Violent video games desensitize people to real-life violence

[arctangent]

Iowa State psychologists produce first study on violence desensitization from video games

Research led by a pair of Iowa State University psychologists has proven for the first time that exposure to violent video games can desensitize individuals to real-life violence.

"The results demonstrate that playing violent video games, even for just 20 minutes, can cause people to become less physiologically aroused by real violence," said Carnagey. "Participants randomly assigned to play a violent video game had relatively lower heart rates and galvanic skin responses while watching footage of people being beaten, stabbed and shot than did those randomly assigned to play nonviolent video games.

"It appears that individuals who play violent video games habituate or 'get used to' all the violence and eventually become physiologically numb to it."

Participants in the violent versus non-violent games conditions did not differ in heart rate or skin response at the beginning of the study, or immediately after playing their assigned game. However, their physiological reactions to the scenes of real violence did differ significantly, a result of having just played a violent or a non-violent game. The researchers also controlled for trait aggression and preference for violent video games.

They conclude that the existing video game rating system, the content of much entertainment media, and the marketing of those media combine to produce "a powerful desensitization intervention on a global level."

"It (marketing of video game media) initially is packaged in ways that are not too threatening, with cute cartoon-like characters, a total absence of blood and gore, and other features that make the overall experience a pleasant one," said Anderson. "That arouses positive emotional reactions that are incongruent with normal negative reactions to violence. Older children consume increasingly threatening and realistic violence, but the increases are gradual and always in a way that is fun.

"In short, the modern entertainment media landscape could accurately be described as an effective systematic violence desensitization tool," he said. "Whether modern societies want this to continue is largely a public policy question, not an exclusively scientific one."

[LesJarvis]

Excellent, I can finally justify the shooting spree I've been planning.

Edit: while this is interesting and all, it doesn't really show that people who play violent videogames are more like to actually commit violent acts. Of course encouraging your study participants to go and beat the hell out of someone after playing violent games is probably unethical.

[Gary Whitta]

This gets discussed in the new PC Gamer podcast that comes out later today, FYI. I believe the word I used to summarize this study's conclusions was "bollocks".

[Ben Sones]

Galvanic skin responses are the only things keeping us all from beating each other to death.

[SpoofyChop]

while this is interesting and all, it doesn't really show that people who play violent videogames are more like to actually commit violent acts.

Excellent point. Personally I believe that the entire global media system (news, entertainment, whatever) are all probably pretty effective at desensitizing people to any number of things...violence, suffering, poverty, political instability, etc.

What I mean by this is that if you never personally experience these things but you see them on TV all the time I think it's at least possible that you stop reacting to the images of these things as if they are real and you start reacting to them as if they are merely representations/stories. The only way to know what your real reaction to these situations would be however would be to actually be physically present during a violent crime, in a poverty stricken country, in a war torn region, or a political protest.

I think the chances are that the same tests conducted during these real life scenarios with the people physically present would not show the same "blase" reaction to these situations.

I'd also like to see a test in which somebody is exposed to violent images from news reports over and over and see if they have the same response the 10th, 20th or 100th time they see a newscast of violent images. My guess is that even just watching the newscast will desensitize you.

[MatthewF]

Research led by a pair of Iowa State University psychologists has proven for the first time that exposure to violent video games can desensitize individuals to real-life violence.

I do not think that word means what they think it means.

[LesJarvis]

Heh, I had the exact same reaction when I read that.

[ElGuapo]

Here's my study:

Control Group:
1. Plays chess with a researcher
2. Is taken to an inner city, given a baseball bat, and asked to kill a crack whore

Experiment group
1. Plays Grand Theft Auto with researcher and kills people on the screen
2. Is taken to an inner city, given a baseball bat, and asked to kill a crack whore

Or

Control group
1. Allow them to read some Emily Bronte in a comfortable chair
2. Slap them hard in the face out of the blue and see what they do

Experiment group
1. Plays Battlefield 2 for an hour
2. Slap them hard in the face out of the blue and see what they do

There you go, simple.

[Zylon]

For their next trick, these researchers will prove that the second cup of coffee never tastes as good as the first.

[MikeSofaer]

Doctors are as a whole highly phisically desentitized to other people's physical trauma, too.

[metta]

I don't believe that playing violent games makes people violent, but I do think it gives them a context for their own violence.

To the people who claim playing violent games is completely neutral, I ask do you ever play or listen to mellow music to relax or get to sleep?

Does it work?

[Jake Plane]

Serenity now, serenity now, serenity now...

