Physiological Desensitization

1139 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Gaming effects on children

The purpose of the article, “The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence”, written by Nicholas L.Carnagey, Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman is to show the effect that video games has on physiological desensitization. Psychological Desensitization is defined as the diminished emotional responsiveness to a negative, aversive or positive stimulus after repeated exposure to it. In other words the purpose of the article was to experiment whether or not people who played violent games were able to still be aware of the violence happening around them. The authors set up this study by having the participants report their media habits and then having them play one of eight violent or nonviolent games for a small period of time. Then the participants …show more content…

The experiment showed that the participants who played the violent video games were less physiologically aroused by real world violence than the participants who played the non violent video games. “It appears that individuals who play violent video games habituate or “get used to” all the violence and eventually become physiologically numb to it”(Carnagey et al, 2007). Playing the violent games caused the players to become used to the fury that's happening around them. I do agree with the conclusion of the authors because the results prove to show video games does have an effect of psychological desensitization. Also there are other experiments that correlate with this study to help prove the effect of video games. There are other feasible alternative explanations for the results. The experimenters could have tested another age of participants and also performed a skit where there could have been an altercation outside while they were playing the video games and recorded who was aware of the

Show More
Related

  • Downside of Technology Exposed in Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

    652 Words  | 2 Pages

    In today’s society, highly addicting video games involving strong violence and language, explicit sexuality and crime often lead to inappropriate behaviors. Role playing games or RPGs allow us to step into a virtual world, cutting ourselves off from worldly distractions. Nowadays, the age range for people who play these extremely graphic games are anywhere from six to eighteen and are surprisingly hazardous to young children’s health. A study gave a group of players playing a violent video game the chance to blast a painful sound into their opponent's ear in order to get the upper advantage. They also gave another group playing non violent games, the same opportunity. The study showed that overall the gamers playing violent video games were more prone to inflict more pain on their enemies, unlike the other group who inflicted considerably less pain. Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D who did this study agrees, “violent video games desensitize players to violence, and makes them more violent in real life" (McGonigal). Young adults are exposed to these terrifying images, harming their mental health. In recent events, a young eight year old boy shot his grandmother after playing Grand Theft Auto. This game is the epitome of why young people should not be playing these games. It is comprised of murder, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal behavior, violence and general disrespect for women, and foul language. In summary, young people should not be playing these games in order to save their mental health. Furthermore, television contributes to desensitizing society with it’s ...

    Read More

  • Tradition Is an Evil Dictator in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

    551 Words  | 2 Pages

    Chraif, Mihaela, and Mihai Anitei. "The Influence Of Experience In Playing Violent Video Games On The Physiological Reactivity Recorded By The Polygraph On Romanian Youngsters." International Proceedings Of Economics Development & Research 31.(2012): 170. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. Web. 22 Mar. 2014.

    Read More

  • The Effects Of Violent Video Games: The Effects Of Violent Video Games?

    732 Words  | 2 Pages

    Children today are exposed to more graphic violence in video games compared to any past generations. This is because the media finds that making a profit, surpasses the lives of the adolescents that play these games. However, over time two sets of views formed from the violence in video games. James D. Sauer, is a graduate of the School of Physiology. In his article, “Violent Video Games: The Effects of Narrative Context and Reward Structure on In-Game and Postgame Aggression,” Sauer, describes how adolescents gain forms of aggression and violence after playing certain games.

    Read More

  • Violent Video Games and Bad Behavior

    1537 Words  | 4 Pages

    At this day in age we bask in the luxury of having easy access to advanced technology at our disposal. From the World Wide Web, to cell phones, music, movies and video games the human race has thought of any and everything to keep us entertained. Over the years studies have shown reasonable concerns regarding the long-term effects of video games. These games can desensitize gamers to real life violence, which is usually seen in the younger crowd. The studies especially hit on the games containing player-on-player violence. Though these games are extremely entertaining and can get kids to settle down for a while, if not properly supervised, they can produce adverse effects. Other studies have shown that video games can be used as way to yield positive outcomes such as, good problem solving skills, cooperation in a group and the ability to flow. Although there has been psychological research on children learning through the actions of others some believe that children are automatically able to distinguish between what is just a game and what is reality. The longer they are allowed on their game system the more they become convinced that their games are real. Some researchers believe violent video games can channel the aggression of the child but the parents are to blame for what happens to the child after playing an excessive amount over a period of time. Children can become preoccupied with these violent video games which have been proven to be the cause of poor social skills, uncontrollable aggression and a false reality.

