New Study: Game Violence Makes Players Less Angry
New Study: Game Violence Makes Players Less Angry
April 2, 2008
The body of game violence research gets a bit more cluttered and confusing with today's release of a new study which holds that violent gaming can actually be relaxing and make players less angry.As reported by Game Daily, Researcher Jane Barnett and a team from Middlesex University will present their findings at the annual conference of the British Psychological Society. From Game Daily:
For the study, 292 male and female World of Warcraft players, aged between 12 and 83, were given a questionnaire on anger, aggression and personality. The participants then played the game for two hours and then completed the survey yet again. Ultimately, the results showed that "the gamers were more likely to feel calm or tired after playing – but there were differences depending on sex, age and personality."
Said Barnett:
There were actually higher levels of relaxation before and after playing the game as opposed to experiencing anger but this did very much depend on personality type. This will help us to develop a emotion and gaming questionnaire to help distinguish the type of gamer who is likely to transfer their online aggression into everyday life.
GP: While it's always welcome to see a study which shines some positive light on gaming, we're not so sure the T-rated WoW is the game by which to make that call. It's rather a different playing experience than, say GTA or COD4.
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Posted 03/21/10 at 06:23pm
Andrew Eisen: No, I think I'll stay safe and warm in my own little world where Provolone is king and that... other cheese... doesn't exist.
Andrew Eisen: No, I think I'll stay safe and warm in my own little world where Provolone is king and that... other cheese... doesn't exist.
Posted 03/21/10 at 06:22pm
JDKJ: I wish the Speaker would ask me for what purpose does the member rise.
JDKJ: I wish the Speaker would ask me for what purpose does the member rise.
Posted 03/21/10 at 06:18pm
JDKJ: Provolone?! Please! Try aged Blue Stilton. Also known as Zippy Ass-Crack Cheese.
JDKJ: Provolone?! Please! Try aged Blue Stilton. Also known as Zippy Ass-Crack Cheese.
Posted 03/21/10 at 06:13pm
Andrew Eisen: Nothing beats Provolone.
Andrew Eisen: Nothing beats Provolone.
Posted 03/21/10 at 06:11pm
JDKJ: Betcha my cheese beats your cheese.
JDKJ: Betcha my cheese beats your cheese.
Posted 03/21/10 at 06:09pm
Andrew Eisen: I don't know, I can count pretty high with my graphing calculator. It's a TI-86!
Andrew Eisen: I don't know, I can count pretty high with my graphing calculator. It's a TI-86!
Posted 03/21/10 at 06:07pm
JDKJ: There'll be more dead babies than you can count if the socialists succeed in passing that God-damned Obamacare!!
JDKJ: There'll be more dead babies than you can count if the socialists succeed in passing that God-damned Obamacare!!
Posted 03/21/10 at 06:04pm
Andrew Eisen: Hmm, top 10 child deaths in film. What a great blog post that would make! If I had a blog. And if that hadn't been done a million times before.
Andrew Eisen: Hmm, top 10 child deaths in film. What a great blog post that would make! If I had a blog. And if that hadn't been done a million times before.
Posted 03/21/10 at 06:03pm
JDKJ: Whoa! It's some rotten blue cheese, too.
JDKJ: Whoa! It's some rotten blue cheese, too.
Posted 03/21/10 at 06:00pm
JDKJ: *sighs and smiles* I just cut some cheese.
JDKJ: *sighs and smiles* I just cut some cheese.
Posted 03/21/10 at 05:58pm
Andrew Eisen: Well, just so there's no confusion: implied deaths won't get you to the top of my favorite child-deaths list.
Andrew Eisen: Well, just so there's no confusion: implied deaths won't get you to the top of my favorite child-deaths list.
Posted 03/21/10 at 05:58pm
JDKJ: Most authorities hold that "cut the mustard" mutates and derives from "cut the muster."
JDKJ: Most authorities hold that "cut the mustard" mutates and derives from "cut the muster."
Posted 03/21/10 at 05:56pm
Andrew Eisen: Checked the dictionary. I guess you could cut one definition of muster.
Andrew Eisen: Checked the dictionary. I guess you could cut one definition of muster.
Posted 03/21/10 at 05:56pm
JDKJ: Don't take my word for it. Look it up yourself.
JDKJ: Don't take my word for it. Look it up yourself.
Posted 03/21/10 at 05:55pm
Andrew Eisen: Cut the muster? That wouldn't make a lot of sense. You could pass it sure but cut it?
Andrew Eisen: Cut the muster? That wouldn't make a lot of sense. You could pass it sure but cut it?
