Study: Violent Games Make Players "Comfortably Numb" to Suffering of Others
Call it the "Pink Floyd Effect."
A just-released research report claims that playing violent video games makes players "comfortably numb" to the pain and suffering of others.
The study, conducted by University of Michigan professor Brad Bushman and Iowa State University professor Craig Anderson, appears in the March 2009 issue of Psychological Science.
Both Bushman and Anderson have previously published research with negative findings about violent games. A press release describes the research methodology employed in the new report:
320 college students played either a violent or a nonviolent video game for approximately 20 minutes. A few minutes later, they overheard a staged fight that ended with the "victim" sustaining a sprained ankle and groaning in pain.
People who had played a violent game took significantly longer to help the victim than those who played a nonviolent game---73 seconds compared to 16 seconds. People who had played a violent game were also less likely to notice and report the fight. And if they did report it, they judged it to be less serious than did those who had played a nonviolent game.
In the second study, the participants were 162 adult moviegoers. The researchers staged a minor emergency outside the theater... The researchers timed how long it took moviegoers to [help]... Participants who had just watched a violent movie took over 26 percent longer to help than either people going into the theater or people who had just watched a nonviolent movie.
Prof. Bushman (left) commented:
These studies clearly show that violent media exposure can reduce helping behavior. People exposed to media violence are less helpful to others in need because they are 'comfortably numb' to the pain and suffering of others, to borrow the title of a Pink Floyd song.
reminds me of these studies where someone lies down on a frequented public place in a big city with a fake injury-->in most cases, maybe one in 100 ppl would think about helping him. do the other 99 all play violent video games? i don't think so.
Depends on what they played/watched. Maybe they were just numb, like sleepy, not numb to violence. Sounds like they did help, it just took a longer time, so they didn't ignore the violence.
Yes, academics are idiots and always wrong. After all, we as gamers have some stake in him being wrong so he absolutely must be if we disagree with the outcome of the study! Note how the title of the news article says 'games', whereas the professor talks about media in general.
Seriously. Go through a few years of university, attain a research master and replicate the study. This was the outcome of a study with valid hypothesis that were backed up. I get annoyed when people seem to think they know better and call doctors (specialists in their areas) 'retards', most of them only having a high school diploma. Get the fuck of your arse, read through the full study with all of its premises, and then discredit it in a scientific peer review if you disagree with its internal or external validity.
He isn't talking about every gamer. He isn't generalising. He's just talking averages and correlation. His hypothesis was backed up and it was calculated that the chances are very slim it was by chance that the groups differed. If any of you have a better explanation, I'm sure he'd love to hear it.
Last edited by Praetori on Sun, 22nd Feb 2009 01:08; edited 1 time in total
participants played a randomly assigned violent (Carmageddon, Duke Nukem, Mortal Kombat, Future Cop) or nonviolent (Glider Pro, 3D Pinball,Austin Powers, Tetra Madness) video game.
I guess a problem I see with this is that the entire fight event is staged by the study designers and is susceptible to bias. They actually said that with just the tape the fight seemed staged to most people, and only the actions of the experimenters (banging on doors, throwing a chair, groaning afterwards) made it seem more real. In fact this entire study hinges on this fact -- that participants believe a real fight is going on and it is the same 'level of seriousness' each time.
Also of note that the outcome of "actually helping" was not significantly different (21% vs. 25%).
So my opinion (as someone with a research MSc), is that the study is of poor design and highly susceptible to bias (especially given the authors have an interest in proving this effect as all of their research seems to be of the 'prove violent video games are bad' subject). Also in their paper they seem to have no problem confusing correlation with causality (really they just ignore this point all-together).
I think psychologists should stop pretending they are scientists
I'd be much more willing to care what he had to say if he plays video games himself. Also if you want to draw conclusions on violent media's effect in society, how about we talk about sport matches that commonly end in brawls? I wonder what the latency is on those participant's reactions to a sprained ankle.
Remember kids, if you play a rock'n'roll record backwards you can hear the devil!
id honestly say ive been numbed down to violence because of watching gruwesome movies on the internet, but its more in a positive way, meaning that i dont get shocked by it and can react faster
I usualy laugh my lungs out when I read about "research" related in the field of psyhology and "the video game violence" issue, but I have to say to me this article makes quite much sence - not only games related(perhaps games apply even less in this case) but to media and the image of the world my generation grows up with in general...
I do not know about the other users but the "comftably numb" position is quite similar to my reaction of most of the social "wrongdoings" around me.Even when I see a stituation in which I can directly intervine and make "better"(by social standards that is) I simply preffer to stay passive, observe or ignore, not out of some social passivism, but out of the fact that I simply know that no matter my action in the case , the principle that inspired it or is behind it will remain.
