Another study found no connection between cruelty in video games and the real world.
Politicians, activists, advocates of children's rights periodically raise the issue of the impact of video games on human aggression in the real world. In the next study with 3000 participants, this relationship was not found. Other factors — economic, mental, behavioral — influence the behavior: in the case of massacres in American schools, only 12% of the killers were addicted to computer games.
Shot from the film “Basketball Player's Diaries”
In psychology, there is the concept of "priming" (priming): it means a phenomenon in which initial thoughts make other, semantically close thoughts available to consciousness. In 1983, an experiment was conducted involving the use of the stereotype of an elderly person . 30 men and women were divided into two groups. One group received tables with words with a neutral color and words related to stereotypes regarding older people - “wise”, “gray”, “wrinkled”, “lonely”, “sentimental”. The second is words like “hungry,” “clean,” and “personal.” The most important part began later: the experimenters measured with the help of a stopwatch the time it took the test subjects to walk down the corridor to the elevator. More time was spent on those participants who included the stereotype of an elderly person.
The effect of “priming” was also observed in another experiment, when the subjects received 30 sets of four words, where one group was excited by a “hostile” seed, giving combinations like “beats”, “he”, “her”, “them”, of which experimental had to make sentences of three words. Subjects then struck fellow students with electric shocks using the “machine of aggression” when they made mistakes. In the control group, the intensity of electric shocks was 2.2 out of 10, while for the “hostile” participants in the experiment, the indicator was higher - 3.3 units.
In 2017, scientists at York University conducted a series of experiments to identify the relationship between realism and cruelty in games and human behavior in real life. Unlike the previous examples, in the conducted research the number of participants was not equal to thirty, but to almost three thousand people. In one study, the test subjects played different games: some tried to tune in to aggression, using an increased level of realism in the form of Ragdoll physics , for others there was no such element in game design. In another game, a bespoke shooter, realism was demonstrated by the behavior of soldiers for one of the groups, while in the second version of the same game, the enemies did not behave so logically.
Considering the previous experiments in the field of “priming”, the result should have been increased cruelty among those experimental subjects who played games with Ragdoll physics and realistic soldiers. But the researchers did not find a correlation between the games and the aggression of the participants in the experiment.
Studies are not over: in the future, experts from York University will test the results of other aspects of realism, as well as the impact of extreme content - for example, torture. In addition, only adults participated in these studies, so it is necessary to check the influence of game elements on children.
Most often, another wave of publications about the dangers of aggressive games comes after the massacres in schools . This terrible problem is relevant today for Russia after the massacre in Perm and Buryatia, as well as attempts by a Moscow schoolboy to bring gasoline, matches and knives to school. But the reason for this behavior is hardly the game.
In 2002, the results of the behavioral analysis of 41 people who participated in the massacres in American schools were published - the most relevant sample, which was to show the cause of the aggression. Of all study participants, 12% were addicted to video games; twice as many killers read books with scenes of violence; films with scenes of aggression were loved by 27% of the participants.
In this case, it would be wrong to blame video games for everything. It can be assumed that non-aggressive games bring up cruelty, and cruel children prefer aggressive games. At the same time, people get most of the cruelty not in games, but on TV screens in news releases.
In 2008, the book The Grand Theft Childhood was released in the United States : Lawrence Kutner, Ph.D .; Cheryl K. Olson. The title of the book is related to the video game series, which turned out to be in 2nd place in popularity among girls who participated in the survey, and 1 in boys. The respondents were 1,254 students in grades 7 and 8, 500 parents and focus groups consisting of teenagers and their parents.
According to the survey, 29% of girls and 68% of boys “played a lot” in at least one game with a rating of 17+. In the top ten most popular games girls had The Sims, Dance Dance Revolution and other simulators. The boys preferred fantasy and sports games.
The survey revealed a correlation between fierce gameplay and common children's problems. Boys who played games with a rating of 17+ had twice the risk of aggressive behavior — fights, property damage for fun, and problems at school, like low grades — over the past year than those boys who played games for children up to this age. In the case of girls, the risk increased three to four times. At the same time to say that the games cause aggression would be wrong, since a high risk of aggressive behavior was observed in those boys who did not play video games. On the contrary, Kutner and Olson recorded the fact that many children playing cruel games have no problems, and that games — including those with violence — are useful in terms of creativity, social skills, and the emotional development of the child. They help children cope with stress and anger.