    Read More

  • Model Of Desensitization

    1559 Words  | 4 Pages

    Individuals become desensitized to certain things such as violence and bullying when they are overexposed to these things in their environment. Maggie Nelson in her essay “Great to Watch” explores the violence prevalent present culture. She claims that repeated exposure to violence make individuals desensitized. Desensitization to violence not only reduces responsiveness towards violence, but can also increase support for violence such as the event of Bernie Goetz, where Goetz shot four African American in the New York City subway. Malcolm Gladwell, in his essay “The Power of Context: Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime” discusses the event of the Bernie Goetz incident to demonstrate the history of violence in New York

    Read More

  • Violent Video Games Do Not Cause Violence

    3044 Words  | 7 Pages

    video games often warp their sense of reality. The kids think that if they shoot a person in a game and nothing really happens then nothing will really happen if they shoot a person in real life. When video games first became popular, people may not have seen this as much of a problem because games were not very realistic. With the advancement of technology, however, video games are becoming more and more realistic. If video games become more realistic, children will forget what is real and what is simulated; a child seeing somebody violently murder another human being in a video game will have the same effects as seeing somebody murder another human being in real life. Witnessing these brutal acts of violence either will traumatize or desensitize them to violence. However, this is contradictory to the “Play is labile” theory (Schroeder 4), which will be discussed, in further detail.

    Read More

  • Example Of Desensitization Essay

    1657 Words  | 4 Pages

    Some studies looked into showing the effects of desensitization amongst consumers of violence like the case “The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence” (Carnagey et. al., 2007). This study looked at desensitization is a term used by scholars, public policy analysts, politicians, and the lay public to mean effects as varied as: (a) an increase in aggressive behavior; (b) a reduction in physiological arousal to real-life violence; (c) a flattening of affective reactions to violence; (d) a reduction in likelihood of helping a violence victim; (e) a reduction in sympathy for a violence victim; (f) a reduction in the sentence for a convicted violent offender, (g) a reduction in the perceived guilt of a violence perpetrator; and (h) a reduction in judged severity of violence victim’s injuries (Carnagey et. al., 2007). To put a clearer definition of desensitization to violence is a reduction in emotion-related physiological reactivity to real violence (Carnagey et. al., 2007) When looking at the term desensitization and violent video games the initial thought was that playing video games will in turn make youth more aggressive immediately after exposure, and become more aggressive adults (e.g., Anderson et al., 2003; Carnagey et. al., 2007). In this particular

    Read More

  • Violent Video Games Do NOT Contribute to Youth Violence

    2419 Words  | 5 Pages

    Ferguson, 2014 -. There are those who believe that playing video games that are violent causes a reduction in brain response to real life violence. This is because the violent game affects a part of the brain hypothesized to cause desensitization. It is then thought that this “desensitization” to violence predicts that those who play these games will become violent themselves later. (Bartholow, Bushman, Sestir, 2006)

    Read More

  • Media Desensitization In Media

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kostas Fanti found that subjection to media violence over a short period of time can still cause desensitization. His experiment consisted of an ethnically diverse sample of 96 college students that had a varying range of hours spent watching tv over an average week. In this experiment, the students were asked to view segments of nine 2 minute violent or comedic scenes in random order with three minute breaks in between each scene. They were also asked to fill out a questionnaire before and after viewing each video clip. Each comedy clip was taken from different episodes of the series” Friends” and the violent scenes were taken from various movies. Movies used include: Elephant, Clockwork Orange, Fight Club, 48 Hours, and Soylent Green; each violent scene depicted either realism, emotional suffering, or physical trauma of victims (Fanti et al, 181). In the first few moments of the experiments, subjects reported that they did not enjoy the violent scenes much and expressed sympathy for the victims in the clips. After a prolonged subjection to these clips however, the participants’ reports were quite the contrary as participants began enjoying the violence portrayed and expressed less sympathy towards the victims in the clips. Fanti noted that there was a correlation between aggression and the level of enjoyment to scenes of violence. What this means is that the aggressive individuals in the sample seemed to enjoy the violent clips more than the less

    Read More

  • Fight Or Flight Response Research Paper

    554 Words  | 2 Pages

    In many situations men tend to react with fight or flight. When they are faced with an uncomfortable situation or a situation they don’t know how to deal with, they leave or start an argument leading to a fight. Fight or flight response is a biochemical reaction that we experience during intense stress or fear. Emma Gray, Daniel Barret, and Christine Hsu all give evidence on the fight or flight response commonly found in men.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Violent Video Games

