Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior (opens in new tab)

I think the idea is that guns and bombs and such are cool, and probably lots of people have the impulse to just let loose some destructive volley, blow something up, shoot stuff, run people over, etc - and video games let them do that without consequence. If you saw someone playing GTA and they were running over drug dealers and having shoot outs with the police - that seems like a pretty wild and fun fantasy. Conversely, if they murdered an NPC, then found that NPC's grieving family members and kept dragging the murdered NPC's body in front of them to make them depressed - that would be more atypical.

In other words - if the fantasy you're indulging is being powerful (guns, bombs, using the car destructively) - then that's pretty normal. If the fantasy you're indulging is sadistic, that's pretty abnormal.

The game industry is growing faster every year because the demand for an escape from the dull grind is rising just as fast. The violence is just a peripheral aspect of it.

Another aspect is that it's easier to recognize violence as fictitious. When you are exposed to real-life violence, it feels completely different from anything you've ever experienced in media. There is simply no confusing the two. On the other hand, sexual content tends to be more directly related to the act itself or to complicated emotions around it, even if the material is recognized as fictitious. Sometimes the content IS the act, if we take into account that for a large number of individuals the main draw is the exposure itself.

Unlike with fictitious violence, the tastes of the player/watcher/consumer are in plain view, and we know that these tastes can then easily become behaviors. Much more is revealed than we would care to see. That is why is it considered much more abhorrent.

Part of the equation is that combat is interesting to simulate. It has clear rules ( live or die ), a lot of different ways you can tweak the game design to differentiate ( swords vs guns vs spells vs karate ).

The most popular games are NOT that violent. They simulate combat, but the draw is the competition created by the simulation, not the blood and guts. I can't name a game where "chopping people up" is the primary goal. I'm sure it exists, but I would find it dishonesty to disparage an entire medium because of the work of some niche game developer.

I didn't grow up during a time when you could go out and wander the streets all day and your parents would be OK with that. You had to be home. Having friends over and competing over video games was a great way to pass the time. The game we played the most? Super Smash Bros. Rated E, 0 realistic simulations of violence, about as bad as any slapstick film.

I'll also note that most mainstream action movies and games tend to de-emphasize the goriness and injuries from violence (although gore-flicks also exist, especially in the horror genre). Compare a James Bond movie to a more realistic depiction like Saving Private Ryan. When James Bond shoots unnamed bad guys, they neatly fall over with minimal blood. When he blows people up, you don't usually see any blood or dismemberment. They just get thrown by the explosion and lie dead (but intact) on the ground.

My guess is they do this because the audience isn't watching for the injury aspect of violence, and gore can turn off some viewers. I think the violence in action movies (and games) is more about the protagonist winning. It's the competitive aspect we like. The power fantasy. The protagonist showing incredible skill.

As for graphical realism in games, I don't really know of any that specifically focused on making the killing more realistic (I'm sure some exist, I just don't know them). I've seen games advertise realistic lighting, shadows, reflection, environments, water, faces, gun models, etc. When they make everything more realistic, the violence may get more realistic along with it, but it doesn't seem to be the main focus.

The stories of most of these games are close to a hero fantasy. Having the people you shot scream in terrible agony as their organs fell out wouldn't exactly work with that theme.

Ultimately games and moves are fantasies. But for some reason living out some fantasies that would be very wrong in real life is ok, but others it’s not. I hesitate to even get into the really taboo subjects like for example pedophilia.

Remember the controversy around the game "Hatred", where you play some random angry "antagonist" who just wants to kill innocent people? When the "good guy" narrative breaks down this far, society would reject violent video games as well.

There are games that toe the "good guy" line, most notably Grand Theft Auto. But GTA also has some of the most tame looking violence. I cannot imagine a GTA with the "sadistic gaze" of Mortal Kombat's finishers being widely accepted.

This is especially more palatable if non-humans on receiving the violence. There is strong interest in killing aliens/monsters/demons/robots, but I think it's safe to say there is comparatively little interest in having sex with them. I say "comparatively little" and not "none", because Rule 34.

