Playing video games for
better, not worse
Wednesday, June 17,
2009
Some video games can make children kinder and more likely to
help---not hurt---other people.
That's the conclusion of new research published in the current
(June 2009) issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, a
top-tier, peer-reviewed academic journal.
The article presents the findings of three separate studies,
conducted in different countries with different age groups, and
using different scientific approaches. All the studies find that
playing games with prosocial content causes players to be more
helpful to others after the game is over.
The report is co-authored by a consortium of researchers from the
United States, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia.
"Dozens of studies have documented a relationship between violent
video games and aggressive behaviors," said lead author Douglas
Gentile, an Iowa State University psychologist. "But this is one of
the first that has documented the positive effects of playing
prosocial games."
Prosocial video games involve characters who help and support each
other in nonviolent ways.
"These studies show the same kind of impact on three different age
groups from three very different cultures," said Brad Bushman, a
University of Michigan co-author of the report. "In addition, the
studies use different analytic approaches---correlational,
longitudinal and experimental. The resulting triangulation of
evidence provides the strongest possible proof that the findings
are both valid and generalizable."
"These studies document that children and adolescents learn from
practicing behaviors in games," said Rowell Huesmann, a U-M
co-author of the report.
One study examined the link between video game habits and prosocial
behavior among 727 secondary students in Singapore, with a mean age
of 13. Students listed their favorite games and rated how often
game characters helped, hurt or killed other characters. They also
answered questions about how likely they were to spend time and
money helping people in need, to cooperate with others and share
their belongings, and to react aggressively in various
situations.
As in numerous other studies, the researchers found a strong
correlation between playing violent video games and hurting others.
But the study also found a strong correlation between playing
prosocial games and helping others.
The second study analyzed the long-term connection between video
game habits and prosocial behavior in nearly 2,000 Japanese
children ages 10 to 16. Participants completed a survey about their
exposure to prosocial video games, and rated how often they had
helped other people in the last month. Three to four months later,
they were surveyed again, and researchers found a significant
connection between exposure to prosocial games and helpful behavior
months later.
"This suggests there is an upward spiral of prosocial gaming and
helpful behavior, in contrast to the downward spiral that occurs
with violent video gaming and aggressive behavior," said Bushman, a
professor of communications and psychology and a research professor
at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR).
For the third study, the researchers carried out an experiment with
161 U.S. college students, with a mean age of 19. After playing
either a prosocial, violent, or neutral game, participants were
asked to assign puzzles to a randomly selected partner. They could
choose from puzzles that were easy, medium or hard to complete.
Their partner could win $10 if they solved all the puzzles. Those
who played a prosocial game were considerably more helpful than
others, assigning more easy puzzles to their partners. And those
who had played violent games were significantly more likely to
assign the hardest puzzles.
"Taken together, these findings make it clear that playing video
games is not in itself good or bad for children," Bushman said."The
type of content in the game has a bigger impact than the overall
amount of time spent playing."
###
University of Michigan
Thanks to University of Michigan
for this article.