Video Game Violence
Girl I’m writing a paper for.
Do Violent Video Games Converge With Real Life?
Recently in America, there has been an explosion of anti-gun sentiment due to recent shootings, however no one has looked at the cause. What conditions a human being to preform these horrendous acts? Well, according to a myriad of parents, it’s video games. The claim is video games are actually psychological conditioners that cause a child, or player of any age, to lash out and perform violent acts. The scope of this paper will be violent video games’ effect on aggressive behavior as to negate the “educational” video game argument and to avoid gun debate. There are three schools of thought on the subject: video games psychologically condition one to become desensitized, video games have little to no effect on the player, and that video games actually have a therapeutic effect on the player. The claim that video games deteriorate prosocial behavior and promote malevolent acts is prevalent in the American media and is emphatically preached by big names like Mitt Romney and Dr. Phil.1 This school of thought began in “1983 when U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop implicated violent video games as a leading cause of family violence.”2 More recent research indicates that 90% of parents do not check ratings on video games before purchase so this violence is easily accessible.3 These games stimulate many psychological variables, such as aggressive schema, and even stimulate mechanic variables, heart rate, so a player is fully enthralled in the experience and ready to be conditioned.4 With the player ready to be conditioned, the content of the game comes into play. In prevalent “M” rated games there is often highly aggressive material that psychologically arouses the player while at the same time destroying prosocial behavior.5 This is because in these violent games, such as GTA and Saint’s Row, players are allowed to relive these morally repulsive acts over and over until it becomes
Do Violent Video Games Converge With Real Life?
Recently in America, there has been an explosion of anti-gun sentiment due to recent shootings, however no one has looked at the cause. What conditions a human being to preform these horrendous acts? Well, according to a myriad of parents, it’s video games. The claim is video games are actually psychological conditioners that cause a child, or player of any age, to lash out and perform violent acts. The scope of this paper will be violent video games’ effect on aggressive behavior as to negate the “educational” video game argument and to avoid gun debate. There are three schools of thought on the subject: video games psychologically condition one to become desensitized, video games have little to no effect on the player, and that video games actually have a therapeutic effect on the player. The claim that video games deteriorate prosocial behavior and promote malevolent acts is prevalent in the American media and is emphatically preached by big names like Mitt Romney and Dr. Phil.1 This school of thought began in “1983 when U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop implicated violent video games as a leading cause of family violence.”2 More recent research indicates that 90% of parents do not check ratings on video games before purchase so this violence is easily accessible.3 These games stimulate many psychological variables, such as aggressive schema, and even stimulate mechanic variables, heart rate, so a player is fully enthralled in the experience and ready to be conditioned.4 With the player ready to be conditioned, the content of the game comes into play. In prevalent “M” rated games there is often highly aggressive material that psychologically arouses the player while at the same time destroying prosocial behavior.5 This is because in these violent games, such as GTA and Saint’s Row, players are allowed to relive these morally repulsive acts over and over until it becomes
Citations: Anderson, Craig A., & Bushman, B.J. (1997). External validity of "trivial" experiments: The case of laboratory aggression