Effects of prosocial video games on prosocial behavior.

Previous research has documented that playing violent video games has various negative effects on social behavior in that it causes an increase in aggressive behavior and a decrease in prosocial behavior. In contrast, there has been much less evidence on the effects of prosocial video games. In the present research, 4 experiments examined the hypothesis that playing a prosocial (relative to a neutral) video game increases helping behavior. In fact, participants who had played a prosocial video game were more likely to help after a mishap, were more willing (and devoted more time) to assist in further experiments, and intervened more often in a harassment situation. Results further showed that exposure to prosocial video games activated the accessibility of prosocial thoughts, which in turn promoted prosocial behavior. Thus, depending on the content of the video game, playing video games not only has negative effects on social behavior but has positive effects as well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in Eastern and Western countries: A meta-analytic review.

Meta-analytic procedures were used to test the effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, empathy/desensitization, and prosocial behavior. Unique features of this meta-analytic review include (a) more restrictive methodological quality inclusion criteria than in past meta-analyses; (b) cross-cultural comparisons; (c) longitudinal studies for all outcomes except physiological arousal; (d) conservative statistical controls; (e) multiple moderator analyses; and (f) sensitivity analyses. Social–cognitive models and cultural differences between Japan and Western countries were used to generate theory-based predictions. Meta-analyses yielded significant effects for all 6 outcome variables. The pattern of results for different outcomes and research designs (experimental, cross-sectional, longitudinal) fit theoretical predictions well. The evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior. Moderator analyses revealed significant research design effects, weak evidence of cultural differences in susceptibility and type of measurement effects, and no evidence of sex differences in susceptibility. Results of various sensitivity analyses revealed these effects to be robust, with little evidence of selection (publication) bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Let the games begin: Civic playing on high-tech consoles.

The author presents an overview of an emerging field that looks at the impact of video games on civic engagement. Some video games have explicit civics-related content and engage players in simulations of civically related projects, but most others do not. However, research has shown that video game playing engages players in civically oriented experiences that previous research has found to promote civic outcomes in classroom-based programs. These include helping and guiding others; learning about problems in society; exploring social, moral, or ethical issues; organizing groups; and making decisions about how a community, city, or nation should be run. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Video games in psychotherapy.

Video games have found their way into the clinical care of youth in most medical fields, and academic interest in their use is increasing steadily. The popularity of video games among youth may qualify them as a useful tool in psychotherapy for children and adolescents. Limited literature on use of video games in mental health care suggests that they can help young patients become more cooperative and enthusiastic about psychotherapy. Recent experience suggests that video games may facilitate therapeutic relationships, complement the psychological assessment of youth by evaluating cognitive skills, and elaborate and clarify conflicts during the therapy process. Concerns about video game content, perceived effects on youth, and lack of familiarity with this medium may form a barrier in their use in therapy offices. Further research on the benefits of video game use in psychotherapy, including patient characteristics that may moderate outcomes, is needed. Finally, future collaborations between clinicians and video game developers may produce specific games to be used in psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nailing the coffin shut on doubts that violent video games stimulate aggression: Comment on Anderson et al. (2010).

Over the past half century the mass media, including video games, have become important socializers of children. Observational learning theory has evolved into social–cognitive information processing models that explain that what a child observes in any venue has both short-term and long-term influences on the child’s behaviors and cognitions. C. A. Anderson et al.’s (2010) extensive meta-analysis of the effects of violent video games confirms what these theories predict and what prior research about other violent mass media has found: that violent video games stimulate aggression in the players in the short run and increase the risk for aggressive behaviors by the players later in life. The effects occur for males and females and for children growing up in Eastern or Western cultures. The effects are strongest for the best studies. Contrary to some critics’ assertions, the meta-analysis of C. A. Anderson et al. is methodologically sound and comprehensive. Yet the results of meta-analyses are unlikely to change the critics’ views or the public’s perception that the issue is undecided because some studies have yielded null effects, because many people are concerned that the implications of the research threaten freedom of expression, and because many people have their identities or self-interests closely tied to violent video games. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A motivational model of video game engagement.

