Article 6c: Cyber-dehumanization: Violent videogame play diminishes our humanity (Bastian et al., 2012)

Question 1

Background

Answer 1

This article looked at how playing violent video games diminish our perception of our OWN human qualities and the human qualities of our TARGETS.

Question 2

Design of the study

Answer 2

1. Study 1: Playing Mortal Combat against another player reduces the perceived humanity of the self and the opponent.
2. Study 2: there was no dehumanisation found of the co-player (when they were not the target of the violence).

This can not be attributed to mood, age, gender, enjoyableness, excitement or frustration (these variables were all added to the ANOVA).

Question 3

Self-perception theory

Answer 3

People infer their internal attributes form observation of their own behaviour. Observing one’s own aggressive behaviour may have more pervasive (unwelcome) effects on our self-perception than only increased aggression: it may also lead to perception of the self as less human.

Question 4

Results

Answer 4

• Players feel less human when engaging in gratuitous violence (violence for the sake of being violent) in video games compared to non-violent video games.
• This self-dehumanisation extends to how players perceive their opponents, but only in adversarial contexts, not in cooperative ones.
• Video game violence contributed to reduced empathy, increased aggression and desensitising to suffering.