The Excessive Anger And Violation Used In Video Games Essay Sample

The problem of aggression and related offenses has made a wide resonance and acts as one of the central themes of psychological research. The relationship with an aggressive computer games can be interpreted in two ways: either aggressive behavior is caused by the aggressive content computer game, or aggressive children and adolescents prefer computer games with violent content. Obviously, the question of causality can be answered by considering the nature of aggression, as well as analyzing the results of experimental studies. The stories about armed teenagers, who kill their classmates, beat children and adults, caused the numerous questions about the reasons for such cruelty. And many experts and the media and computer games are accused for excessive violence, that provokes such "shooters." But the question of whether violent video games cause aggression and behavior problems in real life, is not so simple. (Raise Smart Kid)
The problem is too complicated. Christian Hupp and colleagues provided a little research. They invited 60 students with different "game" experience to participate in the experiment. They were asked to play a rather brutal computer game for 15 minutes. Some participants chose a good hero - Superman, others chose the negative hero - Joker. The game was the same for all participants, they took part in the fight with various characters.  Before the experiment, participants were asked to read the article from Wikipedia about the certain character, and researches did their best to make a participant to like this hero. For those, who chose Superman, the article told about that he grew up in a good and loving family. For those, who chose the Joker, the article stated that he suffered from abuse when he was a child.
After the game participants were asked to watch the series of images of individuals, that expressed different emotions, and they had to determine whether the character is hostile. Some images expressed an angry, but most of the images were neutral. And the idea of ​​the test was to determine who exactly was described as evil by the participants. Those players who played the Joker role saw the hostility in the image, even among neutral persons (Kutner and Olson., 154)
The second test was the so-called test "forgotten letters." While leaving the lab, the student saw the envelope on the floor. Those who played for Superman, were more likely to send a letter or give it to the experimenters, compared with those who played for the Joker (20.7% versus 3.3%).
 The results of similar studies were published on the resource called Aggressive Behavior. Experimenters offered participants to play a computer game. Some of them killed zombies to save another character, and other people had a goal to kill as many zombies as they could. Those participants who performed a protective function, demonstrated less aggressive after the game and also expressed a greater willingness to protect the social interests. Consequently, the effect of the violent video games cannot be considered direct, ie "Violence in the game = violence in life." (Kirsh). It largely depends on the moral features of the game character. But, however, one maysay that one cannot assert that the Superman game caused such a goodwill among students, perhaps, those who returned the letter would do it regardless of the video games.
 It is important to note that the selection of participants is very likely linked to the character of their personal characteristics, and they would show the same results in the test of hostility and without the participation of individuals in the game. Unfortunately, the experimenters did not provide any controls or exchange of the characters in this experiment. The main conclusion of the researchers is that only moral characteristics of their heroes cause the brutality and aggressiveness.
It is believed that computer games cause aggression and force people to do cruel things. Another joint study of American and British scientists showed, that computer games not guilty, and unexpected angry occurs when one of the players does not know how to play. A «Rage quit» is a phenomenon caused by computer games. It concludes that after the loss a player becomes very angry and his behavior becomes cruel and misundestood. Definitely, the guys who invented this phenomenon never had seen people, who are playing basketball or football. They conducted an experiment using well-known games Half-life 2. “The people who have never played this game and which could not be called gamers took part in this research. The first control group explained the management of the game, the basic techniques of warfare and other features in details.” (Clark A. and Ernst J.,21) The researchers nothing explained to a second group, that consisted of the housewives and elderly people who had no idea what to do. The first group didn’t show any aggression, because they knew what to expect, and were able to manage their game. The people in the second group were often killed, the degree of aggression was permanently increasing. In the trials included in two versions: with blood and corpses and without (right corpses disappeared). Finally, this experiment showed, that the people show an aggression when they fail and not able to get a success (Clark A. and Ernst J, 23).
The computer games require the player to perform the role of aggressor during the game. They involve active participation rather than the passive observation. Also, it should be noted that computer games with scenes of violence lead to the development of new types of aggressive reactions. A game, that contains scenes of aggressive nature, can also stimulate the processes of social learning, that leads to the development of new types of behavior; to reduce the feelings to the suffering victim, to increased excitation due to the fact that the player plays the role of the aggressor, it increases the activity level of the individual (Adachi and Willoughby, 260-266)
Thus, can say that the violent video games (Shooting) can serve as a way of discharging aggression that occurs as a result of a collision between two instincts. But the choice of this kind of games can provoke a similar reaction and contribute to further stimulation of the processes of social learning, that leads to the development of new types of aggressive behavior because more players like to play in the game causing, harm to their virtual opponents. It can also lead to a weakening of restrictions on aggression, because the aggression seems to be an ordinary common feature of social interactions in virtual world games; to reduce the sensitivity to the suffering victim, as games require player, who promotes emotional blunting against the suffering of the victim. (Raise Smart Kid)
The trouble is that it is impossible to order anything to our mind, then one is powerless; people do not notice that it was not through the prism of consciousness, but and purely objective happening inside us. This is especially exaggerated explanation of the impact of games. In other words, the game does not pass without leaving a trace for us. They leave us with emotions, experiences and feelings. While a person builds a huge city in SimCity (Sim City), he is experiencing the joy of achievements, and becomes a little bit experienced (Olson, 1)
Every day watching the scenes of virtual violence, people lose the understanding that aggression is unacceptable in society. If people consider the problem of aggression in the context of human evolution, society must say that they are getting rid of direct aggression. Man has become smarter and carries out its intentions through verbal attacks and social interaction.
The problem of influence of computer games with scenes of violence, the formation of consciousness of teenagers are not seen clearly. But to play computer games with elements of violence and to commit violence in life are different things. But interactive violence inevitably makes the feelings of compassion, empathy, etc. After all, it is normal to shoot a man with a pistol in the virtual world. What should our community do? Demand bans? Well, the way is familiar, but the experience has shown that it is too inefficient. Educators should finally learn how to use the rich possibilities of screen arts, the Internet, computer animation, interactive games for the development of creative abilities of children, their critical thinking, aesthetic perception and taste in order to decrease the number of pupils who play violent games.

Works cited

Adachi, P. J, and Teena Willoughby. The Effect Of Video Game Competition And Violence On Aggressive Behavior: Which Characteristic Has The Greatest Influence?. 1st ed. Brock University, 2011. Print.
Clark, A.C. & Ernst, J.V. (2009). Gaming in Technology Education. Technology Teacher, 68(5), 21-26.
Kirsh, Steven J. Children, Adolescents, And Media Violence. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications, 2012. Print.
Kutner, Lawrence, and Cheryl K Olson. Grand Theft Childhood. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. Print.
Olson, Cheryl K. Children’S Motivations For Video Game Play In The Context Of Normal Development. 1st ed. Massachusetts General Hospital, 2010. Print.
Raise Smart Kid,. 'The Positive And Negative Effects Of Video Games'. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.