User:Subtank/Psych

Research Question
To what extent are video games viewed as instilling violence and corruption within youths’ minds?

Abstract
Psychology studies of the effects of playing video games have found emotional responses and physical reactions associated with reinforced violent and anti-social attitudes. It is not clear, however, whether these markers are associated with increases in one’s preferences for anti-social behaviours or whether virtual behaviours act to partially sate one’s desire for actual antisocial behaviours. Violent or criminal behaviours in the virtual world and in the physical world could plausibly be either complements or substitutes. A finding of one versus the other would have diametrically opposing policy implications.

Introduction
Video games have been the subject of frequent controversy and censorship, due to common depict of graphical violence, sexual themes, racism, propaganda, extremism or profanity in games. This issue has come under fire by certain political activist groups for the perceived promotional effect such games have on real world violence. Among others, critics of video games sometimes include parents' groups, politicians, organized religion groups, and other special interest groups, and may become a part of new laws and legislation in the United States and other countries. Video game has been subjected to various controversies in many forms, mostly censorship as a popular topic of debate. Video game violence critics generally agree that violent video games are at least as bad an influence on children as are television shows with the same level of violence and cruelty, and most seem to believe that video games are more threatening to a child's well-being, because the video game player uses the controller to make an on screen character act out the violence personally

In particular, the actions of the perpetrators who conducted the Columbine High School massacre have inspired much of the campaign against violent video games. Although it is probable for violently inclined people to play games with violent themes more frequently than those more peaceable, many researchers vehemently disagree with the suggestion that there is a direct causal relationship between people playing games depicting violence and then behaving in a violent manner. Although hardly the first school shooting, the 1999 Columbine tragedy was the bloodiest in over thirty years, with a count of fifteen deaths (including the two perpetrators) and twenty-three wounded victims. The Columbine massacre was perpetrated by two relatively young men, students aged 18 and 17, the majority of the victims legally children. The incident was a shocking wakeup for the concerned parents of America, who sought an explanation to rationalize this horrific display of violence.

This essay investigates the reasons to what extent the effects of the video games in instilling violence and aggression differ. It is now emphasized that the essay approaches the topic from a psychological aspect. However, to understand the psychological effects of video games, it is unavoidable to include a brief history of the controversial topic as well as the figures that played a role in stating what they stated. Therefore the next chapter of the essay is a discussion of the musical elements of rap and hardcore techno music.

DEFINITIONS
Key terms used by the research community often mean something different to the general public and public policy-makers. For this essay, the research used the following, more precise, meanings common to media-violence researchers.

Violent Media
Violent media are those that depict intentional attempts by individuals to inflict harm on others. An “individual” can be a nonhuman cartoon character, a real person, or anything in between. Thus, traditional Saturday-morning cartoons (e.g., “Mighty Mouse,” “Road Runner”) are filled with violence.

Aggression
Aggression is behaviour intended to harm another individual who is motivated to avoid that harm. It is not an effect, emotion, or aggressive thought, plan, or wish. This definition excludes accidental acts that lead to harm, such as losing control of an auto and accidentally killing a pedestrian, but includes behaviours intended to harm even if the attempt fails, such as when a bullet fired from a gun misses its human target.

Violence
Violence refers to extreme forms of aggression, such as physical assault and murder. All violence is aggression, but not all aggression is violence.

In order for to find out how the aggression factor are in factor with video games, it is imperative to investigate first how violence and aggressive act are represented in video games. Research in gaming psychology was pressured and taken into consideration when the first generation of video game, consisting of only pixels and simple interface, showed an increase in violent behaviour back in 1976. Although not many studies were performed at that moment, it led to setting the basis for the main focus of social psychology. A prominent case study, conducted by Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman in September 5th 2001, was focused on how the exposure of violent video games can increase aggressive behaviour in children and young adults. The results shows that Experimental and non-experimental studies with males and females in laboratory and field settings support this conclusion. Analyses also reveal that exposure to violent video games increases physiological arousal and aggression-related thoughts and feelings. Playing violent video games also decreases pro-social behaviour.

Known Effects of Exposure to Violent Video Games
Because violent video games are a relatively new type of violent media, the literature examining negative effects on players is small compared with the literature on negative effects of television and film violence. However, a clear consensus has already been reached: Playing violent video games increases aggression. Numerous studies have demonstrated that exposure to violent video games increases aggressive affect, aggressive cognitions, and aggressive behaviour. Recent meta-analyses of the effect of violent video games on aggressive behaviour and other aggression-related outcome variables have demonstrated average effect sizes (in correlation terms) in .2 - .3 range.

Reward and Punishment in Violent Media
Although reward for violent actions is a dominant characteristic of many violent video games, other video games may punish some forms of violence (e.g. shooting hostages instead of terrorists). This raises an intriguing question: Do video games that reward violent actions increase aggression-related variables compared with similar games that punish violent actions or that are nonviolent? Currently, there are no published studies that address this question, so one must look to earlier media-violence research. For example, Bandura (1865) demonstrated that participants who viewed a televised character being punished for physically attacking a “Bobo” doll displayed significantly less imitative behaviour than those in a reward or control condition.

Given the similar nature of violent video games and violent television programming, it is reasonable to suspect that rewarding violent actions in a game could also increase aggression. There are important differences between television and video games, however. In the case of video-game violence, the player is immersed in the game and rewarded directly (e.g. by points), whereas in the case of televised violence, the viewer is not rewarded directly. Additionally, the aggression-enhancing effects might be more powerful for games than television because direct rewards for violence should increase the amount of violent actions within the game. This same immersion in video games (relative to television) makes hypotheses concerning the punishment of violence in video games less certain. Viewers who observe violence being punished on TV may vicariously learn that violence has negative consequences, but players who are continually and directly punished for violent actions in a video game could become frustrated, and therefore more aggressive than if they had played a nonviolent game. Thus, reward for violence should increase aggression in video-game players, as it does in television viewers, but although punishment of violence decreases aggression in television viewers, it may not necessarily do so in video-game players.