Discuss what research studies have told us about the negative effects of computers and / or video games on behaviour. (4+6)

Question 1

2 negative effects of computer and video games

Answer 1

Violent games may cause aggressive behaviour,

Violent games may damage social relationships

Question 2

Anderson and Dill

Answer 2

lab experiment - comparing the effects of Wolfenstein (involving killed nazi guards and ultimately hitler) and Myst (a non-violent, face-paced thinking game) - 210 psychology undergrads played the violent or non-violentt games (IV), twice in the first session and once a week later. They then played a game where they could (apparently) blast an opponent with white noise (DV) - participants who played Wolfenstein gave longer blasts of white noise than those who played Myst, they also scored higher on an ‘aggression accessibility index’, a measure of how quickly they responded to aggressive compared with control words

Question 3

Weber

Answer 3

male puts were place in an fMRI scanner and played a violent video game - part of the brain which is used to generate empathy was less active during violent game play - suggests playing violent games leads to desensitisation

Question 4

Anderson and Dill 2nd study

Answer 4

227 psychology undergrads completed questionnaires to measure trait aggression and delinquency - both general (estimating how frequently they had damaged school property) and aggressive (e.g. estimating how frequently in the past year they have hit or threatened to hit other students) - they also completed questionnaires about their five favourite video games, assessing how often they played them and how violent the content and graphics of the game. Multiplying the two scores created an exposure to video violence score - the scores correlated positively with those for trait aggression and for delinquency - the researchers suggest that these longer lasting effects come about because violent game contact teaches aggressive attitudes and ways of behaving, leading to personality changes

Question 5

Walker

Answer 5

found that in a survey of 813 uni students that was the amount of time playing video games went up, the quality of relationships with parents and peers went down

Question 6

Valkenburg and Peter

Answer 6

propose the internet-enhanced self-disclosure hypothesis: shy and self-conscious adolescents will find it easier to disclose things about themselves online because they are less worried about their appearance and social status, and self-disclosure contribute greatly to relationship formation