More Americans now play video games than go to the movies (NPD Group, 2009). The meteoric rise in popularity of video games highlights the need for research approaches that can deepen our scientific understanding of video game engagement. This article advances a theory-based motivational model for examining and evaluating the ways by which video game engagement shapes psychological processes and influences well-being. Rooted in self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000a), our approach suggests that both the appeal and well-being effects of video games are based in their potential to satisfy basic psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We review recent empirical evidence applying this perspective to a number of topics including need satisfaction in games and short-term well-being, the motivational appeal of violent game content, motivational sources of postplay aggression, the antecedents and consequences of disordered patterns of game engagement, and the determinants and effects of immersion. Implications of this model for the future study of game motivation and the use of video games in interventions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Blazing angels or resident evil? Can violent video games be a force for good?

Violent video games have been a source of controversy in the United States and elsewhere for several decades. Considerable concern has been raised in the public and scientific communities about the alleged deleterious effects of violent games. These concerns may coincide with periodic moral panics about media's influence, particularly on youth. This paper argues that the negative effects of violent games have been exaggerated by some elements of the scientific community, fitting with past cycles of media-focused moral panics. By contrast, potential positive effects of violent video game play have been ignored in the debate on violent games. The current paper considers research in several areas, including aggression, but also the nascent research fields of visuospatial cognition, social networking, and use as educational tools. It is argued that the debate on video game violence should be broadened to include both potential negative and positive effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life.

Two studies examined violent video game effects on aggression-related variables. Study 1 found that real-life violent video game play was positively related to aggressive behavior and delinquency. The relation was stronger for individuals who are characteristically aggressive and for men. Academic achievement was negatively related to overall amount of time spent playing video games. In Study 2, laboratory exposure to a graphically violent video game increased aggressive thoughts and behavior. In both studies, men had a more hostile view of the world than did women. The results from both studies are consistent with the General Affective Aggression Model, which predicts that exposure to violent video games will increase aggressive behavior in both the short term (e.g., laboratory aggression) and the long term (e.g., delinquency). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Video games in health care: Closing the gap.

Although a great deal of media attention has been given to the negative effects of playing video games, relatively less attention has been paid to the positive effects of engaging in this activity. Video games in health care provide ample examples of innovative ways to use existing commercial games for health improvement or surgical training. Tailor-made games help patients be more adherent to treatment regimens and train doctors how to manage patients in different clinical situations. In this review, examples in the scientific literature of commercially available and tailor-made games used for education and training with patients and medical students and doctors are summarized. There is a history of using video games with patients from the early days of gaming in the 1980s, and this has evolved into a focus on making tailor-made games for different disease groups, which have been evaluated in scientific trials more recently. Commercial video games have been of interest regarding their impact on surgical skill. More recently, some basic computer games have been developed and evaluated that train doctors in clinical skills. The studies presented in this article represent a body of work outlining positive effects of playing video games in the area of health care. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of video game competition and violence on aggressive behavior: Which characteristic has the greatest influence?

Objective: This study is the first to our knowledge to isolate the effect of video game violence and competitiveness on aggressive behavior. Method: In Pilot Study 1, a violent and nonviolent video game were matched on competitiveness, difficulty, and pace of action, and the effect of each game on aggressive behavior was then compared using an unambiguous measure of aggressive behavior (i.e., the Hot Sauce Paradigm) in Experiment 1. In Pilot Study 2, competitiveness was isolated by matching games on difficulty and pace of action, and systematically controlling for violence. The effect of video game competition on aggressive behavior was then examined in Experiment 2. Results: We found that video game violence was not sufficient to elevate aggressive behavior compared with a nonviolent video game, and that more competitive games produced greater levels of aggressive behavior, irrespective of the amount of violence in the games. Conclusion: It appears that competition, not violence, may be the video game characteristic that has the greatest influence on aggressive behavior. Future research is needed to explore the mechanisms through which video game competitiveness influences aggressive behavior, as well as whether this relation holds in the long-term. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's motivations for video game play in the context of normal development.