We have a double standard when it comes to imaginary evil that is simply violent and imaginary evil that is repugnant. Make a game about shooting a thousand people and it may win game of the year. Make a game about avoiding prosecution while abusing your virtual pet dog and you'll probably lose your job.

Also sex is generally taboo way more than just murder. Soldier killin people - good. Even innocent women if it's indirect enough like bombing. Soldier raping people? Oh, no, we can't have that!

Also not all murder is equally safe for entertainment. Chopping enemies on the battlefield - great. Stalking innocent people in the city to murder them... Way more on the edge of what's acceptable. Even gunning down civilians in the airport raised some eyebrows.

As I'm getting older I'm getting softer. Recently I was sad because I unintentionally squashed Jeff in Half-Life Alyx, blind mutant that was pretty much helpless if you were careful about the sounds you make. Game characters cheering totally didn't sit well with me.

One way to look at it is violence in video games is a mechanism for “completing a mission” (neutralize those preventing it), financial ends, or survival (whether your pursuers have good reason or not). Those things are tangentially related to our day to day lives but the farthest end of what most people might consider themselves capable of doing in pursuit of extreme success or survival. Plus, death is a normal part of life, so is death by force. It’s normalized in modern life.

But in terms of sexual violence, there’s no real world corollary of survival or prosperity mapped to something so heinous. The real life perpetrator feels some twisted satisfaction over another person, but that’s it. It doesn’t preserve an individuals life or advance their station in life. So it’s not relatable to the majority of folks, even in the deep parts of their mind on what they’d be realistically capable of doing to just live or survive.

I am amazed that there's so much hypocrisy around different categories of violence in fiction. It's even worse than other manifestations of hypocrisy, because this one seems completely invisible to people — I don't recall having seen this discussed anywhere until I read your comment today.

Case in point: when https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Serbian_Film came out, there was so much talk about it being immoral and/or illegal, and so many (eventually successful) calls to boycott, censor and ban. I have not watched the film, and I do not think I'll ever watch it, because judging by what I read about it, it seems utterly disgusting and horrifying. Disgusting to the level of scenes depicting the raping of a newborn, and the most imaginative mix of necrophilia, torture, rape, and gore. I think I could not stand it, and if I forced myself to watch it, I suspect I'd have nightmares (literally). So what follows is by no means a defence of this particular work, nor an endorsement of gloating over the most extreme and shocking forms of violence an artist/performer can conceive.

At the same time, there are so many depictions of violence in mainstream film, games, TV and literature. By far, most of that violence is done to male characters (and incidentally, also by male characters). That violence is usually not sexual in nature.

As Vladimir Nabokov put it, art has to be transgressive and shocking.

One more idea to consider: violence (as most things) comes in gradations. Murder > torture > punch > pinch. Rape > harassment. Actual violence > threat of violence. Violence to several people > violence to one. Sadistic violence > plain violence > violence as self-defence > physically restraining an aggressor. Violence committed taking advantage of physical superiority > violence among equals. Etc. There is no gradation, however, contingent on the sex of the victim nor on the sex of the perpetrator: violence towards men ≡ violence towards women.

Why then, it is so controversial to depict rape or sexual abuse, but so commonplace to rejoice in depictions of murder, torture and physical aggression?

I think you're operating under the false assumption that simulating sexual violence is taboo. I'm not sure that's a given: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_fantasy

I don't think that's a natural conclusion. Video games are a form of entertainment (or art). They are pretty young. There's usually a period where an art form gets super into "realism" because it's still a challenge and a way to communicate "high production values".

Then pretty good realism becomes cheap and widely available - and the art form pivots to more expressive works that go beyond chasing "realism". So why are high budget games trying to get more photorealistic? Because it's currently an effective way to communicate "high quality work of entertainment, worth at least 60 bucks". It has little to do with the actual entertainment value.

