Top 5 Reasons Why I Dont Believe Games Make People Violent

[Blemontea]

http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/2010/11/top-5-reasons-why-i-dont-believe-games-make-people-violent/

I found this article, its another stab against the people who say games make people violent. I always love finding and reading these articles, even though they point out the obvious. All i ask is do you feel like the Article brings up some good points or just telling us more of what we already know? and whats your opinion on Games and there connection to Violent Behavior?

 

[Netrigan]

I think video games can make it easier for a person to be more violent toward another person. The military has long had a problem with people not shooting their weapons at the enemy. They increased the percentage by changing the targets in shooting practice from classic circular targets to man-shape targets. Simply shooting at a human shaped silhouette increasing your likelihood of shooting at another person. I would be surprised if realistic shooters haven't upped that percentage even more.

But that has nothing to do with making a person violent. Violent video games just get caught up with a correlation error. Violent kids are attracted to violent things (music, games, weapons, etc.). Mind you, the games are likely having an effect on these kids, much like the crime comics of the 50s inspired some kids to commit crimes (some of the worst ones pretty much told you how to commit crimes). But I think it would be next to impossible to determine how much of an effect.

So vast majority of people, no effect at all (save for if they are ever put in a situation where they need to shoot at another person). For violent kids, they're likely inspiring them to commit acts of violence they might not have come up with on their own in random cases, but mostly just a symptom of an underlying problem.

 

[Grygor]

I think video games can make it easier for a person to be more violent toward another person. The military has long had a problem with people not shooting their weapons at the enemy.

No they haven't.

The assertion that "most soldiers in war don't even fire their guns" is based on a claim by S. L. A. Marshall that in World War II at most 25% of American soldiers fired their weapons, and that later in Korea, this figure had risen to 55%.

Neither of these numbers is backed by actual research.

 

[Nouw]

Awesome article, read that Fox News!

 

[Geekosaurus]

Well millions of people are currently playing online first person shooters. So by that analysis once they've finished playing they'll all go out and murder somebody.

 

[Legendairy314]

As far as I'm concerned games are just the latest scapegoat in a long contingency of scapegoats. Comic books, Rock, Television, etc... Hopefully the next "Antichrist of the media" will come along so we can just be left the hell alone. Violent people commit violent crimes. If they happened to have played a game in the last decade that doesn't make them think that everyone respawns.

 

[SuperNashwan]

I think video games can make it easier for a person to be more violent toward another person. The military has long had a problem with people not shooting their weapons at the enemy.

No they haven't.

The assertion that "most soldiers in war don't even fire their guns" is based on a claim by S. L. A. Marshall that in World War II at most 25% of American soldiers fired their weapons, and that later in Korea, this figure had risen to 55%.

Neither of these numbers is backed by actual research.

I've got the book - Men Against Fire - in which he makes this claim, and you are not entirely right. This is a quote from the chapter on Fire Ratios, where he is talking about post-action interviews made with a "full assembly" of men who had served in the 'Pacific and European Theaters' of World War II:

"..when the men spoke as witnesses in the presence of the commander and their junior leaders, we found that on average not more than 15% of the men had actually fired at the enemy positions or personnel with rifles, carbines, grenades, bazookas, BAR's or machine guns during the course of an entire engagement. Even allowing for the dead and wounded, and assuming that in their numbers there would be the same proportion of active firers as among the living, the figure did not rise above 20 - 25% of the total for any action. The best showing that could be made by the most spirited and aggressive companies was that one man in four had made at least some use of his firepower".

So whilst it may not be as in-depth as it might have been, research was done in at least a retrospective, verbal way. You might criticise his assumption that the % of active firers among the dead was the same, as you could reason that those firing were necessarily more exposed than those not, so you could say there are weaknesses. Nonetheless, there was research.

 

[maiqtheliar]

Maybe it's the other way around-- people who may be violent or are the kind of people who may commit violent acts just happen to play video games. The "loner type" of person isn't a loner because they play video games, they are a "loner" for other reasons, which are probably what really contribute to their violence. Video games just happen to be something that people who are socially alienated can turn to.

 

[Ascarus]

... whats your opinion on Games and there connection to Violent Behavior?

There has been a fair amount of research on this topic that seems to suggest that playing violent video games does cause increases in aggressive behavior (as measured by pyschometric testing). Recently Craig Anderson who has been studying video game violence and it's effects since about 2004 recently released a meta-anlaysis of 130 studies looking a this very topic. In the first paragraph of the Results section of the Main Analysis (correlation between video game violence (VGV) and aggression) it says:

First, regardless of research design and regardless of
whether the standard zero-order correlation approach or the much
more conservative partial correlation approach was used, VGV
exposure was significantly related to higher levels of aggressive
behavior. Most notably, in longitudinal studies even when sex and
Time 1 aggressive behavior were controlled, amount of violent
video game play at Time 1 significantly predicted an increase in
aggressive behavior at Time 2.

So there does seem to be scientific evidence that suggests a correlation between VGV and aggressive behavior. BUT how that science transfers into societal behavior is an unknown. So we have to be very careful how these studies are interpreted.