    1121 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the article “Violent video game have lower effects on highly exposed teens” by Lippincott Williams and Wilkins it states an experiment of low and high experience group of teens, that played violent and non-violent video games. The results were that the group of low experience had lower sleep after playing the violent video games and the group of high experience there was no difference in sleep after playing the two games (par 6). Children have a lack of sleep after being exposed to strong violence. Traumatization occurs in children, leading to poor sleep after witnessing horrifying murders, the amount of blood, and the pain that characters go through. Also, violent video game makes an effect in children heart rate. In the book of “Impulse Control Disorder” edited by Elias Aboujaoude and Lorrin M. Koran stated, “individuals who previously played violent video games and saw real violence it resulted that the individuals had lower heart rates and decreased of galvanic skin response” (185). Children feel anxiety when seeing these types of violent actions that is in the video games. The situations that occur in the video games can happen in reality, that is where anxiety is created to children. Children are more easily to be scared of things that can take away their lives, therefore violent video games show them homicides leading them to have an effect on their health. Minors

    Read More

  • Fantasy: The Positive And Negative Effects Of Video Games

    1187 Words  | 3 Pages

    This is extremely bad when children spend most of their free time being entertained by them. Children watch things such as cartoons or fantasy movies that contain violence or fighting scenes. Without knowing, they are becoming used to the images being shown. So the next time they see the same scene they become unfazed by it. This is the same with violent fantasy video games. With concern levels rising, there have been many psychologists doing their own research on the topic. Social psychologist, Brad Bushman at Ohio State University, started his experiments by showing a group filled with children and adolescents, violent pictures. One of the pictures he showed them was of a man shoving a gun down another man’s throat. While the second picture was of a man holding a knife to a woman’s throat. Bushman says, “What we found is for people who were exposed to a lot of violent video games, their brains did not respond to violent images.” In other words, Bushman described them as “numb.” Nicholas Carnagey, who was an Iowa State University psychology instructor collaborated with Bushman. Carnagey found that, "The results demonstrate that playing violent video games, even for just 20 minutes, can cause people to become less physiologically aroused by real violence.” He also discovered that, "Participants randomly assigned to play a violent video game had relatively lower heart rates and galvanic skin

    Read More

  • Effects of Television Violence on Children and Teenagers

    661 Words  | 2 Pages

    Television violence causes children and teenagers to be less caring, to lose their inhibitions, and to be less sensitive. In a study on the connection between violence and television done with 1,565 teenage boys over a six-year period in London, William Belson, a British psychologist, found that every time a child saw someone being shot or killed on television they became less caring towards other people (Kinnear 26). William Belson also discovered that every time a child viewed this violence on television, they lost a fragment of their inhibitions towards others (Kinnear 26). In addition to William Belson’s study, studies done by many scientists and doctors show that seeing violence on television causes viewers to become less sensitive to the pain of others (Mudore 1).

    Read More

  • Stress, Stressors and Stress Responses

    3964 Words  | 8 Pages

    Stress is the combination of psychological, physiological, and behavioral reactions that people have in response to events that threaten or challenge them. Stress can be good or bad. Sometimes, stress is helpful, providing people with the extra energy or alertness they need. Stress could give a runner the edge he or she needs to persevere in a marathon, for example. This good kind of stress is called eustress. Unfortunately, stress is often not helpful and can even be harmful when not managed effectively. Stress could make a salesperson buckle under the pressure while trying to make a sales pitch at an important business meeting, for example. Moreover, stress can increase the risk of developing health problems, such as cardiovascular disease and anxiety disorders. This bad kind of stress is called distress, the kind of stress that people usually are referring to when they use the word stress.

    Read More

  • Disadvantages of Video Games

    1321 Words  | 3 Pages

    Are video games a negative or positive influence on children’s behavior and actions? Several studies have been pointing out that exposure to violence on television, movies, video games, cell phones and the Internet increases the risk of violent behavior in the viewer, like to grow in an environment filled with real violence increases the risk of violent behavior. Plentiful of the research on current media have focused on the violence spread by TV for experts in developmental psychology and John Murray of Kansas State University, United States, it is difficult to conclude otherwise than that violence on television has increased levels of violence and aggression in the society, and that video games have an effect even more powerful. Violent video games are more distress, than the films of the same sign and that the images of violence shown on television because they are interactive, because they use a technology environment that allows the user total immersion in the situation, while producing new objects cultural. The reason is that video games are not limited to violence to show a passive spectator, but require the person to connect with the character and act for him, while violence in film and television images whose exposure is limited only to visual perception. The video game violence has long-term real effects. Children exposed to high levels of violent entertainment can become more aggressive and develop a tremendous face the suffering of others, also increases the likelihood they interact and respond to violence in their social environment. In violent video games as success is clearly defined as killing or take, and failure as die or loses the good and evil as the wicked: they, different from us, it is just revenged, I mate,...

    Read More

More about Physiological Desensitization

Open Document