Aggression and video games
Joe Blaney
On April twentieth 1999 the hundredth and tenth anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s birthday Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered thirteen and wounded another twenty three in their high school in Littleton Colorado. Since then there have been several school shooting and other signs of violence and aggression amongst teenagers. In every case of these shootings, investigators found that killer has had a strong history of playing violent video games. I am not suggesting that if you play these games that you’ll automatically perform the next random act of violence. I would like to persuade you to limit and control violent video game play for pre-teens and high school teenagers.
Aggression is usually defined by psychologists as “behavior directed toward another individual and carried out with the intent to cause harm.” Violence is usually defined as “physical aggression at an extremely high level, such as murder and aggravated assault. All violence is aggression, but much that is aggression is not violence.” For example if one child pushes another child off of a swing set it is aggression but not violence. A shooting at school involves both aggression and violence. (Anderson, Carnagey, book) It is important to understand the difference as most video games do not promote violent behavior, but rather increases aggressive behavior.
The General Aggression Model is a dynamic model that includes situational, individual, and biological variables and provides specific theories of aggression. GAM is largely based on social learning and social-cognitive theories developed over the past three decades by a large number of scholars from social, developmental, and personality psychology. For instance, the flow chart below maps the interaction between situation, thinking and arousal. Video games accelerate the situation process due to the rapid game play which causes a high degree of arousal. The arousal creates a decision process that is focused on impulsive action. Typically there is very little social encounter, as games play against others on line and the process starts over again. This continued cycle creates an emotional frenzy that accelerates or magnifies aggression.
Psychologist Doug Gentile, PhD “indicates it is likely that violent video games may have even stronger effects on teens aggression because, (1) the games are highly engaging and interactive, (2) the games reward violent behavior, and because (3) you repeat these behaviors over and over as they play” (Gentile, News article). Do research studies conclude that teens frequently playing violent video games are more aggressive than the occasional video game player? What affect do frequently playing violent video games have on teens that normally have an aggressive personality? In the report “The General Affective Aggression Model: Explaining the Effects of Point of View in Violent Video Games” (Farr, Kirstie, Krcmar, Marina, and Nowak, research article) found that frequent players as compared to less frequent violent game players reported more aggressive feelings and higher resentment scores. In addition, those that were playing first person violent games had somewhat more aggressive feelings as compared to those that played 3rd person games. Lastly, the point of view games that had blood portrayed were somewhat less irritated but significantly more verbally and physically aggressive. In summary, there was evidence that the generalized model of aggression was supported and that furthermore, first person, graphically violent games can accelerate violent effect.
A strong counter argument would be that “Violent behavior is a result of many factors; often genetics, parental attention, environmental stimulus, internal psychology and sometimes pathology, and an infinite number of other variables.” (Raczkowski, internet) Raczkowski has written several books on violence in video games. I agree that violent behavior is a result of many factors; however every study has shown that frequent violent video game playing magnifies aggression. If someone already has an aggressive nature due to these factors they should not play any violent games.
Some studies have yielded no significant video game effects you might say, just as some smoking studies failed to find a significant link to lung cancer. But when you look at all the studies put together, five separate effects emerge with considerable consistency. Violent video games are significantly associated with: increased aggressive behavior, thoughts, and affect; increased physiological arousal; and decreased helping behavior. (Anderson & Bushman, internet)
Recently a mother condemned the British makers of a game in which players act as bullies. Giselle Pakeerah, who blames the murder of her son on a violent video game, called for the game to be banned. I do not agree that inappropriate games should be banned. I don’t believe in censorship; however I do believe that the game manufacturer has some responsibility for their product and who it is sold to.
I have pointed out clearly that violent video games causes increase in aggression which can lead to violent behavior and can also leading to addictive and non-social behavior. I recommend that the current rating system be changed because it is not working or enforced strongly enough.
I suggest that we abolish the “Mature” rating and force game manufacturers to produce only “Teen” or “Adult” for action or first person shooting games. I suggest that we get rid of the current “Mature” games because it will force game producers to appeal or focus to their audience, which will result in more teen rated games. The high end details of killing and gore is much more detailed in “Mature” games then in “Teen” games. However I do offer a solution to gamers that are appeal to an adult audience making “Adult Only” with strict age verification requirements. This system of purchasing “Adult Only” games would also be extremely strict, allowing only adults to sell the game to an adult. In order to do this, the retailers must have an age verification point of sale system in order to sell these games and retailers will lose their license if they sell “Adult” games to teens.
All video game consoles should enforce parental controls which enable parents to block any game that they think may not be suitable for their teens. This system already exists on the Microsoft gamming consoles but is not currently enforced on all gaming platforms.
We have laws set in place that ban high school students from smoking and drinking I believe that we should treat video games the same. This will become a major issue if we have increasing levels of aggression of our teens. We must make these changes now to avoid more unnecessary conflict.
