Violent Video Games and The Human Psyche

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Recommended: The effects of violent video games on adolescents

According to Valadez and Fergusion (2012), “The effects of violent video game exposure, both positive and negative, on various behaviors are still highly contested within academia and the general public” (p. 608). Violence in video games is often wrongfully perused as a topic of extreme criticism pertaining to an individual’s act of violence in today society. Examples of such would include the shooting that occurred in April 2007 at Virginia Technical College; where Jack Thompson and Philip McGraw asserted that violent video games were the ultimate cause of the tragic incident, but further investigation suggested that Seung-Hui Cho had never played any such games (Valadez & Fergusion, 2012). Since the early days of mankind, society has often enlisted the service of a scapegoat in the attempt to correct the unethical or immoral conduct of a few individuals; violence in video games is no exception to this type of social misconduct. Possibly, one may want to consider human nature and its unyielding desire to be competitively better than the next person; compared to an individuals need to be excessively violent regardless of visual representation of violence in the first place. Although many will argue the effect that violent video games have on the human psyche; the research is far too inconclusive for one to make an educated assessment of the provided information.

Over the past few centuries there are many incidents where society has found the needs for a scapegoat, although not specifically pertaining to violence in video games; one can see the recent attempts to blame something or someone else for the heinous acts of violence that have occurred. According to Fergusion (2008) the media and politicians are mostly to blame for the...

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...f Violent Video Games on Aggression: Is it More Than Just the Violence? Aggression and Violent Behavior, 55-62.

Anderson, C. (2010, Mar/Apr). Violent Video Games and Other Media Violence, Part II. Pediatrics for Parents, 26(3/4), pp. 21-23.

Ferguson, C. J. (2008, Jan-Jun). The School Shooting/Violent Video Game Link: Casual Relationship or Moral Panic? Journal of Investigative Psycology & Offender Profiling, 5(1/2), 25-37.

Ferguson, C. J. (2010, Mar). Much ado About Nothing: The Misestimation and Overinterpretation of Vidlent Video Game Effects in Eastern and Western Nations: Comment on Anderson et al. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 174-178.

Valadez, J., & Ferguson, C. (2012, March). Just a game after all: Violent video game exposure and time spent playing effects on hostile feelings, depression, and visuospatial cognition. Computers in Human Behavior, 608-619.

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