The 1970’s saw the evolution of Video games which were played out initially in the public domain, but it wasn’t until the 1980’s that consumers were able to play games at home via Nintendo and Atari consoles (Wardyga, 2018). The 1990’s saw violent video games such as Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Double Dragon hit the scene with the “first-person shooter games” Wolfenstein 3D and Doom released in 1992 and 1993 respectively (Wardyga, 2018). Wolfenstein 3D was credited as being the First shooter video game whereby the player is the main character who experiences combat first hand with weapons of choice, mainly a gun or other weapons (Wardyga, 2018). As these violent video games grew increasingly popularity the debate with researchers also grew as they investigated the effects of violence and aggressive behaviour starting back in the 1980’s (Wardyga, 2018).
Violent Media (includes Violent Video Games) is defined as “those that depict intentional attempts by individuals to inflict harm on others. An “individual” can be a nonhuman cartoon character, a real person, or anything in between (Anderson & Bushman, 2001). Definition for Aggression is “behavior intended to harm another individual who is motivated to avoid that harm, it is not an affect, emotion, or aggressive thought, plan, or wish and excludes accidental acts that lead to harm, such as losing control of an auto and accidentally killing a pedestrian, but includes behaviors intended to harm even if the attempt fails, such as when a bullet fired from a gun misses its human target.” (Anderson & Bushman, 2001). Violence is defined as” extreme forms of aggression, such as physical assault and murder. All violence is aggression, but not all aggression is violence “(Anderson & Bushman, 2001). There has been a magnitude of studies conducted over time that challenge and support the theory that violent video games (VVG) leads to aggressive and violent behavior. This report will present evidence from both sides of the debate. A study by Ferguson et al., (2008) which challenged this theory and found there was no difference in aggression for randomized exposure to VVG or previous real-life exposure to VVG Furthermore genetic tendency, gender and family violence were more predictive of violent behavior. On the other side of the debate Engelhardt et al., (2011) indicated that neural desensitization towards violent images in VVG was associated with aggressive behavior and neural markers provided a causal link between VVG exposure and aggression. Key points from both studies will be critically analyzed with concluding comments and possible future directions in research studies.
One underlying theory of VVG and its subsequent violent behavior that can help us understand this relationship is a social learning theory, the General Aggression Model (AGM) framework (Allen, Anderson & Bushman, 2018). It encompasses different factors such as biological, developmental, social, and cognitive and personality traits (Allen, Anderson & Bushman, 2018). It provides insight into how situations influence a person’s cognitive feelings and arousal which then affects their processes of appraisal and decision making and in turn influences their aggressive or nonaggressive behavior (Allen, Anderson & Bushman, 2018). This repeated cycle develops scaffolding for a ready-made aggressive knowledge structure and furthermore, personality can be influenced through these changed knowledge structures (Allen et al., 2018). Challenging this theory Ferguson, Rueda, Cruz, Ferguson, Fritz and Smith (2008) suggested that it is more of a biological/innate theory behind this relationship. It suggested there is no causal link between VVG and violent behavior but only correlational and that violent behavior is more representative of genetic factors and environment that come into play, the catalyst model. It relates more to biological and genetic predisposition that leads to a person’s aggressive personality and environmental factors such as family violence which act as an agent for violent behaviour.
Ferguson et al (2008) study was supportive of this belief and challenged the VVG and subsequent violent behavior effect. The aim of this study was to examine the above theory models and to see which one supports the experimental data. Study (1), one hundred and one undergraduate student volunteers were measured on trait aggression and video game habits via questionnaires in the laboratory. Then aggressive behavior was measured by playing a reaction time game against a fictional opponent setting a noise blast as punishment for that competitor. Students were then randomly assigned to one of three groups. Group one played VVG (a first shooter game), group two played a matched nonviolent video game and group three were given limited written about
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