Effects of the Violent Video Games On The Behavior
Abu Sayeed
City College of New York
There were many debates about children playing a violent game and then psychologists performed experiments on violent video games. They concluded that playing a violent game can inject aggressive behavior. Since then, plenty of experiments have been done on violent games to explore different aspects of their effects on behavior. However, this essay will compare and contrast the quality of each section of these lab reports to determine their effectiveness.
“The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence” by Nicholas L. Carnagey, Craig A. Anderson, and Brad J. Bushman discusses an experiment on how violent game players react to the real-world violence. They gave participants the option to play a violent or a nonviolent game; after, participants watch real-world violence, and then psychologists measured participants Heart Rate (HR) and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR). The results suggest that playing violent games can desensitize people to the real world violence because violent game players HR and GSR were lower than the nonviolent game players.
“Exposure to violent video games increases automatic aggressiveness” by Eric Uhlmann and Jane Swanson discusses an experiment on whether continuing playing violent games can automatically learn aggressive behavior. Psychologists offered participants to play violent or nonviolent games; then they used the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure the violent thought stored in the participants’ minds. IAT’s result conveys that violent game players naturally adapt to learn aggressive behavior.
“The more you play, the more aggressive you become: A long-term experimental study of cumulative violent video game effects on hostile expectations and aggressive behavior” by Youssef Hasan, Laurent Begue, Michael Scharkow, and Brad J. Bushman discusses an experiment on the long term effects of the violent games on aggressive behavior. They allowed participants to play violent or nonviolent games to compete with other participants; then losers receive the unpleasant noise through the headphones from winners. Then the psychologists used a mechanism to measure aggressive behavior based on the loudness of the unpleasant sounds. The results suggested that prolonged exposure to violent games stimulates aggressive behavior.
The abstract section of a lab report should include a brief overview of the content, results, and conclusion to meet the criteria. In the lab reports, Carnagey and Hasan’s abstract section are similar because they provided information chronologically that readers can easily understand the context, purpose, methods, and results of the experiments. Thus, both meets the criteria of abstract because the section provides essential details to the audience to make a judgment whether they want to continue the reading. However, the abstract of the Uhlmann and Swanson are slightly different because the other two lab reports begin the abstract by referring back to the past findings. On the contrary, Uhlmann and Swanson skipped the context of the experiment and the first sentence conveys a sample of the participants, which is ineffective because they are limiting the audience by expecting their audience to have knowledge about violent games even though not everyone reads the previous experiment. Therefore, Carnagey and Hasan’s abstracts are well written because these psychologists consider everyone as their audience, and reading the abstract the audience would have brief ideas about each section of the lab report.
The introduction should provide a clear and concise background of the experiment and theories to support the hypothesis. These lab reports used the same technique in the first paragraph of the introduction. For example, Carnagey said a statement like there is a public debate on the impact of the video games. Uhlmann and Swanson mention there is a growing belief that exposure to violent media stimulates hostility. Finally, Hasan implies watching violence in media helps us to desensitize real-world violence. They used their first paragraph as their hook of the essay to grab audience attention and highlight these topics relevant to us because the audience is not going to read something that is not useful to them. On the other hand, Carnagey provides multiple paragraphs with defining the subjects so the audience will have a clear understanding toward the subject. Hasan provided few paragraphs with a theoretical explanation, such as a discussion on script theory so the audience can realize their finding match with the scientific theory. However, Uhlmann and Swanson’s introduction is not as effective as Carnagey and Hasan because they did not provide a theoretical explanation to support their findings and did not define IAT, which might be an unfamiliar term. Therefore, Carnagey and Hasan’s introduction are concise and fulfill the criteria because they used a technique like defining subjects and providing theory demonstrating that they provided appropriate background and tried to remove any confusion surrounding their experiment.
The methods section should contain a description of participants, materials and procedures psychologists used. These lab reports followed the same technique in method sections, and they all give a description about the participants, explain how they all assigned the materials, and then explain the dependent variable being measured. However, Carnagey and Ulhmann’s method sections effective than Hasan because Carnagey names the mechanism they used such as electrodes. Uhlmann and Swanson did not use any mechanism, so they explain the procedure of the IAT. However, Hasan did not name the mechanism they used to identify the loudness of blasts that winners make through the losers headphones. Therefore, Carnagey and Uhlmann meet the standards of the method sections because one can easily replicate their experiment since they explain the procedures and names of the material; however, in order to replicate Hasan experiment, first the audience has to identify the mechanism to measure the loudness of the blast.
