Violent Video Games and Violent Behaviour
Hazel O’ Connor
The University of Limerick
Violent video games and violent behaviour
Oxford dictionary defines violence as “behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage or kill”. Violence has always existed, but is the use of violence in the popular video games played today causing an increase in this problem?
“Violence is one of the most fun things to watch” – Quentin Tarentino..REFERENCE
With the demand for video games growing constantly in today’s world, it is not surprising that there are concerns relating to the impact of these games on players. Now, 89% of video games contain violence (Children Now, 2001). It is, therefore, no wonder this topic piques much curiosity
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The results of the famous Bobo doll experiment provides an effective example of this and support bandura’s theory. He exposed children to an aggressive adult in a room with a doll in one group and a non-aggressive adult in a room with a doll in the control group. Just as he had predicted, the children exposed to the aggressive adult imitated this aggressive behaviour when they interacted with the doll themselves. In contrast, the children exposed to the non-aggressive adult acted less aggressively towards the doll (Bandura, 1961) .This experiment certainly provides evidence of observational learning, particularly in relation to the vulnerable minds of children. It is difficult to deny that this may also apply to the violent characters in video games. This is likely to be a contributor to the belief that violent video games influence aggressive …show more content…
G. (2008). Aggression: Hurting Others. In Social Psychology (9th ed., p. 353). New York: McGraw-Hill.
McLeod, S. A. (2011). Bandura - Social Learning Theory. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html
McLeod, S. A. (2007). Skinner - Operant Conditioning. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
Nauert, R. (2013, August 27). In New Study, Video Games Not Tied to Violence in High-Risk Youth | Psych Central News. Retrieved from http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/08/27/in-new-study-video-games-not-tied-to-violence-in-high-risk-youth/58934.html
Pearsal, J. (2002). Oxford Dictionary of English (10th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Radowitz, J. V. (2014, August 5). Violent video games lead to riskier behaviour in teens | Irish Examiner. Retrieved from http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/violent-video-games-lead-to-riskier-behaviour-in-teens-278159.html
Vincent, J. (2014, April 8). Violent video games don't make you aggressive - difficult games do, says new study - Gadgets and Tech - Life and Style - The Independent. Retrieved from
Albert Bandura was a Canadian-born American psychologist who is best known for his study, “The Bobo Doll” experiment. His studies were based of his social cognitive theories, highlighting in this experiment, aggressive behavior. Albert presented an inflatable doll to preschool aged children and verbally abused it in front of them. Albert would then monitor the children and see them respond in the same way. He exhibited the fact, in his study, that children are able to imitate adult behavior through observation.
A fallacy is the use of poor, or invalid, reasoning for the construction of an argument. In other words, it is an argument that makes an error in logic or assumptions that should not have been made. In the formal setting, an argument is two sides presenting their sides argument using logic and deductive reasoning. In the book “Writing Arguments,” authors John Ramage, John Bean, and June Johnson compare several fallacies. The authors describe the straw man fallacy as an argument when a writer constructs a misinterpreted version of an argument that distorts its original meaning and intentions in order to criticizes it as if it were the real argument (401).
The article “Do Video Games Kill” written by Karen Sternheimer responds to one of the most sought-after question; are video games the cause for “young killers”? (220) Sternheimer believes the influence of video games on today’s youth maybe spiraling out of control. She focuses most of the blame on the media, politicians and the Juvenile Justice System. Sternheimer suggests that there are other factors to blame for violent behavior: poverty, the neighborhood, unemployment, family violence, divorced parents and mental illness (218). While juvenile crimes have declined, and personal backgrounds effect actions, it cannot be proven that video game violence has no to little effect on America’s youth.
One of the more memorable stories in the past twenty years is the two young men were responsible for the Columbine massacre in the US. While the Columbine school. This shootings brought world-wide attention to school incidents, but this case was not an isolated, we have a long history of aggressions in schools. A report by the US Secret Service and the US Department of Education in 2002 indicated that in 37 incidents of targeted school shootings and school attacks from 1974 to 2000 in this country, found that “over half of the attackers demonstrated some interest in violence through movies, video games, books, and other media”. (Vossekuil B. 2002)
Furthermore, research conducted by Cumberbatch (1997) states Bandura et al. (1961) experiment lacks credibility. Whereas Hart (2006) argued selection bias affected the internal validly of Bandura et al. study, Cumberbatch (1997) states that the novelty of the Bobo Doll may have impacted on Bandura’s findings. Cumberbatch found children exposured to the Bobo Doll previously illustrated five times less violence compared with those test subjects who were familiar with the doll.
