Violence in video games
Video games affect it may have on those who play it have been studied and debated for many years. One claim that continues to come up is violence in video games and how it makes people who play them violent. A recent study completed by David Ewoldsen and John Velez suggest that violent video games might not make players more aggressive if they play cooperatively with other people. The Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking study involved 119 college students who were split up into four groups to play the game Halo II with a partner.
Each of the participants filled out a survey about their video game history and a measure of their aggressiveness. The people that played in multiplayer mode had the objective with killing their opponent more times then they got killed and the people that played-single player mode had the objective to beat their opponents by getting further in the game. Each player got their own cubicle that had its own television and Xbox 360 console. Each person was put in separate rooms to avoid any effects that might come from direct contact. Each person got instructions on how to play the game and had five minutes to practice how to play the game. After playing Halo II both groups participated in a real-life game where they could compete or cooperate with each other. They were told that they could either keep all of the dimes to themselves or give away one or more of the dimes to their partner and that the dimes the gave away to their partner would be worth double the value for the partner. The decision of how many dimes each person decided to give away was made privately during each round and the decision was revealed to each player after both partners had decided on a number of dimes to give away. Each person got the money given to them by the other player at the end of each round. The payoff for each round to each player ranged from no money (if the player gives four dimes to partner and the partner keeps all four dimes) to $1.20 (if the player keeps all four dimes and partner gives all four dimes). Participants were allowed to keep all of the money they had received during this task.
Velez and Ewoldsen were looking to see if they showed a mirrored behavior of their respective partners, “tit for tat”. So if your partner were to participate cooperatively then you would return the favor. Velez and Ewoldsen believe the tit for tat behavior are the first steps to cooperation. The research showed that participants who played Halo II cooperatively were willing to be cooperative in the real-life game. According to Velez “these findings suggest video game research needs to consider not only the content of the game but also how video game players are playing the game.”
The second study furthered the findings by showing that cooperating in violent video games can unite people from rival groups. Fans from Ohio State and their bitter rival, University of Michigan. Each participant was shown how to play the game Unreal Tournament II. Then had five minutes of practice time to get used to the game. Then went to cubicles with a television and Xbox 360 in their own rooms. Just like the Halo experiment there were groups of players playing together as a team, but instead of a second group playing campaign mode and get as far as they can the second group was told to compete against their partner.
I finished reading your post...I sent a copy of your work with comments on it to your email address...
ReplyDeleteI like the subject matter. I think that, like my study, most people just assume that if you do A then it will cause B to happen. But what happens when you step back and actually research it scientifically? Well, then you get cooperative play studies. Very cool.
ReplyDeleteI like the opening paragraph. Definitely engaging. You might want to read through your brief slowly and find the sentence fragments and what look like a few misplaced words, like in your first sentence: "Video games affect it may have on" <--it looks like you may be missing a few words somewhere here.
You may want to concede the limitations of the study and/or suggest further research, if the study provided any of that info. What context can we put this into? How is it applicable to society or to the video game industry or to people who may need to bring people who hate each other (like OSU and UM) together?
Last thing is that the second paragraph is 1. very long, 2. feels like a list, 3. 4 out of the first 5 sentences begins with the word "each" which enhances the repetitiveness. Maybe less process and more implications and I think it'll be on the money.
Teamwork is teamwork. Humans are social, we will find a way to bond in any circumstance or setting. Video games are just another venue for our connections to form.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, a 12 year-old boy playing a single-player hack-and-slash for hours and hours on end with no human contact to speak of is not so good. But a balanced amount of cooperative video game play could understandably be helpful for young adults to communicate and work together, especially with long distances in mind.