Granic et. al's meta-analysis:
Granic's meta-analysis (2014) has found that video games are no longer an all exclusive front in which a gamer disappears from society for hours in order to play. Granted, one may shut him/herself in his/her room to play a game, but over 70% of gamers nowadays play video games with a friend, whether it be cooperatively or competitively. Also, many games involve online play, in which you are connected to many individuals all over the country, even the world, playing a cooperative game with them. It is no surprise then that gamers tend to acquire prosocial skills whenever they play games that are designed to include cooperative play and helpful behaviors. It has been found that children who play a prosocial game (in which helping others is the main focus or goal) display more frequent helpful behaviors while at school later on in time. According to self-report surveys completed by gamers, it was shown that many gamers are involved in their community one way or another, including doing volunteer work, and raising money for charity, moreso than their non-gaming counterparts.
Granic's meta-analysis (2014) has found that video games are no longer an all exclusive front in which a gamer disappears from society for hours in order to play. Granted, one may shut him/herself in his/her room to play a game, but over 70% of gamers nowadays play video games with a friend, whether it be cooperatively or competitively. Also, many games involve online play, in which you are connected to many individuals all over the country, even the world, playing a cooperative game with them. It is no surprise then that gamers tend to acquire prosocial skills whenever they play games that are designed to include cooperative play and helpful behaviors. It has been found that children who play a prosocial game (in which helping others is the main focus or goal) display more frequent helpful behaviors while at school later on in time. According to self-report surveys completed by gamers, it was shown that many gamers are involved in their community one way or another, including doing volunteer work, and raising money for charity, moreso than their non-gaming counterparts.
Greitemeyer's study (2013) was comprised of two experiments. The purpose was to examine how video games affect players' perceptions of themselves and their humanity. The participants in this study were divided into three groups: violent, neutral, and prosocial. A prosocial game is one that focuses on helping others, sans violence, and a better definition and a few examples of perhaps more commonly known prosocial games can be found here.
The violent group played Call of Duty 2, the neutral group played Tetris, and the prosocial group (in experiment 1) played a game called Pingus in which the player takes control of a penguin whose goal is to help other penguins get to a safe location. Each group played their respective game for fifteen minutes, and then each player was quizzed on how they felt about themselves as well as how they felt about the game. They were asked how physiologically aroused they felt while playing, they were asked how much they enjoyed the game, and they were asked how difficult they believed the game was. Regarding themselves, they received a list of traits including positive traits (broadminded, conscientious, humble, thorough, active, curious, friendly, helpful) and negative traits (disorganized, hard-hearted, ignorant, rude, impatient, impulsive, nervous, shy), and were asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 7 (very) regarding each.
The second study was very similar to the first, except instead of playing Pingus as the prosocial game, participants played a game entitled Sheep, where the player must guide a sheep through various levels. The neutral game was also slightly different, because participants played Flipper, a pinball game, rather than Tetris. The negative game condition was the same (call of Duty). After playing these games, also for 15 minutes, the participants were asked to complete self-report surveys regarding the gameplay experience they had as well as their personal feelings about themselves as a person.
The results were interesting. In the first study, the participants who played the game Pingus reported being overall more prosocial than those in the neutral or violent gaming condition. Also, the opposite is held for the violent gaming condition: participants reported being generally more violent than those in the neutral or prosocial conditions. As for the view of each gamer player's humanity, it was shown that those who played the prosocial game rated themselves as higher in both positive as well as negative traits than those in the neutral condition. Those who played the violent game rated themselves more negatively and lower positively than the rest. It was also shown that, overall, the violent game was rated as more enjoyable (or more liked) than the neutral video game. It was also perceived as more difficult and more physiologically arousing than the other games. The results of study 2 were quite similar to those of study 1. Participants rated themselves more positively after playing the prosocial game, and more negatively in the violent video game condition. Also, prosocial gaming participants reported performing more prosocial acts compared to the increased reported violence of the violent video game condition.
