Spring2

020

THE EFFECTS OF
VIOLENT VIDEO-
GAMES ON CHILD
DEVELOPMENT AND
AGGRESSION

Waad M. A. Alhayek
U18105418

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 TABLE OF CONTENT:

Sec.No Title Pg.no

1 Introduction 4

1.1 Do violent video games affect children's behaviour? 5

1.2 Do video games increase aggression? 6

Is there any scientific evidence to support the claims that

1.3 violent games contribute to aggressive and violent behaviour? 8

Does time spent on video games affect children productivity?

1.4 9

Why should we be concerned about children playing violent

1.5 video games? 10

2 Conclusion 13

3 Reference 14

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 Introduction:

What is Violence?

It is considered as aggresion that can have physical harm, like injury or death. The violence is a
subset of aggression. All the violent act are considered as aggressive, but only acts that have
intention to cause physical damage, such as murder, assault, rape and robbery, are violent. If
you slap the individual on the face it may be considered as violent but mein calling the name of
the people would only be aggression.(Jhangiani, Tarry & Stanford, 2014)

What are Video Games?

It is an electronic game that involves interaction of user interface to generate visual feedback on
a two or three dimensional video display a device such as a touchscreen, virtual reality headset
on monitor.(Dictionary.com)

What is aggression?

This is a behaviour that is intended to harm another individual who does not wish to be
harmed(Baron & Richardson,1994). Because it involves the perception of intent, what looks like
aggression from one point of view me not look that way from another and the same harmful
behaviour may or may not be considered aggressive depending on its intent.(Ames &
Fiske,2013)

1.1 Do violent video games affect children's behaviour?

Video games play a big role in the life of children. Among them violent video games have the
major impact. People who are aggressive tend to isolate themselves, it have the bad affect on
their mental as well as the physical state. Maximum of the people believe that it is not safe to
play violent games, it has bad affect on the behaviour of the children. The positive impact over
playing the video games are ignored by a small part of the authorities (Ferguson 68). Where else
researchers like Chris, argued that the psychological problems are not caused by violent video
games, the reason can be other than that.

At the same time the major part of the authorities found that it is not safe to play, viloent games as it
damage the behaviour of the child and have bad effect on the children. Research was conducted about
the video games in which 56 participated. They were given video games and after that they were

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answered about the question to check the influence of video games on their aggression level. Later it
was concluded, game has a significant effect on their aggression level

1.2 Do video games increase aggression?

Based on the studies appearing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, APA. It was

also seen that videogames that are violent were more harmful compared to TV shows as these

games are more interactive. (American Psychological Association, 2000).

Those individuals who are short tempered or aggressive in nature were seen to be influenced by

such games which enhanced their aggressive nature even further as they were already vulnerable

to such factors. Another thing which was noticed that those who are exposed to such games even

for a brief duration showed temporary signs of aggressiveness. In many studies which were

conducted, it was observed that violent games indeed play a role in increasing the level of

aggressiveness in a person even when they play them for a short duration. (Anderson. CA, 2010;

Centre for Educational Neuroscience, n.a).

Based on the studies appearing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
APA. It was also seen that video-games that are violent were more harmful compared
to TV shows as these games are more interactive. (American Psychological
Association, 2000)

Those individuals who are short tempered or aggressive in nature were seen to be
influenced by such games which enhanced their aggressive nature even further as
they were already vulnerable to such factors. Another thing which was noticed that
those who are exposed to such games even for a brief duration showed temporary
signs of aggressiveness. In many studies which were conducted, it was observed that
violent games indeed plays a role in inducing/increasing the level of aggressiveness in
a person even when they play them for a short duration.( Anderson. CA, 2010; Centre
for Educational Neuroscience, n.a)

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 1.3 Is there any scientific evidence to support the claims that violent games

contribute to aggressive and violent behaviour?

In the first study which was carried out involved students (227) who went through several

measures to identify traits related to aggressiveness and they also mentioned about their past

aggression. The author Anderson stated that- "We found that students who reported playing more

violent video games in junior and high school engaged in more aggressive behavior. We also

found that amount of time spent playing video games in the past was associated with lower

academic grades in college."

Now in another study, college students were the participants (210) who played Wolfenstein 3D

(violent) or Myst (non-violent). Those who played the first games tend to punish the opponent a

lot longer than the students who played nonviolent games.

"Violent video games provide a forum for learning and practicing aggressive solutions to

conflict situations. In the short run, playing a violent video game appears to affect aggression by

priming aggressive thoughts. Longer-term effects are likely to be longer lasting as well, as the

player learns and practices new aggression-related scripts that can become more and more

accessible for use when real-life conflict situations arise." (Anna. T, 2018).

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1.4 Is there any scientific evidence to support the claims that violent games contribute to
aggressive and violent behaviour?

In the first study which was carried out involved students (227) who went through a
number of measures to identify traits related to aggressiveness and they also
mentioned about their past aggression. The author Anderson stated that- "We found
that students who reported playing more violent video games in junior and high
school engaged in more aggressive behaviour. We also found that amount of time
spent playing video games in the past was associated with lower academic grades in
college."

Now in another study, college students were the participants (210) who played
Wolfenstein 3D (violent) or Myst (non-violent). Those who played the first games
tend to punish the opponent a lot longer than the students who played nonviolent
games.

