Adults Who Play Violent Video Games Appear No More Aggressive Than Those Who Don ’t

Frequently playing violent video games does not appear to promote aggression, reduce empathy, or alter mood and cognition in healthy adults, according to astudy published Tuesday inMolecular Psychiatry.These “results provide strong evidence against the frequently debated negative effects of playing violent video games,” wrote Simone Kühn, Ph.D., of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany, and colleagues. The authors noted that this debate has been largely fueled by studies showing short-term effects when tests were administered immediately after game playing.“[I]n our view, the question that society is actually interested in is not: ‘Are people more aggressive after having played violent video games for a few minutes? And are these people more aggressive minutes after gameplay ended?’ but rather ‘What are the effects of frequent, habitual violen t video game playing? And for how long do these effects persist (not in the range of minutes but rather weeks and months)?’” Kühn and colleagues wrote.To investigate the long-term behavioral effects of playing violent video games, K ühn and colleagues randomly assigned 90 healthy adults who reported little or no video game use in the past six months to one of three groups: violent video games, nonviolent video games, or no video games. Participants assigned to the violent and nonviolent game groups were instructed to play Gran d Theft Auto V and Sims 3, respectively, on a PlayStation 3.Befo...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: adults aggression Grand Theft Auto Simone K ühn Sims 3 video games violence Source Type: research