Study: Violent Games, Aggression Linked
by AFA Journal
January 23, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A study by a researcher from Michigan State University (MSU) and other colleagues found that violent video games lead to activity in the brain that is characteristic of aggression. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers simultaneously recorded both the game playing of study participants and their brain activity during game play. Then both were analyzed on a frame-by-frame basis.
"There is a causal link between playing the first-person shooting game in our experiment and brain-activity pattern that is considered as characteristic for aggressive cognitions and affects," said Rene Weber, assistant professor of communication and telecommunication at MSU and a researcher in the study. "There is a neurological and there is a short-term causal relationship.
"Violent video games frequently have been criticized for enhancing aggressive reactions such as aggressive cognitions, aggressive affects or aggressive behavior. On a neurobiological level we have shown the link exists."
An MSU statement concerning the new study cited a 2004 report from the National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center, which reviewed the 70 most popular video games. That study found that 49 percent contained serious violence, and in 41 percent of the games, violence was required in order for the player to win.
"New-generation violent video games contain substantial amounts of increasingly realistic portrayals of violence," said the MSU statement. "Elaborate content analyses revealed that the favored narrative is a human perpetrator engaging in repeated acts of justified violence using weapons that results in some bloodshed to the victim."
This article, reprinted with permission, appeared in the January 2006 issue of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association.