Electronic games are now an everyday part of childhood and adolescence. The debate has moved from whether children should play video games to how to maximize potential benefits and to identify and minimize potential harms. To do this, we must understand what motivates children to play electronic games and what needs the games meet. Drawing on a survey of 1,254 middle school children, focus groups with boys and their parents, and findings from other quantitative and qualitative research, the author describes a variety of motivations for video game play (including games with violent content) and how these may vary based on factors such as mood, environment, personality, and developmental stage. The findings are put into the context of normal development, and suggestions are given for parents, educators, and researchers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal correlates of children's vicarious emotional responsiveness.

Children's vicarious emotional responses and prosocial behavior were assessed, and the relations of these indexes to their mothers' sympathetic dispositions were examined. Mothers who were more sympathetic and better perspective takers had girls who reported feeling more sympathy and negative affect and less happiness after exposure to needy others. Mothers who reported more distress had girls who reported less negative affect and more happiness after exposure. Fewer relations between mothers' sympathy and vicarious emotional responsiveness were found for boys; however, there were more relations between boys' emotional responses and their helpfulness; boys who expressed more negative affect tended to be more helpful. These findings support the notion that the correlates of vicarious emotional responsiveness and prosocial tendencies are similar. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

I wish I were a warrior: The role of wishful identification in the effects of violent video games on aggression in adolescent boys.

This study tested the hypothesis that violent video games are especially likely to increase aggression when players identify with violent game characters. Dutch adolescent boys with low education ability (N=112) were randomly assigned to play a realistic or fantasy violent or nonviolent video game. Next, they competed with an ostensible partner on a reaction time task in which the winner could blast the loser with loud noise through headphones (the aggression measure). Participants were told that high noise levels could cause permanent hearing damage. Habitual video game exposure, trait aggressiveness, and sensation seeking were controlled for. As expected, the most aggressive participants were those who played a violent game and wished they were like a violent character in the game. These participants used noise levels loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage to their partners, even though their partners had not provoked them. These results show that identifying with violent video game characters makes players more aggressive. Players were especially likely to identify with violent characters in realistic games and with games they felt immersed in. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special issue on video games.

Video games are fast becoming one of the most popular media of choice among children and young adults. They are one of the newest media forms to find themselves under scientific scrutiny. To date, much of the attention has been negative, focusing on potential harm related to addiction, aggression, and lowered school performance. Scientists increasingly are examining the potential to use this immensely popular media for positive purposes, in education, in health, for students with disabilities, and to foster visuospatial cognition. This special issue concerns itself mainly with these issues: refocusing the discussion of video games away from fears that may have been exaggerated in the past, to examining whether video games may be put to some good use or are just games in the end. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Virtual driving and risk taking: Do racing games increase risk-taking cognitions, affect, and behaviors?

Research has consistently shown that aggressive video console and PC games elicit aggressive cognitions, affect, and behaviors. Despite the increasing popularity of racing (driving) games, nothing is known about the psychological impact of this genre. This study investigated whether playing racing games affects cognitions, affect, and behaviors that can promote risk taking in actual road traffic situations. In Study 1, the authors found that the frequency of playing racing games was positively associated with competitive driving, obtrusive driving, and car accidents; a negative association with cautious driving was observed. To determine cause and effect, in Study 2, the authors manipulated whether participants played 1 of 3 racing games or 1 of 3 neutral games. Participants who played a racing game subsequently reported a higher accessibility of cognitions and affect positively associated with risk taking than did participants who played a neutral game. Finally, on a more behavioral level, in Study 3, the authors found that men who played a racing game subsequently took higher risks in computer-simulated critical road traffic situations than did men who played a neutral game. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dominance, prosocial orientation, and female preferences: Do nice guys really finish last?