For example the entertainment media on the one hand say that entertainment does not influence people via depictions of violence, etc., to emulate such things. On the other hand they say that how people are portrayed for positive role models “I could be that person” they are necessary and instrumental and thus the need for representing a cross section of the population. Yet on the other hand they would (with good reason) resist showing only positive plots (ala modified 1950s but contemporary).

I agree though. If sexual violence is a non starter then so should lethal violence be a non starter. Else there is a non sequitur in reason.

Straight up torture - a person who is captive, has already surrendered, etc is not “fair game” in any sense of the word, not even by a stretch. They cannot shoot back, etc.

The same goes for sexual violence. If a character is raping another, the victim has to be incapacitated.

If we were a society of black widow spiders, then I’m sure sexual violence would be fair game because it would be very risky for the male.

Also on the evolutionary side, it was beneficial for us men to deal with violence and agression, to either defend our own stuff, or take that from others.

We're basically still training for when the day comes, we are able to survive. Good thing for most of us in the modern world, that day will never come. And so we can enjoy training in the risk free environment.

I think "simulated" sexual violence (that is to say, real-but-consensual violence, as well as other forms of simulated coercion) is pretty close to just as mainstream, people just don't talk about it as much.

Rick is not a real casting agent, and there is no job.

>Many video games are essentially simulators of things that we're prevented from doing in reality, because of the laws of nature or society. Whether that's dropping blocks into place, building a city, chasing and eating ghosts, flying a plane, performing magic spells, or engaging in physical violence.

I've played a lot of ultra-violent games, puzzle games, adventure rpg games, competitive shooters and mobas and more.

I've become quite skilled in most of them (t500 in OW and GE in CS:GO, to compare to competitive skill levels). I really enjoy "mastering" these games. (for example finished Doom: Eternal on the hardest not allowed to die mode too). This is ultimately what it's about more than the killing of monsters/people. It's about trying to survive impossible odds by skill or competing with other people to be better and get better. Your mileage will vary as this isn't what other people want to get out of games. Some people enjoy managing a farm in games like Stardew Valley, building things in Minecraft, solving puzzles in Portal and enjoy the story and gameplay whilst doing so.

>And there's a never-ending push to make experiences more photorealistic, to make simulator even better. From that I can only conclude that people want to get as close to the experience of perfoming the prevented act as possible.

Making games look better goes hand-in-hand with making them look more 'photorealistic' or realistic in general. We're very much grounded in our own realities. So when you're going for a 3d experience that emulates real life events like wars. You will end up with something that looks more photorealistic. It doesn't however mean that the game feels real. Playing a game like insert recent AAA fps is a very different experience from watching the Christchurch shooting. The latter makes me sick to my stomach, the former doesn't at all. NPCs are ultimately just visual representations of people, the latter actual people.

>Chopping someone up is heavily frowned upon in real life, but perfectly acceptable to emulate in someone's living room. Somehow the simulation escapes the taboo. And that escape seems to be absolute: In the range of violent acts you could commit, from a gentle nudge to grisly murder, simulation of the most extreme extent is permitted.

It's a thought I think almost no one actually has when it comes to murdering people. Hell this might even have the same effect as pornography, namely a reduction in crimes related to it. (Porn availability on a societal level reduces the amount of sex crimes). So a potential murdering being able to 'chop "people" to bits in a simulation' might be a good thing. For me it has no effect, I've never had the thought of murdering people let alone how. At most I've had a "I hope you die" moment, and then regretting thinking that.

>But if that's the case, why is the realistic simulation of some societal taboos (e.g. physical violence to the point of murder) mainstream, but others (e.g. sexual violence in any of its forms) not? They are both very serious offences, but somehow one gets a free pass to let anyone pretend to do it, but the other not.

Though certainly not mainstream, this might also have to do with general taboos on porn, this could become a thing in the future especially with VR. A lot of people have very taboo sexual fantasies the they enact with partners. We know that this is the case, but it rarely gets openly talked about due to the former taboo mentioned.

