always wondered what role movies can play in this question. It seem that moies could set a standard for role playing for an individual. I’m thinking of aspiring gang bangers who might be drawn to violent, glorifying gang movies. These movies could very well be reinforcing to a kid that the gang lifestyle is exciting and commands respect. I wonder how many kids have killed a person of a trivial matter only to realize, too late, that due to their actions they will never be able to do things they might have taken for granted like…go eat a burger king again or get a slurpy from the quickie mart. I can only imagine the regret some of these kids might fell after consequences have been set in motion.

reggie · March 14, 2008 at 8:39 pm

I agree with Laura to see that psychologist are finally looking at the positive outcomes instead of always talking about the negative things. There’s always some good to video games! I’ve been playing with games my whole life and I turned out pretty good. But we must not forget that video games isn’t the only thing that got me here, there are plenty of other environmental factors. I know that without a doubt my kids will be playing video games as I did when was a youngin.

V i x · June 23, 2009 at 12:44 pm

Mom.. Please don’t be so sensitive. It’s fine to read whatever you want, but what you see in video games is only fictional and has nothing to do with real-life, so there is no need to concern. You still need to learn how to distinct fiction from reality. It’s fine if you play Zelda games and Mario Kart, but leave everything else alone and let me be the one to be in charge of the whole video game business, here. This is also why I draw nice video game fan art on Vix DOJO, is to save the reputation of video games. I’m sorry, but one of the things I do best is to protect my family against the horrible messes that fans create on the Internet these days, and that is all what matters.

Laura’s Psychology Blog » The Truth About Videogames…. · January 2, 2007 at 5:51 pm

[…] Personally, I’m very happy to see psychologists looking at some of the positive outcomes of gaming, rather than stressing about violence all the time. Granted, videogames should not be one’s only activity, but I would much prefer to see my children playing videogames than watching some mindless rubbish on TV. […]

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