[stusser]

Read the article. The "real" violence they were exposed to was actually old episodes of Magnum P.I. I would argue that headshotting an alien in a videogame, being interactive, is less detached and more "real" than watching it happen on a television screen without my involvement or direction. Basically the study is bullshit.

[Mehrunes]

Wait, I think something needs to be clarified...

After playing a video game, a second set of five-minute heart rate and skin response measurements were taken. Participants were then asked to watch a 10-minute videotape of actual violent episodes taken from TV programs and commercially-released films in the following four contexts: courtroom outbursts, police confrontations, shootings and prison fights. Heart rate and skin response were monitored throughout the viewing.

When viewing real violence, participants who had played a violent video game experienced skin response measurements significantly lower than those who had played a non-violent video game. The participants in the violent video game group also had lower heart rates while viewing the real-life violence compared to the nonviolent video game group.

At first I got the impression that the individuals were shown actual real violence. So what's the deal, are they being shown actual real violence, as implied by the second paragraph, or are they being shown fake TV "real violence" as implied in the first paragraph?

EDIT: ONE MINUTE LATE. Goddamn you, stusser!

[Other Brendan]

I think one problem here is that the subjects were shown video of real-life violence. So really their evidence just shows that after 20 minutes of violent games, seeing something violent on the TV won't get as big a rise out of them physiologically as if they'd been playing non-violent games. There's a big difference between real-life violence and videotaped footage of it, just like there's a big difference between skydiving and videotaped footage of that. I think ElGuapo's experiments would be much more useful if we're studying connections between game violence and actual real-life violence.

EDIT: Also, the .pdf of the report I read said the real-life violence was footage of courtroom outbursts, prison stabbings, and other unpleasantness, not fake movie violence.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6154696.html

EDIT 2: A quote from the researchers' study:
These were actual violent episodes (not Hollywood reproductions) selected from TV programs and commercially released films. In one scene, for example, two prisoners repeatedly stab another prisoner.

[Morkilus]

According to the study, galvanic skin response actually decreases while watching "real violence" (read: videotaped) after playing violent games such as this:

If that makes any sense to anybody, I'd like to hear it. The graphs in paper are pretty telling. Also, there was no control videos, with fluffy bunnies and pictures of Hillary Clinton.

[skedastic]

The psych guys are barking up the wrong tree on this whole issue. Correlating attitudes towards violence with whether or not one has just played a violent video game tells us nothing about the underlying issue: whether violent video games cause violent behavior. Studies correlating video game playing habits with actual violence are somewhat better but still inadequate to speak to the underlying issue.

[Other Brendan]

Correlating attitudes towards violence with whether or not one has just played a violent video game tells us nothing about the underlying issue: whether violent video games cause violent behavior.

I think they're just trying to take baby steps to get where they want to go. Like instead of proving that going to the beach causes cancer, first prove that going to the beach exposes you to more sun. Then prove that more sun = more UV rays. Then prove that too many UV rays can affect the way your body produces new cells. Then prove that an alteration to the way your body produces new cells can cause cancer. My lack of actual, reliable knowledge on how exposure to the sun gives you cancer aside, this is basically what the researchers in question are doing.

[Tom McNamara]

The thing that gets me is that people can (and do) say the same thing about watching television. And from what it sounds like, the researchers don't examine how long this desensitization lasts. I think there's a psychological elasticity that's being overlooked, and I would also consider the influence of primal survival instinct; this "desensitization" might be nothing more than a subconscious trauma dampener that fades as the stimulus disappears.

[Chris Woods]

This is a good study. Trying to attack it by saying "it doesn't prove violent video games leads to violence" is just a strawman argument. The study doesn't claim this at all. It claims to demonstrate that in this study people who played violent video games had less of a physical reaction to viewing violent scenes then those who didn't and that's all.

Research led by a pair of Iowa State University psychologists has proven for the first time that exposure to violent video games can desensitize individuals to real-life violence.

I do not think that word means what they think it means.

If by "They" you mean the website linked, sure. If by "They" you mean the researchers, no. The study doesn't claim to have proved anything. The strongest term they used is "demonstrates".

Don't be so gunshy. I don't think desensitization to violence is real news to people who play violent games.

Chris Woods

[skedastic]

I think they're just trying to take baby steps to get where they want to go.

Which is, in general, a sound methodological approach. And it isn't being followed here: the whole mechanism is fabricated from precious little evidence, and no compelling evidence on causation. See, for example, this ridiculously biased meta-analysis. There seems to be a small industry of folks churning out crappy papers doing a really bad job controlling for confounding influences and then leaping to the conclusion that correlation equals causation.

