Games Can Lead to Aggressive Behaviour

Playing violent video games can change the behaviour of people, a leading professor in psychology has told Checkpoint Magazine. 

In an interview with the upcoming issue of Checkpoint Magazine, Dr. Douglas Gentile; professor of developmental psychology at Iowa State University, has said that younger adults and children can be negatively impacted by violent video games by subtle changes in their behaviour towards other people.

Although it’s rare, Dr. Gentile referred to a study in which he studied 3000 children over three years, measuring how long they spent playing violent video games.

Looking at three specific aggressive cognitions; Hostile Attribution Bias (HAB) – attributing hostility to other people’s actions,  Normative Beliefs About Aggression (NBAA) – how acceptable it is to behave aggressively when provoked and Aggressive Fantasies (AF) – how much time one spends thinking about how you’d like to hurt other people.

The study showed that children playing violent video games had an increase in HAB and that playing violent games allows you to rehearse AF.

“Kids playing more violent video games at the beginning of the study, all these three types of cognition increase over the three years of the study and by the end of the study they’re behaving more physically aggressively.” Gentile says.

This reinforcement in-game could lead to different ways to deal with certain real-world situations, Gentile uses the example of being bumped by someone in the hall.

With all of his practice in-game, this small shift on how to react can be heavily influenced by a video game. Someone playing violent games has been rewarded in-game for reacting, therefore this might give them false psychological sense of righteousness and empower them to do something that they learnt in game. But Gentile is quick to point out that this doesn’t mean that if it turns into a full on fight, the result is going to be what that kid expects. It won’t look anything like a video game scene because it’s in the real world.

“So kids aren’t COPYING what they see in game. What it does is that it changes the way in which we perceive the world and the way we think. And we take the way we perceive the world and the way we think everywhere. And it subtly shifts the odds a little bit.”

It’s important to note that this only occurs to a small minority of gamers, however it is something that needs to be monitored and reiterates the importance of playing age appropriate games and being aware of the time spent in video games.

“When scientists talk about games talking about games causing aggression, what we mean is shift the odds in a reliable way. It doesn’t actually mean that it makes them go out and shoot someone. We mean it in the same way we mean smoking causes cancer. It changes the odds. It’s not the only thing.” Gentile says.

More to come in the upcoming issue of Checkpoint Magazine, with tips on how parents can help offset some of the negative impacts of games.