EFFECTS OF VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES ON AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

 

Research on exposure to television and movie violence suggests that playing violent video games will increase aggressive behavior. A meta-analytic (developed by: Anderson, Anderson, & Deuser, 1996; Anderson, Deuser, & DeNeve, 1995; Bandura, 1971, 1973; Berkowitz, 1993; Crick & Dodge, 1994; Geen, 1990; Huesmann, 1986; Lindsay & Anderson, 2000; Zillmann, 1983)  review of the videogame research literature reveals that violent video games increase aggressive behavior in children and young adults. Experimental and nonexperimental studies with males and females in laboratory and field settings support this conclusion. Analyses also reveal that exposure to violent video games increases physiological arousal and aggression-related thoughts and feelings. Playing violent video games also decreases prosocial behavior. Paducah, Kentucky. Jonesboro, Arkansas. Littleton, Colorado. These three towns recently experienced similar multiple school shootings. The shooters were students who habitually played violent video games. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine High School students who murdered 13 people and wounded 23 in Littleton, before killing themselves, enjoyed playing the bloody video game Doom. Harris created a customized version of Doom with two shooters, extra weapons, unlimited ammunition, and victims who could not fight back—features that are eerily similar to aspects of the actual shootings. Why does exposure to violent media increase aggression and violence? The General Aggression Model (GAM; Anderson & Bushman. Figure 1.), based on several earlier models of human aggression is a useful framework for understanding the effects of violent media. The enactment of aggression is largely based on the learning, activation, and application of aggression-related knowledge structures stored in memory. Long-term effects also involve learning processes. From infancy, humans learn how to perceive, interpret, judge, and respond to events in the physical and social environment. Various types of knowledge structures for these tasks develop over time. They are based on day-to-day observations of and interactions with other people, real (as in the family) and imagined (as in the media). Each violent-media episode is essentially one more learning trial. As these knowledge structures are rehearsed, they become more complex, differentiated, and difficult to change.

 

During all my years playing violent compurer games I have experiensed that playing this type of game over a long period of time, can help develope a  more agressive side to your personality. Playing these on a casual basis won’t afect you in any way, however playing tise games in large doses will leave a scar in your personality. Right about now there should be a thought stirring in your mind,  why on earth do people play these games if it messes them up as they do? Well, the answer is;

·        The katarsis-theory: Persons with aggressive and violent tendensees have the oppurtunity to live out this tendencies throutgh experienses in the games

 

·        The stimulation-theory: Aggressiveness encreeses the excitement condition that can be found in all humans. Violence in the video games increses the possibility that everyone can become more agressive that they usualy would be.

 

• The enhancement-theory: too much video violence enhances the violence tendensees and the aggresion that can already be found in the recievers, and that they already are aggressive will only lead to them becoming even more aggressive, on the other hand those who are not naturaly aggressive will not be affected much.

This image is from the upcoming game Doom:3, Here you can see that graphics has developed to a new level of goreness. Lets see how “normal” you are after completing this game on the hardes difficulty in a dark room alone on a friday night...

Kilder:

·        ”I samfunnet 2” av Leonhard Vårdal(2. utagve 1997)

·        ”DOES PLAYING VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES CAUSE

AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR?” by Jeffrey Goldstein, Ph.D.

University of Utrecht, The Netherlands 27 October 2001

http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/goldstein.html

·        and a good friend of mine, how lives in the U.K.(words, and spelling)