Posted 03/21/10 at 05:53pm
JDKJ: As in: "Zippy always cuts the cheese but he never cuts the muster."
JDKJ: As in: "Zippy always cuts the cheese but he never cuts the muster."
Posted 03/21/10 at 05:51pm
JDKJ: And I believe the expression is more properly "cut the muster," not "mustard." Not to be confused with "cut the cheese."
JDKJ: And I believe the expression is more properly "cut the muster," not "mustard." Not to be confused with "cut the cheese."
Posted 03/21/10 at 05:48pm
JDKJ: I kinda like the way it's left to the imagination. Like the shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho.
JDKJ: I kinda like the way it's left to the imagination. Like the shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho.
Posted 03/21/10 at 05:46pm
Andrew Eisen: A flying shoe doesn't quite cut the mustard. If it was shot like a similar scene in Bride of Chucky, Gage's death would rank a lot higher.
Andrew Eisen: A flying shoe doesn't quite cut the mustard. If it was shot like a similar scene in Bride of Chucky, Gage's death would rank a lot higher.
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Comments
Nothing is as calming and soothing as cutting open a pinky with a chainsaw in Doom and Doom 2.
yes, these games are really good stress relief and will make kids less likely to lash out
I mean think about it: who's more likely to go kill someone, a person who let the stress pile up or someone who just took it out in a completely consequence free environment?
As for the 83-year-old WoW gamer...WTF?
I just had a a mental image of my grandpa saying "1 pwnz j00 n008s!!!!1!!!!@!!2"
And it says something that's been needed to be said it depends on the person weather or not anything truly bad is the outcome.
It also helps me to keep my aim somewhere around correct.
"Ok we're gonna sit in this one spot for 30 minutes talk about how we're gonna kill this first mob."
"Ok it's been 30 minutes w're now gonna to perform random amounts of ready checks because I feel like it for the next 30 minutes"
"Ok I'm bored of random ready test everyones on vent so lets kill the mob"
"Ok someone wasn't on vent be ause we're all dead and it's there damn fault I wouldn't let the priests heal.
Can I get a: "Duh!"
See, think of it like a punching bag. By it's very nature, a punching bag is a violent pasttime, training and strengthening your punches. According to most of the British washed-out daytime talk hosts and insane washed-out Zeroth Amendment lawyers a punching bag should make you angrier and more violent the more you use it. However, it's actually a great stress reliever, and you feel less frustrated and less angry afterwards.
It got to the point that when someone would say, "Let's go on a raid!" I would just log off.
I might have liked Raids in WoW if pick-up groups weren't so flakey.
The rating may be T but the game in itself can be taken seriously to the point, like some videos you can find on youtube, where it's like dying is a major setback and the person that just died flips out and goes entirely insane for like.. 30 minutes or more.
Ah. Duly ignored. Next!
I've been told that since I was a kid (is 21), and I've been saying for years that video games can be used as a punching bag for the same reasons.
The choice of game is ironic. If anything you are more likely to get angry from playing this (what with the fustration one gets from noobs or other nonsense) as opposed to any dumb shooter.
The only thing that pisses me off about games is playing on-line and having to interact with asshat people. Which is why I don't play on-line very much. Game to anger me, people do. :)
Now, the hypothesis is that there is a direct relationship between games and violence.
Srudies have reported a WIDE array of statistics. Every thing from positive to negative to short term only to over a long period of time only.
I have to tell ya, if I'm trying to find a conection between A and B, and A is relatively constant but B is all over the place... I'm going to be hard pressed to find the connection.
What people are doing is cherry picking the results to meet with their preconcieved notions or their agenda. Pretty much they are saying things like "A >B" (if we disregard results where A
Picking up where it let off:
... is less than B) or "A =2B" (for these two studies where A =4, B =8 and A =5, B =10).
Even people in the comments show this when they say "Games make me feel this way... except when this happens."
If I come home from a hard day's work, and I get online, and some griefer follows me around, even to other servers... yeah, that would make me angry.
If I'm kicking back on a stormy Saturday, and I'm playing Ace Atorney 3, and I just proved my client innocent, I'm going to feel pretty mellow.
The old ideas will die off as the older generation loses their say in the matter. Look at the current batch of naysayers. It's obvious that they are already in their dotage, some even show signs of dementia.
Who would have guesed that.
I guess some people get vilent easily,others are more relaxed,and games have no relation to it.
It is funny to make people angry and make their on-line game experience less enjoyable? Man you are just a jerk for saying that.