>Is it a reflection on the ultimate limits of those taboos in the society that produces most of these games? Or is my logic broken somewhere?

I think your logic is indeed a little broken, as different taboos are taboos for different reasons. Hopefully I made some sense.

EDIT: sorry, not western culture, American culture, particularly.

The same reason people have been reading horror novels for hundreds of years? A good book and an imagination is a lot more realistic than a computer game, IMO. The reason society gives it a pass is partly because they are entertaining and partly because they are considered free speech, the latter being a fundamental human right.

Compare reactions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QFvEzIzQwg

My favorite was where they used the volume of hot sauce poured into a cup as the measure of aggression.

Hopefully they've come up with some better ways of measuring it since then.

This "kids need adult supervision" is a relatively new thing, we used to be sent out to play as kids for HOURS (be home by dinner) and ran the woods and parks or played murderball (soccer with tackling) and other forms of roughhousing, all without serious mayhem. Parents would let us "work it out" if there was a fight.

The problems is that as parents we often just group all kids together in how we treat them. They think it's either one way or the other for all kids rather than treating them as individuals with different experiences and different minds.

The one thing I have seen to be true amongst all my peers children is that if you talk to them and treat them like adults, they are much more likely to act like adults at a younger age. That is to say, take into consideration their experience and feelings any time you want to intervene or have an interaction.

*not parenting advice, just imho. apply as you see fit.

I used to teach kids for many years, and I noticed the "helicopter parents" tended to have more mischievous children, presumably because these kids rarely feel intrinsically motivated to do anything (it's always coming from the parents).

It turns out their society started looking after their weakest and made decisions based on consent.

Meanwhile, the book just confirms everyone's beliefs not only about children but mankind itself, namely of a Hobbesian/Darwinian/Randian rule-of-the-strongest being the natural state of affairs.

At 5, now they mostly get along fine. Unless they get in her toys. Then it's bodyslam time.

That your children do this I think speaks more to your aptitude as a parent and nurturer than human nature in general.

and less so, more peterson spam, as it were.

https://youtu.be/txyGqaeAMbQ?t=27

Post-freudian hydraulic metaphor of emotions. That one's about as outdated as psychological views get.

We have experimental data that punching things when you are mad doesn't make you less mad, to give the most straight forward example.

> Plus its a good aggression outlet for young boys.

This is one of the standing theories why the influx of those types of games in the 90s coincided so perfectly with a drop in crime. A closely related one is games in general, as "gives them something to do instead of go out and cause trouble".

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii45/oversaturated/2r6ns4...

My kids play video-game, I play video-game, and I have nothing against it. However an excessive exposition is a pattern that i can relate to ADHD.

In my experience, there's definitely negative and positive correlations to my mood, curiosity, patience, and productivity.

This study didn't conclude that the media you consume had no effect. It merely reported observed effects and concluded that playing a lot of violent video games as a child is a poor predictor of aggression later in life. That's it.

As another commenter above noted, it's a form of wish fulfillment and imaginary transgression, which is particularly appealing to teenage boys, since virtually all forms of actual aggression are off limits. Sports are the only arena where boys are allowed to be physically aggressive in real. Other than that, we have an entire group of young people who once would have been learning to hunt and kill and defend their clan but who now have to sit around and do very little besides read, write, and stare at computers. Arguably it's a positive thing to have less violence, but it leads many young men to wonder why the hell their bodies are strong and powerful. In video games, they at least get to pretend that there is some utility to being able to be forceful.

In the case of video games, there are some that are mindless violence, but The Last of Us Part II is an example of a game that reflects on those and show the real outcome of what people can do to each other and how evil and pointless it can be.

> [...] How is that entertaining?

I know what you mean. I have the same feelings, but restricted to depictions in my native language of people hurting each other in psychologically realistic ways.

I'm not bothered with any physical violence especially voiced with English dialogues. They somehow seem cartoonish to me.

But I pretty much have to avoid all Polish movies because they often use those really unpleasant themes.