Lets say there is a poor kid begging for money - I do not give it money, not becouse I can't be bothered to even look at it - I swear every time I see a begger my mind is usualy dwellnig on the reasons for poverty and the general social position and lives of those stricken by it. But I still don't give them money,becouse of the fact that I've convinced myself that won't change anything -not even the life of this single person, simply becouse I am so sure that as soon as I turn my back some of the "older" ones watching near by will take it from them. And this image I have has been created by both real life expiriance (I've seen this enough times already) and the literature and other "intelectual products" I enjoy that have come to expect such pictures of missery and poverty, that then no longer surprice or move me.
It is the same with violence - I don't remember ever seeing any violence at the school I went at(appart from some cases outside the school) , but when I hear or get informed by the media about one or other drestic example of human cruelty , I can't recall a single case when I actualy cared in any other way then what I would describe as "analithical interest"...It is just that with everyday life and examples of our own primitive and savage natures, no matter how well covered by the image of "civilised life" if you even partualy try and understand the reasons behind our actions and the course of human kind in general, make you "used to" all those graphical examples of "violence"..Simply becouse when you see or hear about a 15 old kid who kiled his classmate becouse of a lost game of cards, or a 13 old who became a "father" or the famouse "School shootings" that happen in the US periodicly....I simply switch to "well we are still humans"(as in homo sapience = animal species) stance, analise the situation to see if there are any usefull conclusions to be made and move on...
It would be easy to explane this sort of mental preparation with the "media" we get...But the truth for me at least is ,that this whole lack of reaction and "numb" stance are actualy a parmathical function of our mind ,which interacts with the expiriance we recieve. The human mind tends to allways adapt to the worse posible situation it is exposed to, and concider this exact situation extreem(as in switching us in a "overtime" adrenaline mode) - it bases its reactions on all other situations on this image as well and how "far" they are from the situation.The problem is that it doesn't concider only real life expiriances , but fictional ones as well(this explanes most of the transformations in perception that happen in people with different phobia) such as any story,image or an idea that was ever presented to our attention. So...when you are constantly exposing your imagination to the concept that the worst case scenario that could happen is say...a nuke crysis with terrorists stealing russian rockets and starting a holocost-esque WW 3, somehow ,even though it is only your imagination , you stop beeing so much bothered with the idea of your schoolmate beeing mugged after a beating infront of you...
It is just that thinking in global scale issues or knowing the reasons behind a current situation, usualy make you see the sitiuation as just a sympthom, that even if personal doesn't matter that much in it's solution...And becouse all of this is done on a near organic sub-conciouse level you rearly bother and ask yourself "Ok- why is it that I ACTUALY DON'T give a damn ? "
So if there is any blame for emotional numbing to be put on some or other form of media influence, that would not be the general exposure to violence(it's effect is present no doubt, but not in making you crule and uncaring for the suffering of others), but the general exposure to the idea of a violence on such a mass and humanwide scale you begin to concider the individual suffering abismal..
Well..Just mine two cents - as on why exactly do the kids who have played videogames react less activly to a scene of violense - it is as said above becouse of the fact that they have just (even if only ficiionaly - the mind does not differentiate betwin real and fictional problems on a sensonary level) been exposed to a problem of violent nature in a form that makes a schoolyard braw seem like something less then worthy for the minds eye...It is not video game violence - but the image of a reality of violence that humans generaly, like it or not live in...
Just my two cents...And those of the bio-chemical paradigm in educational psyhology...and phenomenology...and existentialism over all...
Ok..make that eight cents....
Tl;dr but the "comfortably numb" you speak of in the first paragraph has nothing to do with violence in media, in my opinion. Newer generations are just more indifferent to many many issues around them, that is a fact, but I don't think it has to do with media, at least not in the sense of violence. I think it has more to do with education.
O-M-G... this is what you get with old people that never actually have played the games themselves -.-
Anyway to quote one of the guys at youtube: why does it say 1167 ratings and 203 views?
I've been playing "violent" videogames a good portion of my life and i still find violent things disturbing (as in real violent things, not movie shit).
Study is bs.
Me thinks they do these "studies" to encourage parents into forcing their kids to read.
Fuck, I read all the time as I assume most of the people on here do. I read scientific journals and different sorts of novels etc
And my 12 year old niece, who has a PS2 and tons of game (gave her mine and I had atleast 30 games for it) reads all the time. She reads 1 or 2 books a week. And not for school, but because she enjoys reading.
Even my 5 year old nephew would rather have someone read him one of his hundred's of comic books than play videogames with me or his dad.
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They were probably so bored by the silly movie/game they played, they were just sleepy 
