The unbelievable popularity of violent video games (first-person shooters, etc) has led many researchers and government officials to be concerned about the psychological effects of playing them. Craig Anderson (Iowa State) has made a career on experimentally testing violent media and the results of their exposure. He has shown in the past that violent video games as well as violent song lyrics can increase aggression related cognition and affect. Furthermore, in a new study, he demonstrated that violent video games can desensitize people to real world violence.
My initial belief about this line of research was that it was funded and developed as a way for politicians to regulate media they found morally unpleasant. However, after checking out a handful of Anderson’s studies, they are very methodologically sound and have convinced me that the effects he has found are indeed legitimate. The key link that I have never seen made (although this is the direction this work is going) is that increasing aggression during exposure to violent media and desensitization leads to one acting violently in life.
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PlayWhat » Blog Archive » Too much violence? First, play the game (8/21/2007)
3 Comments to
“Video Games and Violence Desensitization”
Bollocks
weak results are a sufficient reason to believe that media cannot lead to real-life violence.Even if Anderson tries to hide his real motivations behind Rosenthal effects , aspirin’s effects and many other excuses i think that his works are inconclusive.There’s no experiment’s result that can justificate his opinions:his misleading interpretations of scientific results are better called “defenses”.If u think that everything that has got violent content can lead to ruin people’s mind u don’t need to demonstrate it by science’s instruments:it’s your personality
I have to admit im not very knowledgeable in this area but I am a gamer so here is my 2 cents:
I play alot of violent games and watch violent movies, I enjoy the genre (i do also paly otehr games and watch other genre’s of movies but) and i do not care about the violence (e.g. I am not affected by it in anyway, i quite often laugh at these things).
whether this is desensitization to violence or just my personality or both im am not sure, but i do know the rules that govern the world we live in and the game and movie worlds and the boundries of both. what is acceptable and what is not.
I do believe that on its own, a desensitization to violence is not a good thing, but coupled with the understanding of whats real and whats not and whats acceptable between the two worlds i think it is a helpful thing to have.
I think it would help you think better in certain circumstances and in nrmal circumstances as long as both are together nothing can particually happen
please not I am a teenager writing this (under 16).
I would quite like to here someone elses oppinion on this
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 28 Jul 2006