Not always another person, in cases where it's NPC mobs another person can save you from getting ganked
Heh, reminds me of a comment from Warcraft 3's Dwarf Gunner.
"Guns don't kill people, I DO; ha ha!"
I could tell you the answer to that right now.
True that man! LOL!
If there was a true direct link between playing these games and violent acts, you wouldn't be able to leave your apartment without running into some looney on a GTA Frenzy gunning people down.
Do all the studies you want, but crime has gone down nationally every year since 1980. Violent game sales have increased every year since 1980.
In fact, even as a gamer I can't help but draw the same conclusion myself.
games are my vent and i admit it.
when i was stationed on board the JFK i had very little time to my self before i had to be asleep or end up losing sleep.
for a long time i just tried to doze early, or watch vids on my laptop.
after a time i found if i didn't loadup a quick run of Doom 3 or something for kicks and relief my frustrations would just buildup.
so for me a good game is like a punching bag to others.
its a way for me to vent my frustrations (or at least put them aside and forget'em) without actually doing any real harm or damage to anyone/thing.
@Keith K
"officially" shrinks deny cyber addiciton exists (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary...)
but who knows, maybe they'll accept it as reality just to make an argument about it.
That is a very good point! If violent games really did make people psychos America would be bathed in blood ten times over. If would be like that movie "In the Mouth of Madness" with every one running around with axes and machetes hacking people down.
Obviously this is not the case.
So you've never heard of The Older Gamers (www.theoldergamers.com). There's about 20,000 of us now in the community alone covering everything from FPS to strategy games to MMORPG's. Sure the entrance is from 25 onwards, but I know a more than few grandparents that play WoW.
Gaming is NOT just for youngsters you know.
The interactivity to gaming changes things from a passive observation to active participation. That's why they're used in the classroom; they teach so well. And yes, in some cases, it can influence a person to violence.
On the other hand, why is a kid going to knock over a liquor store and get busted when he can do it in GTA with no consequences?
So when I turn off the console, I relax and sit back in my chair thinking of all the amazing things that I had done in a game.
I am at least happy to see some REAL reaserch that takes in account of what a gamer feels after they turn off their console after they finish playing.
Like kids may be acting violent in a game, but that is all within the element of play, the research in the past never really goes into what the kid gamer does after they turn off the console.
That is really important to consider and I don't think that much of the 'Violent games lead to violent acts' reaserch have ever took this into account.
Or even how much anger a person displayes BEFORE they play a videogame.
In short, we all have anger in some stage of our lives, and it is more likely to be because of a negative experience that we have felt in our REAL lives, not just within violent entertainment.
Of course, it doesn't ease the stress if you can't budge it an inch!
This is to those hacks on COD4!!!!
Also the game reminds me of simpler times I guess.
Plus "Real Life" can get pretty challenging sometimes, cause theres always new patches and levels being added, the gameplay always changes and theres way too many options available.
If the point of the study is to discover if games CAN illicit anger or malice, you'd have to test with the darkest and most realistic games made. I just finished playing through Condemned 2, where you play as a violent alcoholic who is losing his sanity. And then there's the hordes of psychotic mutant crakhead homeless who you have to fight to the death one by one. I know that for me I did feel fear at certain moments, and I'd find it interesting to know if I felt anything like anger.
Interesting; but of course not reason to say we shouldn't let adults consume that sort of entertainment. Any more then we should outlaw heavy metal music or horror novels. Perhaps there is some catharsis in experiencing simulated anger or fear. But one thing I'm sure of is that that will never be touched on by WoW.
Doesn't "Real life" have WAY more griefers?
However, I find a single player experience to be calming.
More proof that it's human beings that incite rage in others, and not video games.
Depends. Not for me. I would whip a "griefers" ass in real life. Over the Internet they are immune to that. ;)
Well, there's also no reset button or working cheat codes. Those cheat police they really hate the "easy money" cheat. Also my car needs a Pay & Spray.
On a note about WoW... Raidings can be fun and stressful. I don't care how much we wipe (so much as I got the spare gold for repair bills), I just want some memories out of it. Ah Karazhan... The GM/best priest died after every pull when it didn't matter ("Hey, Kal lived this fight." "No she didn't." "But-" "QUICK SOMEONE KILL HER!"). PvP too, it can be stressful (mainly if I'm PvP spec still), but holding off a bunker in AV from three or more people by yourself just makes you feel so much better... (the ten minutes of waiting there for more people to come attack it, and having the match end is just plain boring though).