14 DAY TRIAL // Iowa State University investigators determined in a new scientific study that children who played video games were likely to pick up on the aggressive ways of thinking they were exposed to. Aggressive behaviors were also replicated, the team discovered. The new study comes on the heels of another research, which demonstrated the positive influence pro-social video games can have on children.
These findings suggest that the young ones pick up both positive and negative aspects from gaming, depending on the type of games they play. Details of the new investigation, which was led by ISU Associate Professor of Psychology Dr. Douglas Gentile, appear in the latest issue of the scientific journal JAMA Pediatrics.
The research focused on children who played more violent video games than pro-social ones. The team determined that the kids were very likely to retain the thinking patterns they developed through playing these games as they got older. This finding suggests the existence of a long-term influence from violent video games, PsychCentral reports.
ISU researchers say that kids pick up new information from games in very much the same way they learn from solving math problems, or from learning to play a musical instrument. When provoked later on, children who played more violent video games were likely to respond in a manner similar to what they had seen in their games, regardless of whether the provocation arose at home or in school.
“The effect is the same regardless of age, gender, or culture. If you practice over and over, you have that knowledge in your head. The fact that you haven’t played the piano in years doesn’t mean you can’t still sit down and play something,” Gentile explains.
“It’s the same with violent games – you practice being vigilant for enemies, practice thinking that it’s acceptable to respond aggressively to provocation, and practice becoming desensitized to the consequences of violence,” the investigator goes on to say.
What this study suggests is that the long-term effects that violent video games have on aggression may in fact be produced by repeatedly practicing aggressive ways of thinking while playing. This makes sense when considering that most gaming scenarios reward kids when they are able to identify hostile intentions from enemies on-screen, and respond to them aggressively.
“Violent video games model physical aggression. They also reward players for being alert to hostile intentions and for using aggressive behavior to solve conflicts. Practicing such aggressive thinking in these games improves the ability of the players to think aggressively. In turn, this habitual aggressive thinking increases their aggressiveness in real life,” says researcher Craig Anderson.
The expert holds an appointment as a distinguished professor of psychology at ISU, and the director of the Center for the Study of Violence at the university. He has also coauthored the JAMA Pediatrics study.