The authors of the book Grand Theft Childhood are sure: “By focusing on such a simple, but insignificant goal, like cruelty in computer games, parents, social activists and politicians ignore the more important and already known causes of violence, including social, behavioral, economic, biological and mental factors” .
Shot from the film “Basketball Player's Diaries”
In psychology, there is the concept of "priming" (priming): it means a phenomenon in which initial thoughts make other, semantically close thoughts available to consciousness. In 1983, an experiment was conducted involving the use of the stereotype of an elderly person . 30 men and women were divided into two groups. One group received tables with words with a neutral color and words related to stereotypes regarding older people - “wise”, “gray”, “wrinkled”, “lonely”, “sentimental”. The second is words like “hungry,” “clean,” and “personal.” The most important part began later: the experimenters measured with the help of a stopwatch the time it took the test subjects to walk down the corridor to the elevator. More time was spent on those participants who included the stereotype of an elderly person.
The effect of “priming” was also observed in another experiment, when the subjects received 30 sets of four words, where one group was excited by a “hostile” seed, giving combinations like “beats”, “he”, “her”, “them”, of which experimental had to make sentences of three words. Subjects then struck fellow students with electric shocks using the “machine of aggression” when they made mistakes. In the control group, the intensity of electric shocks was 2.2 out of 10, while for the “hostile” participants in the experiment, the indicator was higher - 3.3 units.
In 2017, scientists at York University conducted a series of experiments to identify the relationship between realism and cruelty in games and human behavior in real life. Unlike the previous examples, in the conducted research the number of participants was not equal to thirty, but to almost three thousand people. In one study, the test subjects played different games: some tried to tune in to aggression, using an increased level of realism in the form of Ragdoll physics , for others there was no such element in game design. In another game, a bespoke shooter, realism was demonstrated by the behavior of soldiers for one of the groups, while in the second version of the same game, the enemies did not behave so logically.
Considering the previous experiments in the field of “priming”, the result should have been increased cruelty among those experimental subjects who played games with Ragdoll physics and realistic soldiers. But the researchers did not find a correlation between the games and the aggression of the participants in the experiment.
Studies are not over: in the future, experts from York University will test the results of other aspects of realism, as well as the impact of extreme content - for example, torture. In addition, only adults participated in these studies, so it is necessary to check the influence of game elements on children.
Most often, another wave of publications about the dangers of aggressive games comes after the massacres in schools . This terrible problem is relevant today for Russia after the massacre in Perm and Buryatia, as well as attempts by a Moscow schoolboy to bring gasoline, matches and knives to school. But the reason for this behavior is hardly the game.
In 2002, the results of the behavioral analysis of 41 people who participated in the massacres in American schools were published - the most relevant sample, which was to show the cause of the aggression. Of all study participants, 12% were addicted to video games; twice as many killers read books with scenes of violence; films with scenes of aggression were loved by 27% of the participants.
In this case, it would be wrong to blame video games for everything. It can be assumed that non-aggressive games bring up cruelty, and cruel children prefer aggressive games. At the same time, people get most of the cruelty not in games, but on TV screens in news releases.
In 2008, the book The Grand Theft Childhood was released in the United States : Lawrence Kutner, Ph.D .; Cheryl K. Olson. The title of the book is related to the video game series, which turned out to be in 2nd place in popularity among girls who participated in the survey, and 1 in boys. The respondents were 1,254 students in grades 7 and 8, 500 parents and focus groups consisting of teenagers and their parents.
According to the survey, 29% of girls and 68% of boys “played a lot” in at least one game with a rating of 17+. In the top ten most popular games girls had The Sims, Dance Dance Revolution and other simulators. The boys preferred fantasy and sports games.
The survey revealed a correlation between fierce gameplay and common children's problems. Boys who played games with a rating of 17+ had twice the risk of aggressive behavior — fights, property damage for fun, and problems at school, like low grades — over the past year than those boys who played games for children up to this age. In the case of girls, the risk increased three to four times. At the same time to say that the games cause aggression would be wrong, since a high risk of aggressive behavior was observed in those boys who did not play video games. On the contrary, Kutner and Olson recorded the fact that many children playing cruel games have no problems, and that games — including those with violence — are useful in terms of creativity, social skills, and the emotional development of the child. They help children cope with stress and anger.
The authors of the book Grand Theft Childhood are sure: “By focusing on such a simple, but insignificant goal, like cruelty in computer games, parents, social activists and politicians ignore the more important and already known causes of violence, including social, behavioral, economic, biological and mental factors” .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/409631/