"Violent video games provide a forum for learning and practicing aggressive
solutions to conflict situations. In the short run, playing a violent video game appears
to affect aggression by priming aggressive thoughts. Longer-term effects are likely to
be longer lasting as well, as the player learns and practices new aggression-related
scripts that can become more and more accessible for use when real-life conflict
situations arise." (Anna. T, 2018)

1.5 Does time spent on video games affect children productivity? (Negative effects)

Anand (2007) correlated the factor - time spent and the scores like GPA and other
examination obtained by students. They noticed that there was a decreased in the
score obtained by the individuals during examination. This was seen to be more
prominent in males than females as the males play a lot more video games than the
females. Another paper by which improved on this by studying the addiction vs

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 simple engagement with video games. It was found that individuals addicted to video
games had an underwhelming performance when it came to academia. (Wright J,
2011)

Why should we be concerned about children playing violent video games?

Based on the research conducted by the Center of Mental Health and Media at Massachusetts
General Hospital funded by the Justice department of US, they worked to determine the impact
video games had on young individuals. Along with this study there are many other studies which
were conducted showed that the subsets chosen for the research i.e. the youths were seen to have
higher aggression level after they played a video game which was violent. The changes were
broadly classified into three domains which were Personality, motivation and situation.

First, we will look at the Personality trait where Dr. Patrick Markey of Villanova
University and Dr. Charlotte Markey of Rutgers University, two psychologist
provided significant evidence that there were few children when subjected to violent
games (both by watching and playing) had increased levels of aggression. They
reviewed their research and determined that there were a combination of traits which
caused the individual to act more aggressive after playing a violent game. These traits
were neuroticism which is the individual experiences more than average level of
anger, emotion and depression, disagreeableness where people are “cold” towards
other people and then lastly low conscientiousness level which leads to people acting
before thinking, rule breakers and lack the ability to keep up their promises.

Second is Situation, Dr. Cheryl Olson, cofounder of the Massachusetts General

Hospital Center for Mental Health and Media, conducted a study which consisted of
1,254 youths from public schools ranging from age 12-14-year-old. They found that
situation like locating the console/computer or allowing the younger kids to access
games which their older siblings play have led to increase in aggression when
compared to the kids who are more mature in age i.e. 17 or above.(twice the rate).

At last, Motivation is the third domain which was identified. Dr. Mizuko Ito, a
cultural anthropologist at the University of California, studied the behaviour and also

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 interviewed of youths (800) who played online and later concluded that playing
online video games have become common amongst the youngsters and it has altered
the way they socialize. When asked they answered that they play games so as to play
with their friends and have fun. They are motivated to play games as to be
competitive with their friends which later expands even further. This shows that
today’s youths consider online gaming as a mode of “hanging out” with their friends
rather than going out. (Havard Publishing, 2010)

Conclusion

Based on the information obtained from the literature, I can say that violent games do have
harmful effects on children as they are not mentally matured enough to understand and break
down the information they obtain. Computer games are something that almost every teenager
indulges in these days and I am no different to this notion. I have been playing computer games
for a while now where I have not only found this newfound hobby, but I also feel like it is
something that keeps my mind more active than any other activity did before. Computer games
mean a lot to me personally, as I spent a good amount of time playing them on a regular basis.

All the data obtained from the literature provide enough evidence that violent games does
influence the behaviour of the young people. Its not only kids even adults can be affected by
violent games, but the adults are mentally matured enough to differentiate between virtual and
reality and what kind of information is to be taken from the games being played. The time spent
by people also depends as seen from the literature.

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 1. Reference

 American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. “Children and Video Games:

Playing with Violence”. Aacap.Org, 2011,

https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-

Guide/Children-and-Video-Games-Playing-with-Violence-91.aspx.

 American Psychological Association. “Violent Video Games Can Increase Aggression.”

Apa.Org, 2020, https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2000/04/video-games.

 Anderson CA, et al. “Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and

Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review”. (2020).

 Anna T. Prescott, James D. Sargent, Jay G. Hull. Metaanalysis of the relationship

between violent video game play and physical aggression over time. Proceedings of the

National Academy of Sciences, 2018; 115 (40): 9882 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1611617114

 Awadalla, Nabil, et al. "Association of video gaming with some risky behaviors of

secondary school adolescents in Abha, Southwestern Saudi Arabia." Journal of Egyptian

Public Health Association 92.1 (2017): 18-28.

 Centre for Educational Neuroscience. "Violent Video Games Make Children More

Violent". Centre for Educational Neuroscience, 2020,

http://www.educationalneuroscience.org.uk/resources/neuromyth-or-neurofact/violent-

video-games-make-children-more-violent/.

 Dodgson, L. "There's Even More Evidence That Video Games Could Be Making

Children Violent". Business Insider, 2018, https://www.businessinsider.in/science/theres-

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 even-more-evidence-that-video-games-could-be-making-children-

violent/articleshow/66040588.cms.

 Groves, Christopher L., et al. "Negative effects of video game play." (2015).

 Harvard Publishing. "Violent Video Games and Young People - Harvard Health".

Harvard Health, 2020, https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/violent-video-

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 Hughes, E. “Effect of Video Games on Child Development”. Vanderbilt, 2014,

 Iowa State University. "Violent Video Games Are A Risk Factor for Criminal Behaviour

and Aggression • News Service • Iowa State University". News.Iastate.Edu, 2013,

https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2013/03/26/violentvideogames.

 Kühn, S., Kugler, D., Schmalen, K. et al. Does playing violent video games cause

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 my.vanderbilt.edu/developmentalpsychologyblog/2014/04/effect-of-video-gameson-

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  Team, RWJF. "Defining and Understanding Violent Video Games." RWJF. N.p., 2020.

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article=1197&context=mps.

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