Violent Video Games: Changes in non-verbal behavior and short-term effects on valence and arousal Sophia Atzeni, Ting-Ray Chang, Aljosja Jacobs, Paulo Melo, and Dirk Verhagen Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) User-System Interaction Programme s.e.atzeni;t.j.chang;a.jacobs;p.h.d.fonseca.melo;d.verhagen{@tue.nl} ABSTRACT
Video gaming researchers have already studied the effects of violent video games on gamers’ behavior. The present study investigated gamers’ non-verbal behavior and short term effects during and shortly after playing violent video games. The research included three main phases: 1) preselecting violent versus non-violent video games; 2) setting-up an experiment with 20 male college students playing a pair of video games (one violent and one nonviolent game) on Nintendo Wii. After playing each game, participants’ degree of violence and arousal were measured by using the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and the results were compared; 3) asking another group of 17 students to distinguish each gamer’s film clips of playing violent versus non-violent video games. While IAPS results showed that gamers’ degree of violence and arousal did not change significantly after a short experience of playing violent video game, gamers’ non-verbal behavior (facial expression) was 78% correctly distinguished by observers. Limitations are reported and further work is proposed. Author Keywords
Violent video game, non-verbal behavior, Nintendo Wii, gamers’ experience. ACM Classification Keywords
J.4. Social and behavioral sciences: Psychology. INTRODUCTION
The influence of media violence on adolescents and children’s behavior has been a topic of discussion for a few decades. The majority of research was carried out to find a causal relationship between TV violence and aggressive behavior [1]. The sharp rise in availability and popularity of violent and realistic video games stirred up this discussion. Scientists also expected that violent video games cause
changes in people’s behavior [1] [2]. However, playing video games is different from watching violent television. When playing video games, there is more active participation and involvement [3]. Players receive rewards, identify with the aggressors, and repeat aggressive scripts [4]. Research that confirms or disconfirms the causal relationship of playing violent video games and aggressive behavior is very sparse. Many theories have proposed an explanation for the influence of media violence on people’s behavior. For instance, according to the excitation transfer theory, arousal from media exposure facilitates the response of an individual to a certain stimulus of provocation [5]. This theory also supports the idea that highly violent games provide the necessary arousal for aggressive reactions in real life. The media priming theory, on the other hand, states that specific processed information influences attitudes, norms, and behaviors. Therefore, exposure to violence in video games would foster the availability of aggressive schemata, which may be used for processing information in other situations than playing games [5] [6]. A combination of theories gave rise to the General Aggression Model (GAM), which can be applied to the effect of short-term and long-term exposure to violent game [7]. This model states that personal factors (e.g. knowledge structures and trait aggression) and situational factors (e.g. provocation and exposure to violent games) can influence aggressive behavior. Cognitive, affective and physiological arousal can affect decision processes which influence the behavior [4]. Due to playing violent video games the physiological arousal increases, which can lead to more aggression [3] [6] [8] [9]. Additionally, participant’s non-verbal behavior has been an issue poorly explored in this field so far. Even in the psychological field in general the usage of questionnaires and other tools of self-assessment is still a very strong paradigm. The adoption of observation by a third party has been a choice in some studies in order to adopt a more objective way to measure human behavior [10]. In the present work, we used the judgment by a third part as the way to evaluate players’ non-verbal reactions to playing video games.
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