[bigdruid]

Allow me to put my own spin on this:

"Researchers show that video game players are less aroused by real violence"

Being "desensitized" to violence doesn't mean "more likely to commit violence" - it means your basic, monkey reaction to violence (fight or flight) is diminished. I think that's a great outcome, and we as a society should require all citizens to play GTA for a few hours every day as a result.

[Noise]

Allow me to put my own spin on this:

"Researchers show that video game players are less aroused by real violence"

Being "desensitized" to violence doesn't mean "more likely to commit violence" - it means your basic, monkey reaction to violence (fight or flight) is diminished. I think that's a great outcome, and we as a society should require all citizens to play GTA for a few hours every day as a result.

Or it means people are less likely to care about atrocities.

[arctangent]

The real question is, who paid for the study?

Finally, although our main focus has been on
unintended desensitization and helping effects of violent
video games, a better understanding of video game effects
can be put to good use in other contexts. For example, if
violent video games designed primarily to entertain are
good at producing physiological desensitization, then it
should be feasible to design games to produce such
desensitization in desired populations and contexts. Can
we make better combat soldiers by desensitizing them to
some of the sights and sounds of combat? Can we help
medical students become comfortable with the types of
physical and emotional trauma they will experience in
emergency rooms? Can we use video games to systemati-
cally desensitize individuals who need to be desensitized
to specific stimuli that cause them problems (e.g., auto
accident victims afraid of riding or driving again)?

[skedastic]

This is a good study. Trying to attack it by saying "it doesn't prove violent video games leads to violence" is just a strawman argument. The study doesn't claim this at all.

Sure it does. It also claims that violent video games cause less sympathy for victims of violence. The authors conclude:

In short, the modern entertainment media
landscape could accurately be described as an eVective systematic
violence desensitization tool. Whether modern societies
want this to continue is largely a public policy
question, not an exclusively scientic one (Anderson et al.,
2003; Gentile & Anderson, 2006).

which is a mealy-mouthed way of advocating more government restrictions on media content. The cites, incidentally, are to other papers by Craig A. Anderson. Craig A. Anderson just loves to cite Craig A. Anderson as evidence that what Craig A. Anderson is saying is valid.

[stusser]

Again, the study actually tests whether violent videogames desensitize subjects from other forms of violent media.

Anyone who's ever gotten into a fight or even witnessed a real fight knows it's a very, very different experience than watching boxing on TV. That overpoweringly awesome feeling of dominating someone as you fuck them up bad or conversely the helpless feeling as you try to protect your face and groin from getting splattered, or when your face is pushed in the dirt, busting open your lip, tasting the grass and your own blood... you just don't get that from videogames, TV, movies. They are an entirely different experience. Not just varying degrees of the same thing, not just more visceral, different.

[Tom McNamara]

Back in my day, we paid someone a nickel to get punched in the junk, and we liked it that way.



...Oh, and in other news, from Business Week: "Doctors are drawing on video-game technology to treat post-traumatic stress disorder among Iraq war veterans."

http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...725_012342.htm

[DustyTheHamster]

I did a study last night where I proved that by watching the news I desensitized my self to the stories they were reporting. So how did they find out that people got desensitized by playing violent video games?

did they have them play for a bit then have some random person get their arm lopped off by a piece of machinerary? or did they bring in a "pow" and have them executed in front of the panel? How was the virtual and nonrealistic violence portrayed in a video game any where close to the realism achived by movies or TV shows or even the news? Seen any footage from iraq recently?

using anecdotal evidence I prove that just by opening your eyes and/or listening you are desensitizing yourself.

[Hans Lauring]

After game play, a second set of 5-min HR and GSR
measurements were taken. Next, participants watched a
10-min videotape of real violence in four contexts: courtroom
outbursts, police confrontations, shootings, and
prison fights. These were actual violent episodes (not Hollywood
reproductions) selected from TV programs and
commercially released films. In one scene, for example,
two prisoners repeatedly stab another prisoner.

Which tv and commercially released films contains real footage of prison stabbings?

[Moggraider]

Come on guys, of course video games desensitize us to violence. Isn't that as clear as day? You don't need a study to tell you that. I'm only 20 and I've known I've been desensitized for about 10 years. If you can sit there and pound a guy into the ground in a videogame without thinking twice about it, you're desensitized. Period. Why do any of us have trouble admitting this? It's not like the study is saying we're more likely to commit violent acts. It's just saying we respond less to it, which is definitely true. TV, the Internet, and videogames all desensitize us constantly. Hell, I could eat lunch in front of my computer with Tubgirl in fullscreen on my monitor.