If you are interested the full article (and it is a bit technical as meta-analyes are not trivial) can be downloaded here:

http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/recpub.html

Article: Anderson, C. A., Shibuya, A., Ihori, N., Swing, E. L., Bushman, B.J., Sakamoto, A., Rothstein, H.R., & Saleem, M. (2010). Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in Eastern and Western countries. Psychological Bulletin,136, 151-173.

edit (added): I am not reviewing the full article here so there are few salient points I am glossing over but the main correlation still stands.

 

[Grygor]

I think video games can make it easier for a person to be more violent toward another person. The military has long had a problem with people not shooting their weapons at the enemy.

No they haven't.

The assertion that "most soldiers in war don't even fire their guns" is based on a claim by S. L. A. Marshall that in World War II at most 25% of American soldiers fired their weapons, and that later in Korea, this figure had risen to 55%.

Neither of these numbers is backed by actual research.

I've got the book - Men Against Fire - in which he makes this claim, and you are not entirely right. This is a quote from the chapter on Fire Ratios, where he is talking about post-action interviews made with a "full assembly" of men who had served in the 'Pacific and European Theaters' of World War II:

"..when the men spoke as witnesses in the presence of the commander and their junior leaders, we found that on average not more than 15% of the men had actually fired at the enemy positions or personnel with rifles, carbines, grenades, bazookas, BAR's or machine guns during the course of an entire engagement. Even allowing for the dead and wounded, and assuming that in their numbers there would be the same proportion of active firers as among the living, the figure did not rise above 20 - 25% of the total for any action. The best showing that could be made by the most spirited and aggressive companies was that one man in four had made at least some use of his firepower".

So whilst it may not be as in-depth as it might have been, research was done in at least a retrospective, verbal way. You might criticise his assumption that the % of active firers among the dead was the same, as you could reason that those firing were necessarily more exposed than those not, so you could say there are weaknesses. Nonetheless, there was research.

That's not research, that's anecdote. There's little sign of systematic collection of data, in fact there's no sign that such a data set of the magnitude Marshall claims even exists.

http://www.warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm

http://www.theppsc.org/Grossman/SLA_Marshall/Bad-Firing-Data.htm

http://hnn.us/articles/1356.html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IBR/is_3_33/ai_109580229/

 

[3AM]

As much as I prefer fantasy over reality, I can tell the difference. Besides the fact that I don't own a plasma gun, or any gun for that matter, I still know not to point one at other people and shoot.

 

[SyphonX]

The mass media and religion make people violent, and prone to murder. Couple them together and you may want to step aside.

I have no time for this pseudo-intellectual garbage when there are currently wars being fought for various "unknowns". It's been a decade and no one really knows why we're there. In the meantime, the country is completely littered with ignorant racist buffoons, who would shoot up a mall if the media told them turrorists were there.

So it is quite typical for the 'intellectual establishment' to spend time on such bullshit as "video games and violence", when there are glaring issues at hand. It says a lot about our society, when an entire establishment turns their cheek to focus on something so incredibly mundane.

Maybe there should be more studies on how orchestrated fear causes people to be paranoid and violent. Because that is where violence actually comes from, fear. This is what the media is about in the 21st century.

 

[SuperNashwan]

That's not research, that's anecdote. There's little sign of systematic collection of data, in fact there's no sign that such a data set of the magnitude Marshall claims even exists.

http://www.warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm

http://www.theppsc.org/Grossman/SLA_Marshall/Bad-Firing-Data.htm

http://hnn.us/articles/1356.html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IBR/is_3_33/ai_109580229/

Hmm fascinating. I'm tempted to print those off and stick them in the back of the book! Thanks for the links, sounds like a good piece of historical controversy.

 

[SuperNashwan]

To reply to the original post:

These are just my musings on the topic, but I think one reason that the media and people in general might be keen to blame video games for events like school shootings is because we have an inherent distaste for the idea that any one of us, or perhaps our relatives or children, is capable of violence and that there doesnt necessarily have to be an outside influence for that to happen. Perhaps its a fear thing - when something bad happens, we need an explanation for it. It feels too frightening to accept that these things can happen suddenly, and especially if the genuine explanation - it was a build up of stresses and strains and certain elements of personality that lead to the shooting - is somewhat prosaic, it leaves people open to the possibility this could easily happen again. If you blame and ban video games, people can feel like they have done something to 'stop' it happening again and all that fear and anger has a target.

It reminds me somewhat of an attitude I found when I took up skydiving. Reports of accidents were always followed by a flurry of speculation over what errors the injured or dead party had made, the idea being "well that wont happen to me, because Im smarter". People seemed to have a really hard time accepting that things can just go wrong and there's sometimes little that can be done. I think it stems from the need for certainty in the face of fear, even if its a false certainty.

As I say, just my musings on the issue. I think people need something to blame so they can feel safer, and they would rather not look too close to home eg the inherent possibility of violence that exists in all humans. Some of these views might be a little influenced by the fact I have been reading about the Stanford Prison Experiment lately too - the study into whether 'good people can do evil things'.