Violent Video Games On Aggressive Behavior example essay topic

Today violence has become an every day experience in life. Playing video games or turning on the television, and flipping through the channels at random, you will most likely stumble upon various forms of violence. Does it desensitize or help us tolerate violence? And the most controversial issue, does it cause violence? Most humans learn by simply watching, and then imitating the action rather than trial and error or direct experiences of the consequences of our actions (this is not to say that watching and imitating is the only way of learning).

This method of learning is called observational learning. The highly recognized psychologist with observational learning is Albert Bandura. Bandura's theory states that observational learning is the result of cognitive processes that are actively judgmental and constructive opposed to mechanical copying. Bandura created an experiment to prove his theory. The experiment consisted of three different films, and four year old children that watched them separately. On each of the three films, a female adult aggressively played with a Bobo doll (hit, punch, kick, throw, etc.

). The only differences in the three films were the endings. One ending showed the woman being rewarded with soft drinks, candy, and snacks, after playing with the Bobo doll aggressively. The other version of the film portrayed punishment by scolding and spankings by other adults, after performing aggressive behaviors towards the Bobo doll. In the last film the aggressive adult experienced no consequences what so ever. After seeing one of the films the child was placed in a room alone with several toys and Bobo doll.

The room was also equipped with a one-way window so the child could be observed without their acknowledgement. The experiment showed that the consequences in the films that the children observed in the ending, created a different outcome. The children who witnessed the film were the adult was rewarded was most likely to repeat or imitate the aggressive behavior toward the Bobo doll. In the situation of the other children who watched the adult being punished for their aggressive behavior, the children were less likely to recreate the aggressive behavior towards the Bobo doll.

After the findings Bandura added to the experiment. The children who watched any of the three films were asked to recreate what the adult did in the film. Each imitation the child recreated correctly, they were rewarded with candy and stickers. Virtually all the children were capable of recreating all actions, aggressive or non-aggressive. The different variations of the films the children watched had no impact on them. In conclusion to Bandura's experiment, you are capable of imitating any behavior, aggressive or non-aggressive, but you are more likely to imitate if there is expectation of any type of reward.

Another experiment to study the effects of playing violent video games on aggressive behavior was created by Craig Anderson and Karen Dill. In this experiment there were two games chosen, Wolfenstein 3 D, a violent video game in which your goal is to kill Nazi guards, advancing in the game so you can kill Adolf Hitler. The other video game chosen was Myst, a nonviolent game. Myst is an interactive game set on an island with lush scenery, which was deliberately designed to be nonviolent. A Competitive Reaction Time Task recorded the participant's aggressiveness.

The object is to beat your opponent. Before the race begins the participants choose the sound level and the duration of the sound that the opponent will receives if they loose. The participants can see the penalty for losing set by their opponents. Because the players are able to see what their opponents choose for their punishment, the Competitive Reaction Time Task allows the researchers to measure the aggression by which the participants are willing to deliver punishment to their opponent. After the participants played their assigned video games they took the Competitive Reaction Time Task. There was a significant difference between the Myst, the nonviolent, and the Wolfenstein, the violent, groups.

The participants who had played Wolfenstein, scored higher on the aggressive behavior than did the participants who played Myst. The Wolfenstein group on average delivered longer blasts of sound to their opponent. The two groups also averaged the same in the intensity of the sound settings. To sum up the experiment, even though the two groups delivered the same amount of intensity, the participants who played the violent video game behaved more aggressively than the nonviolent video game players.

Outside the experiment the participants who reported playing violent video games over a long period of time experienced more aggressive behaviors. Since violence is in our every day lives, through television and games, we are more likely to except it as just another part of the day or entertainment. As humans we learn greatly by watching and then imitating. If we grow up with these games and television we learn violence and possibly imitate it as young children. I believe that the media and games desensitize us humans to violence and cause it.