They are made because they have audience. I have friends who love those movies and themes.

I tried to find out, what exactly appeals to them in those themes and best I could get out of them was that those brutal themes are somehow more 'real', that they expose how people 'truly' are. And that somehow has a value for them.

Probably morbid fascination pays a part in this too.

I tend to agree, and the "rekt/gore" threads on 4chan strike me as particularly low-hanging fruit.

So the problem is that the weapons be realistic?

I've always noted that rather extreme violence has always been a case of children's entertainment — in something such as Looney Tunes, the characters are frequently the subject of violence that would surely kill a man. Is this acceptable because it's not realistic?

I havent seen this personally, but isn't this more of an American tendency than a general western thing? On the American side media violence is penalized less (in terms of adult ratings) than nudity/sex while across the ocean you see the opposite trend.

Can anyone with more exposure to European (or Aussie/Kiwi) media confirm/deny this? I'm curious to hear the reason why if true.

Even if (war) video games were to be made “gorier”, bloodier, more brutal one still doesn’t experience losing someone, re-building a life in a country that has been bombed to ruins, or dealing with the aftermath such as physical wounds or mental trauma.

The entertainment is designed to make you feel good and make you feel like soldiers are overall good heroes.

Same reason a study with positive outcomes about coffee/alcohol/gay parenthood/gender reassignment/<insert issue> are not criticized as much as a study on the same topic that had negative outcomes. We want certain things to be true so we (consciously or not) avoid criticizing studies bolstering what we want to be true and harshly criticize studies we want to be false.

I like to think science always prevails in the end (like with tobacco), but it can take half a century or more to converge on the truth.

My rule for analyzing social science articles is pretty simple: If the study contradicts your intuition or understanding of human behavior, it is likely that it does not support the conclusion because of extensive methodological errors or statistical skullduggery.

If, on the other hand, the study confirms your intuition or understanding of human behavior, it is likely that it does not support the conclusion because of extensive methodological errors or statistical skullduggery.

So since we have learned that violent song lyrics does not cause anti-social behavior in teens, nor that of violent movies, it seems as a good default stance that neither does violent video games. I would also default the same stance to porn consumption, based on the same logic.

I would prefer if we got a final study that gave a definitive answer if consumption of fiction causes anti-social behavior. It seems to me that fiction is simply an medium for which people can safely explore cultural norms, but in terms of causing anti-social behavior we would need to look at social environment and biochemical triggers for social behavior.

It's very hard to argue video games and crime are linked when the curves are:

https://i.imgur.com/hSHDyoH.png

https://cdn.statcdn.com/Statistic/190000/191219-blank-355.pn...

Of course it's possible that the link is small and other factors overpower it. But it's unlikely, and given the everyday experience with people who play games and people who are violent - there's very little evidence of any link.

So indeed we fail to the confirmation bias. Or, said in other words: "ordinary claims require very little evidence".

The literature on pornography is more mixed and contentious, though. On violent video games and "gaming addiction", there seems to be less and less going for the hypothesis that they cause violence or aggression.

However, from what reading I've done, you will find that longitudinal results in porn and video games are dissonant with experimental results in lab settings. This suggests that while there are effects, they do not persist to the level thought. More complex models (such as the confluence model in porn effects research) which try and explain apparent hidden variables are also gaining steam. There are actually only four or five major contemporary figures in porn effects research; Wright and Tokunaga finding that porn has negative effects on everyone; Hald and Malamuth finding that the main or only worry only lies in those low in agreeableness and predisposed to aggressive behaviour.

To a bunch of gamers and porn-users (including myself in both of those categories), these things are either things we spend a lot of time doing (for a portion of HN, I suspect their entire leisure time is taken up by video games), or they are very personal and private. Nothing is more personal than what we get off to, so any analysis of porn tends to be taken as an assault on sexuality itself (though interestingly, much as with advertising or propaganda, the very same sexuality cultivated by porn consumption).