Three multimethod studies (total N?=?348) probed the hypothesis that women's attraction to men would be influenced by male prosocial orientation. In Study 1, prosocial men were rated as more physically and sexually attractive, socially desirable, and desirable as dates than were nonprosocial men. Dominant men were no more attractive than low-dominance men, and male dominance did not interact with male prosocial orientation in eliciting attraction from women. In Study 2, prosocial orientation was manipulated to avoid "personalism," but still affected attraction. Across all measures attraction was an interactive function of dominance and prosocial tendencies. Dominance alone did not increase any form of attraction measured. In Study 3, male prosocial tendencies and dominance interacted to affect women's attraction to men. Results are discussed in terms of the place of altruism and dominance in evolutionary approaches to human interpersonal attraction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Much ado about nothing: The misestimation and overinterpretation of violent video game effects in Eastern and Western nations: Comment on Anderson et al. (2010).

The issue of violent video game influences on youth violence and aggression remains intensely debated in the scholarly literature and among the general public. Several recent meta-analyses, examining outcome measures most closely related to serious aggressive acts, found little evidence for a relationship between violent video games and aggression or violence. In a new meta-analysis, C. A. Anderson et al. (2010) questioned these findings. However, their analysis has several methodological issues that limit the interpretability of their results. In their analysis, C. A. Anderson et al. included many studies that do not relate well to serious aggression, an apparently biased sample of unpublished studies, and a “best practices” analysis that appears unreliable and does not consider the impact of unstandardized aggression measures on the inflation of effect size estimates. They also focused on bivariate correlations rather than better controlled estimates of effects. Despite a number of methodological flaws that all appear likely to inflate effect size estimates, the final estimate of r = .15 is still indicative of only weak effects. Contrasts between the claims of C. A. Anderson et al. (2010) and real-world data on youth violence are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of sympathy and personal distress to prosocial behavior: A multimethod study.

Assessed sympathy and personal distress with facial and physiological indexes (heart rate) as well as self-report indexes and examined the relations of these various indexes to prosocial behavior for children and adults in an easy escape condition. Heart rate deceleration during exposure to the needy others was associated with increased willingness to help. In addition, adults' reports of sympathy, as well as facial sadness and concerned attention, were positively related to their intention to assist. For children, there was some indication that report of positive affect and facial distress were negatively related to prosocial intentions and behavior, whereas facial concern was positively related to the indexes of prosocial behavior. These findings are interpreted as providing additional, convergent support for the notion that sympathy and personal distress are differentially related to prosocial behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vulnerability to violent video games: A review and integration of personality research.

In this report, past research is reviewed, which suggests that the personality traits of psychoticism and aggressiveness likely moderate the negative effects of violent video games (VVGs). The Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality is then used as a taxonomy to integrate these findings and examine why these traits are important moderator variables. Analyses suggest that these traits likely moderate the effects of VVGs because they contain the FFM traits neuroticism (+), agreeableness (?), and conscientiousness (?). A spherical model of personality, derived from these three FFM traits, is presented as a method of predicting aggression and hostility after playing VVGs; archival data confirms the predictions derived from this spherical model. Findings from the current research demonstrate the utility of a three-trait spherical model to examine the moderating effects of VVGs and suggest that only some individuals are adversely affected by VVGs and that those who are affected have preexisting dispositions, which make them susceptible to such violent media. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive/attentional distraction in the control of conditioned nausea in pediatric cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.

Two studies were conducted to investigate the use of cognitive/attentional distraction (via commercially available video games) to control conditioned nausea in pediatric cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. The first study compared the nausea severity in children who played video games during chemotherapy-related procedures with that of control-group children who did not play video games. The second study used a combined ABAB withdrawal and repeated measures analysis of variance design that incorporated baseline and intervention assessments within a single session. In both studies, video game-playing resulted in significantly less nausea. The introduction and withdrawal of the opportunity to play video games produced significant changes (reduction and exacerbation, respectively) in nausea. Although video games also reduced self-reported anxiety, the effects were weaker than those for nausea. Pulse rate and systolic/diastolic blood pressure were not consistently affected. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)