Overall, the results of the studies showed that the kinds of video games we play can in fact affect our perceptions of ourselves. As was stated, playing a prosocial game, where the object is to help others, the participants felt themselves to be more human (rating higher with positive traits), and the violent video game players rated themselves as less human (higher in terms of negative traits). Neutral games were more or less a control, and existed as a baseline comparison for prosocial to neutral and negative to neutral, rather than simply having prosocial and violent conditions, which would probably reveal obvious differences due to the inherent differing nature of the games. Playing a video game that puts one in the mindset of helping other people (or penguins… or sheep, in the case of this study) causes one to feel more beneficial to society and rate themselves as such. This relates to the following article, which explains how video games not only affect the perceptions players have of themselves and their behaviors, but also their actual actions post-game play.
The helpful nature perceived by those playing video games can affect their behavior during and after video game play. Velez and Ewoldson (2013) studied the effects of cooperative and competitive game play on the behavior of 252 psychology students in during game play. The study controlled for video game experience. The study looked at two ways the participants helped during game play through a self-report survey. There was either verbal helping, consisting of open communication and cooperation, or behavioral helping, helping defend against enemies and rescuing players in distress. The study also compared these behaviors against participants’ altruism scores on the International Personality Item Pool.
Results found that games that were both cooperative and competitive in nature were found to bring out the most helping behaviors in the participants. Each time it was found that experience with video games predicted more helping behaviors. Verbal helping was strong among the combined game type and with individuals that scored high on altruism. The more action based behavioral helping also occurred in the combined game type but was not significantly present among altruistic participants. The behavioral helping was evident among players that mentioned a motivation to play specified roles built into the games. This could be their commitment to supporting team in the competitive game play through taking roles not usually desired by other players.
The violent group played Call of Duty 2, the neutral group played Tetris, and the prosocial group (in experiment 1) played a game called Pingus in which the player takes control of a penguin whose goal is to help other penguins get to a safe location. Each group played their respective game for fifteen minutes, and then each player was quizzed on how they felt about themselves as well as how they felt about the game. They were asked how physiologically aroused they felt while playing, they were asked how much they enjoyed the game, and they were asked how difficult they believed the game was. Regarding themselves, they received a list of traits including positive traits (broadminded, conscientious, humble, thorough, active, curious, friendly, helpful) and negative traits (disorganized, hard-hearted, ignorant, rude, impatient, impulsive, nervous, shy), and were asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 7 (very) regarding each.
The second study was very similar to the first, except instead of playing Pingus as the prosocial game, participants played a game entitled Sheep, where the player must guide a sheep through various levels. The neutral game was also slightly different, because participants played Flipper, a pinball game, rather than Tetris. The negative game condition was the same (call of Duty). After playing these games, also for 15 minutes, the participants were asked to complete self-report surveys regarding the gameplay experience they had as well as their personal feelings about themselves as a person.
The results were interesting. In the first study, the participants who played the game Pingus reported being overall more prosocial than those in the neutral or violent gaming condition. Also, the opposite is held for the violent gaming condition: participants reported being generally more violent than those in the neutral or prosocial conditions. As for the view of each gamer player's humanity, it was shown that those who played the prosocial game rated themselves as higher in both positive as well as negative traits than those in the neutral condition. Those who played the violent game rated themselves more negatively and lower positively than the rest. It was also shown that, overall, the violent game was rated as more enjoyable (or more liked) than the neutral video game. It was also perceived as more difficult and more physiologically arousing than the other games. The results of study 2 were quite similar to those of study 1. Participants rated themselves more positively after playing the prosocial game, and more negatively in the violent video game condition. Also, prosocial gaming participants reported performing more prosocial acts compared to the increased reported violence of the violent video game condition.
