By Morgan Ramsay — October 13, 2010

In the summer of 1972, sex and video games awoke as strange bedfellows. The landmark pornographic film Deep Throat appeared in theaters as Pong marked the birth of the video-game industry. Only four years later, in 1976, the CBS news program 60 Minutes profiled the controversy surrounding the release of then-ultraviolent arcade game Death Race. Throughout the 1980s, the first studies into the psychological effects of video games began to appear. Mature themes in video games have always been present and debated. Today, while scientific research remains inconclusive about the psychological effects of video games, this new, modern medium is caught in the middle of a political firefight.

Theory and Research

Two hypotheses are central to the theory and ongoing research about the psychological effects of video games on society: such entertainment media, especially of the violent and sexual sort, are either helpful or harmful to children, adolescents, and other players.

Video games are “exercises for our brains” that facilitate the practice of skills and assimilation of knowledge integral to unconscious living, such as pattern recognition and spatiotemporal reasoning.¹³ Behavioral nutrition researchers developed video games that modelled “asking, negotiation, and decision-making skills” whose exercise increased consumption of healthier foods and physical activity.⁹ In addition, video games enable players “to experiment in safe, nonthreatening environments, and to expand, explore, and reflect on different aspects of themselves.”⁴

Despite these benefits, exposure of children to violent video games has “substantial short-term effects on arousal, thoughts, and emotions, increasing the likelihood of aggressive [...] behavior”; however, evidence of long-term impact weakens with regard to older children, adolescents, and adults, as well as with regard to correlations between exposure and actual crime.³ Although aggressive behaviors are deeply embedded in video-game culture, “overt psychopathology” has not been exhibited by most players. Such psychopathology has been more frequently observed of children and adolescents who are predisposed to violence because of preexisting conditions or previous experiences.¹⁰

Sexual imagery in video games can also be significantly impactful, especially in shaping gender roles and identities. Many video games portray men and women in such a “characteristically stereotypical” manner that “girls may expect that they will continue to be victims and needy and that their responsibilities include maintaining beauty and sexual appeal while boys may determine that their role is to protect and defend women and to possessive them even through the use of violence.”⁵ Reinforcing these portrayals through play can “adversely affect the ability of women to ever attain gender equality with men” and hinder “male-female interaction” within mainstream society.⁵

Public Policy and Controversy

Science can be used to identify policy issues and to strengthen policy decisions; however, science alone “does not and cannot automatically translate into appropriate and effective public policy.” Formulation of effective public policy is affected by four factors: scientific evidence, legal issues, political realities, and personal values.¹ Controversy about the effects of violent video games has focused on these questions: is there sufficient and credible evidence? Are proposed policies constitutional? How likely are policies to receive legislative support? Which policies will voters support?¹¹

Regardless of general agreement within the scientific community that exposure to violent content in video games increases aggression and violence, the conduct of prior research has been criticized. Anderson notes that there are “gaps” in the literature, highlighting that there are few correlational and longitudinal studies.¹ Others suggest that many researchers assume video games are interchangeable and fail to account for how the differences affect players.¹⁴ Whatever the case, current theory and research is divergent and inconclusive.

In the United States, legislators have twelve times attempted to enact laws restricting the sale of violent video games—each law was found unconstitutional.¹² Therier determined that “video games are speech and are protected by the First Amendment; any attempt to regulate video games will be subjected to ‘strict scrutiny’ (the highest degree of First Amendment scrutiny) by the courts; the criminal penalties contained in these legislative measures would likely have a ‘chilling effect’ on video game expression; the ambiguity of various terms found in these measures (especially ‘harm to minors’) result in them being unconstitutionally vague; and the link between video games and aggressive behavior, or other forms of ‘harm to minors,’ has not been proven scientifically.”¹⁵ However, several similar laws have been enacted, but such laws are narrower and tend to restrict the sale of sexually explicit, or pornographic, video games to minors.²

