Blood in Violent Video Games Affects Aggression, Hostility, and Arousal
September 13, 2008
This study is yet another evidence for already large body of knowledge in this area.
They had avid gamers (the experiment was repeated among non-gamers, with similar results) play Mortal Kombat on a Playstation 2 using one of four levels of bloodiness, from Maximum (where combatants not only bled profusely, but the blood pooled on the ground and could be realistically tracked around the combat arena when players stepped in it) to None (where even a brutal hit with a sword or other weapon would cause no bleeding).
Before and after the gaming session, players’ hostile thoughts and feelings were measured with a survey, and heart rate was taken at several points to measure arousal.
This study offers convincing evidence that violence itself, rather than other aspects of game-play, may be responsible for real-world aggressive behavior and hostile attitudes.
Sources:
The bloodier the game, the more hostile the gamer (Cognitive Daily)
C Barlett, R Harris, C Bruey (2008). The effect of the amount of blood in a violent video game on aggression, hostility, and arousal Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44 (3), 539-546 DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2007.10.003
I am one of them.. lolwut?
KILL KILL KILL!!!1
“Distributors of Grand Theft Auto yesterday suspended sales in Thailand after a teenager allegedly killed a taxi driver in a bloody frenzy, re-enacting scenes from the blockbuster video game.
Police who caught the 18-year-old at the scene said he confessed to having planned the attack to find out if robbery was as easy as depicted in the violent game.”
Source: Guardian
Interesting study, though I wonder about it’s methodology and conclusions.
Did the study explain why there is such a wide range in the before game levels for the four different levels? I would think they should be about the same.
Also, if I understand that graph correctly, playing a non-bloody violent video game actually makes you less hostile. So it’s not the violence itself but the blood that makes people more hostile.
Variability of the baseline is fine because no two random groups will be exactly the same. They used ANOVAs to assess the effects.
While it might seem like hostility decreases at the None level, this decrease is very small and insignificant. What you are referring to is the Catharsis Hypothesis that many gamers often use to claim that if they vent their frustrations in a game, they will not do it in the real world. This hypothesis has been proven to be false by numerous studies.
Indeed, in this study they showed that bloodiness of the games is related to subsequent hostility.
There was also in some news here in our country where some Mortal Kombat-playing kid killed his parents for no reasons at all… I mean, it was really scary when video games affect people psychologically and they copy it at real life… Anime can also be like that (remember the ‘Nice Boat‘ incident and the Akiba mass murder?) really creepy…
Yes, those are all scary stories
This is a good report on Nice Boat incident:
Japan: Axe Murder, School Days and a Nice Boat (Global Voices)
The Akiba stabbing case is more complex though. I wanted to write about him and various factors that contributed to the event. Maybe I’ll write it up sometime.
It’s scary and sad at the same time… It shows that it’s easy video games/ other media can manipulate people’s minds
… Can’t wait for your post about the Akiba case because it is really mysterious why did that guy just did that…
Unfortunately, human mind is quite susceptible to manipulation, but, thanks to some people, we still have many good artworks that promote virtues.
It will take some time to write up that post because I have to go through all the resources I compiled.