The results section should provide graphs, interpret the results, and discuss error results. In the result section, they all describe the preliminary results and then included primary results. For example, Carnagey provided HR and GSR rates before and after the experiment. Uhlmann and Swanson provided results for prior and after exposure to violent games on aggressive behavior. Similarly, Hasan provided results for aggressive behavior before and after playing the game between violent and nonviolent game players. These psychologists used compare and contrasts as their technique so the audiences can easily note the differences and similarities between the new and previous findings. After, they all provided graphs for the results; thus, the audience can visually see the difference between the violent and nonviolent games. However, Uhlmann and Swanson’s results section is unique because they discuss the error results. Their result section fulfills the benchmark, and it is well written because they provided results before and after the experiment. They reveal to the audience that misleading information eliminated from the results and it convinces readers that they are not hiding anything from them. However, based on the Carnagey and Hasan’s results, the audience cannot infer whether they added misleading information to the analysis; thus, they should have acknowledged to the audience whether they found any error results.
The discussion section should contain interpretation whether the findings refute the hypothesis, a summary key findings, suggestions for the future research, and limitations. When psychologists discuss the results, they all rehash the past findings to demonstrate to their audiences whether their finding contradicts the past findings. Carnagey said their results were similar with Williamson 1987 experiment prosocial behavior reduces due to exposure of violent games. Uhlmann and Swanson concluded their finding consistent with associative networks in memory theory. Also, Hasan said the findings were parallel with the cognitive neoassociative theory, script theory, and attribution theory. They included past findings to add credibility to the outcomes of the experiment, and one would be easily convinced that they performed valid experiments. Also, the format of the discussion section is very unique because Carnagey and Hasan talk about future research to show the audience that there are still a few answers missing. Carnagey conveys that people should perform an experiment on who will most likely to become desensitized by playing violent games. Hasan suggests that the next researchers should perform on aggressive related thoughts after prolong playing games. The psychologists include those questions to encourage audiences to perform research on these topics to fill the blank psychologists are currently missing. However, Uhlmann and Swanson did not discuss future research and limitations. Also, Hasan discusses the limitations, such as there was an ethical issue in their experiment, and they claim that if the experiment lasted more than three days then the results would be precise. Therefore, Hasan meets the standard of the discussion section because they included everything that a discussion section should contain; however, Carnagey and Uhlmann are missing the essential component of limitation; also, Uhlmann is missing suggestion for the future research.
The conclusion should restate the hypothesis and summarize the key findings. These psychologists recapitulate everything in the conclusion to remind their audience of the findings. Carnagey concluded that prolonged playing of violent games can cause desensitization to real-life violence. Uhlmann and Swanson claim violent media automatically increases aggressive behavior. Finally, Hasan conveys that violent video games increased both hostile expectations and aggression. They all concluded the main points in the conclusion so the audience can take away these main points with them. Hasan’s conclusion is effective because by the time readers read the conclusion paragraph they forget about the information from the introduction so they include their prediction in conclusion. Therefore, Carnagey and Uhlmann should have included their hypothesis to remind the audience whether their results refute the hypothesis. Also, Carnagey’s ending sentence of the conclusion is more productive than Uhlmann and Hasan’s because unlike them, they finish the report by asking questions to the audience to suggest that they want us to think about their experiment. Overall, Hasan’s conclusion is helpful because they remind their audience everything about their experiment; however, Carnagey and Uhlmann fail to remind the audience about their hypothesis.
Uhlmann and Swanson add an acknowledgment section to imply that they had received assistance from their colleagues while they were doing the experiment. However, Carnagey and Hasan are missing an acknowledgment section because they had performed the experiment with fellow psychologists whose name shown at the beginning of each report.
Carnagey can improve the lab report by including a theoretical explanation in the introduction to make the background more appropriate. Also, he could add limitations in the discussion because every experiment had to encounter some sort of limitation and it would ideal for the audience if they knew the limitation to identify the flaws. Uhlmann and Swanson could improve the abstract section by giving a little context of their experiment so the audience can understand the purpose of doing the experiment without reading the full lab report. Then, they could improve the introduction by defining the IAT because many audiences are not familiar with that test, and they could provide a theoretical explanation to give sufficient context of the experiment. Also, they could include future research topics and limitations because the experiment only explored whether violent game increases automatic violence or not; therefore, they could suggest future research topics like do violent video games cause players to become desensitized to the real-world violence. Hasan could improve the discussion section by including how they could overcome limitations encountered during the experiment.
Works Cited
Carnagey, N. L., Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2006). Erratum to “The effect of video
game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence” [J. Exp. Social Psychol. 43 (2007) 489–496]. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,43(4). doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2007.04.007.
Hasan, Y., Bègue, L., Scharkow, M., & Bushman, B. J. (2012). Corrigendum to “The more you
play, the more aggressive you become: A long-term experimental study of cumulative violent video game effects on hostile expectations and aggressive behavior” [J. Exp. Soc. Psychol., 49 (2), 224–227]. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,74. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2017.08.009.
Uhlmann, E., & Swanson, J. (2004). Exposure to violent video games increases automatic
aggressiveness. Journal of Adolescence,27(1), 41-52. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2003.10.004.