Political realities and personal values are closely intertwined where video game violence is concerned. In psychology, aggression is a precise term that refers to any behavior that demonstrates a malicious intent to cause harm. Aggression is divided into three categories: physical aggression, or the methods intended to cause bodily harm and which is measured along a mild-to-violent severity continuum; verbal aggression, or offensive statements of the spoken and written varieties; and relational aggression, or the threat of damage “to relationships or to feelings of acceptance, friendship, or group inclusion.”¹

However, the public “tends to use the word [...] in a broader way than aggression researchers” and these “differences in usage lead to much confusion between aggression scientists, public policymakers, and the general public.” Moreover, the public tends to be primarily concerned with the graphically explicit nature of violent content whereas researchers focus on risk of harm.¹¹ Policymakers and politicians have often made decisions based on this confusion, motivated by the wrongly held belief that scientific evidence has proved that, in the words of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, “video games have ever caused anyone to commit a violent act, as opposed to feeling aggressive, or have caused the average level of violence to increase anywhere.”⁶

Looking Forward

Over 200 million Americans play video games. Nearly half of players are women. 84% of video games are rated family-friendly while 16% of video games feature mature content. The 40-year old interactive entertainment market is a multibillion-dollar business with overall hardware, software, and peripheral sales at $22 billion dollars in 2008.⁷ There is no question that video games have an enormous impact on society. Sex and violence in video games, even if eventually considered not sufficiently harmful to warrant regulation, have spurred controversy and, with that controversy, increasing mainstream awareness of, and debate about, video games as art, media, and technology — as an agent of socialization — and their role in the advancement and shaping of human society.

References

1. Anderson, C. (2006). Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy. New York: Oxford University Press.
2. Barret, G. (2008). Legislation on Video Game Violence (OLR Research Report 2008-R-0233). Hartford, CT: Connecticut General Assembly. Retrieved August 4, 2008, from http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0233.htm
3. Browne, K., & Hamilton-Giachritsis, C. (2005). The Influence of Violent Media on Children and Adolescents: A Public-Health Approach. The Lancet, 365(9460), 702-10.
4. Dickey, M. (2005). Engaging by Design: How Engagement Strategies in Popular Computer andVideo Games Can Inform Instructional Design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 53(2), 67-83.
5. Dietz, T. (1998). An Examination of Violence and Gender Role Portrayals in Video Games: Implications for Gender Socialization and Aggressive Behavior. Sex Roles, 38(5/6), 425-42.
6. Entertainment Software Association. (2009). Essential Facts About Video Games and Court Rulings. Washington, DC: Entertainment Software Association. Retrieved August 4, 2009, from http://www.theesa.com/policy/legalissues.asp
7. Entertainment Software Association. (2009). Industry Facts. Washington, DC: Entertainment Software Association. Retrieved August 4, 2009, from http://www.theesa.com/facts
8. Fling, S. (1992). Videogames, Aggression, and Self-Esteem: A Survey. Social Behavior and Personality, 20(1), 39-46.
9. Flores, A. (2006). Using Computer Games and Other Media to Decrease Child Obesity. Agricultural Research, 54(3), 8-9.
10. Funk, J., Hagan, J., Schimming, J., Bullock, W., Buchman, D., & Myers, M. (2002). Aggression and Psychopathology in Adolescents with a Preference for Violent Electronic Games. Aggressive Behavior, 28(5), 134-44.
11. Gentile, D., Saleem, M., & Anderson, C. (2007). Public Policy and the Effects of Media Violence on Children. Social Issues and Policy Review, 1(1), 15-61.
12. Graft, K. (2009, May 21). California Seeks To Uphold Violent Game Law. Gamasutra. Retrieved August 4, 2009, from http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23709
13. Koster, R. (2004). A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Scottsdale: Paraglyph Press.
14. Lavigne, C. (2009, May 25). Why Video Game Research Is Flawed. Maisonneuve. Retrieved August 4, 2009, from http://www.maisonneuve.org/pressroom/article/2009/may/25/why-video-game-research-is-flawed/
15. Therier, A. (2006, March 7). Fact and Fiction in the Debate Over Video Game Regulation. Progress on Point, 13, 1-30.

[This is an edited version of the original 2009 paper.]

Morgan Ramsay founded Entertainment Media Council and serves as President/CEO. He is also the author of Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play (Apress, 2012).

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