I've tried discussing the literature on video games, porn, violence, aggression, and morality before on both HN and Reddit, and the discussion is either ignored or shot down with downvotes because any discussion at all feels like a personal attack.

I'd recommend for anyone interested in the topic of video games and aggression or behaviour, and indeed the hot topic of "video game addiction" to check out the papers by CJ Ferguson, who has a positive view on video games. At the same time, check out the people he replies to and the people replying to him. It's ridiculous to draw any conclusion from a study that happens to reach the top of HN.

I think you're seeing an important difference between acceptance of a conclusion versus agreement with it. I doubt this study is changing anyone's minds.

Besides: claims of a link between violent video games and aggressive behavior was never backed by anything other than assumptive moral arguments, much less studies (or even coherent reasoning and valid logic).

Thise leaves bias from confirmation of existing beliefs along with more anecdotal evidence not directly connected to videogames, such as decreasing crime rates over the period of time that videogames have become more violent. However relying on that correlation alone is a post hoc ergo proper hoc fallacy.

In short, we simply don't know enough about the study to overcome comment with substance, at the same time that the study corresponds to conclusions based on similar research. I'm hesitant to declare "confirmation bias" though when it does ostensibly confirm other research, though it's not really a replication, so I'd withhold final judgement.

For one fun field, look at the level of criticism papers in parapsychology (the study of the paranormal) and compare it to if they get more criticism or not than the average paper in psychology. There is a particularly fun study (which I do not recall the name of) where two scientists teamed up, one who thought parapsychology was a true field and one who thought it was fake. They worked together on the same experiment and each produced results that agreed with them, but neither could find a flaw in the other's methodology or results (other than they disagree with their own results).

Design this game with negative stereotypes and see how many people suddenly flip on how they think about the influence of the in-game social and anti-social aspects.

But that's true for more than just multiplayer video games. Sports come to mind. Basically anything involving intense competition and taunting is going to cause a temporary increase in aggressive behavior.

If does not study at all the actual issue most of those who lived with excessive gamers (whether kid or adult) have. Meaning, annoying aggression right after playing and verbal abuse toward household members because they dare to exist if same flat where he lost the match.

Not saying I'm not desensitized to fake on-screen violence (I eat comfortably watching The Walking Dead), I just think horror being scary has nothing to do with violence being scary.

I've seen quite some real gore online, similar to many online people. I don't know how it affects my psychology. I like to think it has at least some positive effects, like not fainting and less of a shock if I need to act in such a situation. But maybe real world violence seen through my eyeballs not through a screen is a whole another thing again. Maybe hearing and seeing real abuse is not something you can "prepare for" through gore videos.

Sure, but that’s my problem with this whole thing.

Some idiots and media claimed there was some obvious links to violence and video games to use as reasoning for increased government control... and now the push back is NO NEVER HAPPENS!

But in some people yes, of course it hurts. There are definitely some people who are unstable and seeing hyper-graphic depictions of violent mutilation is not healthy. There are some people in the opposite.

These studies always end with a DEFINITE correlation or lack of. The truth is obviously it’s a scale. And while the result is yes, some people might be negatively effected that doesn’t mean the population at large needs to be “protected” with censorship.

I really hate the black and white of this.

Here's an article of a 16yo killing his parents because his iPod was taken away: https://time.com/138601/teen-kills-parents-because-they-took.... You'd be jumping the gun if you looked at his most played tracks and concluded that Bruce Springsteen or the iPod's uni-wheel interface caused violence, though I'm slightly more open-minded to those ideas.

A similar question worth considering is whether or not violent people are drawn to violent videogames. In my somewhat-informed opinion, they are, and that's significant.

There is nothing pointing to a causative relationship here.

With possible exception of multiplayer games that you loose too much. Those things can enrage you.

From that same section of the article.

> Author Disclosure Statement: No competing financial interests exist

> Funding Information: No funding was received for this article.

The effort and skill required to play a multiplayer game back then may have been part of this.

‘Who’s got a spare terminator?’

damn. that was unexpected