To prove observational learning was correct, Bandura conducted an experiment called the “Bobo Doll” experiment (Bandura, 1961). In the Bobo Doll experiment, Bandura collected 36 boys and 36 girls from the Stanford University Nursery School aged between 3 to 6 years old. In the experiment there were three groups of 24 children, 12 boys and 12 girls. One group was exposed to an aggressive clip of adults beating a Bobo doll. Another group was shown a non-violent clip of a person playing with a tinker toy set and ignoring the Bobo doll.
Bandura (1971) believed that behaviour was a learnt response and not inherent. This theory could be used to explained why people adopt antisocial behaviour. Bandura (1965) carried out a study known as the ‘Bobo doll studies’ in which children observed adult models behaving aggressively towards the doll and then they were asked to interact with the doll in order to see whether they adopted the aggressive behaviour. In these studies, the children not only became more aggressive but accurately imitated every aspect of the adult models behaviour including; the use of the same weapon, performing the same motor movements towards the same targets and saying the same hostile statements (Powell, Symbaluk & Honey, 2009; Bandura
Violent Video Games The culprit? While video games certainly have a decorated history of violence, they have been unfairly attributed for real life violence for way to long. Games with violent undertones have been in existence for nearly forty years. Attempts are continually made to focus on the violent effects that these video games supposedly have on players of all ages.
Violent video games have been blamed for everything from bullying to school shootings. Critics of these video games believe they cause people to commit violent acts in real life. These critics, mainly comprised of parents and other responsible adults, don’t agree with what the video games portray. Others say the video games cause less violence and are an outlet for anger and stress. Although violent video games have violent actions in them, teenagers should be able to play violent video games because there isn’t enough evidence to prove they make teens more aggressive, it could prevent violence, and violent video games are a fun and relaxing way to relieve stress and anger.
What a great fun that I feel when I win a difficult video game, it is really exciting. It took me a very long period to forget the massage on the screen (GAME OVER ).But with the time I realized that Playing violent video games is no more likely to be damaging to young children’s behavior than those considered harmless, so that I choose some researches that can deal with case . More and more kids are playing video and computer games — especially ultra-violent ones that are top sellers. Research shows that children are also spending increasing amounts of time playing them: an average of 13 hours per week for boys and five hours for girls.
There are games that literally replicate and give people the ability to score points for doing the very same thing that these students are doing inside schools, where you get extra points for finishing someone off who’s lying there begins for their life.” ( 6) There are several ideas that say young people benefit from these violent video games “Surprisingly, playing video games can help our physical, mental, and emotional health.” It helps them to improve hand eye coordination and thinking ability. These benefits are not worth the risk of being influenced by violent video games. (7) All in all the research and officials say that violent video games affect how children, teenagers and young adults act.
Next, response feedback influences will also impact the occurrence of such behavior in the future. Lastly, it stressed that cognitive functions are important as well. To prove that same behaviors will be learned by individuals following the action of the models and altering their own behaviors, Albert Bandura conducted a famous experiment, known as the Bobo doll experiment in 1961 (McLeod, 2014). Before the experiment, Albert Bandura made 4 predictions. First, children that observed adult acting aggressively will be more likely to act the same.
It considers that people learn from one another through observational learning and imitation. He believes that people obtain their behaviors by observing to others, then imitate what they have observed. In year 1961, Albert Bandura and his researchers carried out an experiment named as Bobo Doll experiment in order to study how aggressive behavior develops in children. He believes that children are passive witnesses to an aggressive display by an adult.
Do Video Games Promote Violence? Does virtual violence lead to actual violence? As we all know at this age of sophisticated technology and information, children are more exposed to video gaming compared to the past decades. As a result, video gaming industry has gained tremendous growth since coming into the market in the 1980s. This is because of the increased number of its consumers, especially children and teenagers.
Some researches admit that violent games may cause adolescents to become tremendous. Studies showed that video games increase psychological awakening, it could also increase aggressive behavior, emotions and thoughts and finally let teenagers lose the sense of helping others. All these effects will be carried by aggressive young people. It’s true that video games are violent, but aggressive adolescents are more likely to be more attracted to it. Some games reward players for doing violent actions, so this will affect them negatively, letting them think that violence is normal.