The Negative Effects of Video Games on Behaviour (10 marks)

Video games have a different effect on people’s behaviour due to the individual having an active role in carrying out the behaviour which they see rather than just watch it. This can be a bad thing and can have negative effects on people’s behaviour such as reduced helping behaviour and desensitisation to violence.

It has been suggested that greater exposure to negative video and computer games leads to a reduction in the likelihood of helping behaviours. If an individual continually sees people being unhelpful or displaying socially undesirable behaviours they are less likely to think of this as unusual which will impact on their own behaviour.

Anderson et al (2007) conducted a study to support reduces helping behaviour as a negative effect of video games on behaviour by surveying 430 7-9 year olds at two points during the school year. They found that when rated by themselves, their peers and their teachers, children with high exposure to violent games became more verbally and physically aggressive and less prosocial.

It is also said that playing video and computer games can cause desensitisation to violence; the more frequent the exposure to the violence, the less the body and brain will act towards it. It is believed that we get used to seeing this violence and this leads to a reduction in our body’s reaction to it in the form of heart rate and blood pressure.

A study was carried out to support Desensitisation to violence as a negative effect of video games on behaviour by Carnagey et al (2007) who allocated participants to one of two conditions, one playing a violent game for 20 mins and the other a non-violent game. All participants were then shown footage of real life violence and it was found that the participants in the violent condition had reduced heart rates and blood pressure compared to that of the non-violent condition.

This research has good validity and reliability as it was carried out in a lab meaning that extraneous variables that could have also influenced heart rate and blood pressure are controlled. However this study only looks into the short term effects of video games which give us limited insight into the true effects of video games.

The whole idea that the Video Games effect behaviour both negatively and positively is a very western idea wand therefore is culturally bias as many cultures do not have the same exposure to these as the west and all studies were carried out on western cultures.