Overall, the results of the studies showed that the kinds of video games we play can in fact affect our perceptions of ourselves. As was stated, playing a prosocial game, where the object is to help others, the participants felt themselves to be more human (rating higher with positive traits), and the violent video game players rated themselves as less human (higher in terms of negative traits). Neutral games were more or less a control, and existed as a baseline comparison for prosocial to neutral and negative to neutral, rather than simply having prosocial and violent conditions, which would probably reveal obvious differences due to the inherent differing nature of the games. Playing a video game that puts one in the mindset of helping other people (or penguins… or sheep, in the case of this study) causes one to feel more beneficial to society and rate themselves as such. This relates to the following article, which explains how video games not only affect the perceptions players have of themselves and their behaviors, but also their actual actions post-game play.
The helpful nature perceived by those playing video games can affect their behavior during and after video game play. Velez and Ewoldson (2013) studied the effects of cooperative and competitive game play on the behavior of 252 psychology students in during game play. The study controlled for video game experience. The study looked at two ways the participants helped during game play through a self-report survey. There was either verbal helping, consisting of open communication and cooperation, or behavioral helping, helping defend against enemies and rescuing players in distress. The study also compared these behaviors against participants’ altruism scores on the International Personality Item Pool.
Results found that games that were both cooperative and competitive in nature were found to bring out the most helping behaviors in the participants. Each time it was found that experience with video games predicted more helping behaviors. Verbal helping was strong among the combined game type and with individuals that scored high on altruism. The more action based behavioral helping also occurred in the combined game type but was not significantly present among altruistic participants. The behavioral helping was evident among players that mentioned a motivation to play specified roles built into the games. This could be their commitment to supporting team in the competitive game play through taking roles not usually desired by other players.
Velez, Mahood, Ewoldson and Moyer-Guse (2012) also studied the effects of gaming on prosocial behavior after the gaming sessions were finished. They studied 80 college students that played Unreal Tournament III with a confederate
and followed game play with a modified prisoner’s dilemma. The Unreal Tournament series is a violent first-person shooter designed around multi-player death matches. The participants were to play against bots, computer controlled characters, while working with the confederate. Another group of participants were to play against the confederate. The confederate was designated as part of the ingroup, wearing the college’s t-shirt, or the outgroup, wearing a rival school’s t-shirt. The participants then took part in a modified prisoner’s dilemma. The participants and confederate were given four dimes and told to covertly chooser how many to give to the other person. The amount given would double and they were to do this 10 times. The confederate was told to base the amount of dimes he/she gave based on the amount the participant just gave using the tit-for-tat method. In the first round the confederate was to offer two of the four dimes.
Velez et. al (2012) found that the cooperative game play increased arousal as many violent games do but it did not produce the high fatigue that competitive only games can create. The cooperative game play also lead the helping behavior during the prisoner’s dilemma regardless of ingroup or outgroup status. Those that participated in the cooperative game play gave more dimes in the first and third rounds of the dilemma part of the study than those in the competitive group. The second round was often in response to the confederate’s first round choice of two dimes.
and followed game play with a modified prisoner’s dilemma. The Unreal Tournament series is a violent first-person shooter designed around multi-player death matches. The participants were to play against bots, computer controlled characters, while working with the confederate. Another group of participants were to play against the confederate. The confederate was designated as part of the ingroup, wearing the college’s t-shirt, or the outgroup, wearing a rival school’s t-shirt. The participants then took part in a modified prisoner’s dilemma. The participants and confederate were given four dimes and told to covertly chooser how many to give to the other person. The amount given would double and they were to do this 10 times. The confederate was told to base the amount of dimes he/she gave based on the amount the participant just gave using the tit-for-tat method. In the first round the confederate was to offer two of the four dimes.
Velez et. al (2012) found that the cooperative game play increased arousal as many violent games do but it did not produce the high fatigue that competitive only games can create. The cooperative game play also lead the helping behavior during the prisoner’s dilemma regardless of ingroup or outgroup status. Those that participated in the cooperative game play gave more dimes in the first and third rounds of the dilemma part of the study than those in the competitive group. The second round was often in response to the confederate’s first round choice of two dimes.