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Football games make you more violent than shoot em' ups
FIRST IT WAS shoot em' up video games that were said to be causing us to get violent in real life, but now football games are even worse, according to researchers at Huddersfield University.
Psychologists at the University have conducted research that apparently shows that playing football games evokes a greater emotional response than playing video game shoot em' ups.
The research is being presented today at the British Psychological Society's Annual Conference in Glasgow. Forty participants both male and female were randomly allocated to play either a violent Xbox360 video game or an Xbox360 football game.
The applicant's heart rate, respiration and brain activity were measured before, during and after the games.
Though there are no numbers on offer, the results show that apparently "killing someone caused little brain activity but conceding a goal or a foul caused high levels of activity".
So we are led to believe that brain activity is directly linked to violence and that allegations against shoot em' ups in the past were misplaced. Dr Goodson of Huddersfield University said, "As participants reacted with more agitation during the football game it seems that the effects of violent video games have been misrepresented in the past."
Goodson also said, "There is much concern over the effects of violent video games and how these contribute to general aggression. However, this research indicates that 'killing' someone is not as 'real' as playing a sport and the brain recognises this and doesn't react in the same way."
We think that no matter how 'real' a game is or what emotions it manages to elicit, we still have the ability to control our reactions and our actions when it comes to real life situations. We also tend to think that reading studies like these makes us feel more violent. µ
Tags: Software
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While I’m glad to see they’re taking strides to find the links between video games and psychological effects, they never seem to have any solid proof to blame their claims off of, as there’s no real way of being sure what affects people subconsciously and seeps in. The human brain is a complex thing, so I’m sure those who act out “because of a video game” are bound to have acted out over anything else. As the others said, a lot of it has more to do with emotional investment. Shooting games are much more temporary, and the rounds are in quick bursts; you die, you come back, you see your score. With a sports game or a Real Time Strategy, your brain tells itself that it has something built up, and you put it at risk of falling. So what I’m trying to say here in all this rambling is: If someone’s personality is going to over-react over something they’ve invested in, it’s bound to happen anyways.
Did the researchers look at how it depended on which football clubs the fans supported?
Are we talking about American football or soccer? I'm guessing soccer, which means shame on The Enquirer for not clarifying things for the American readers.
Raise your digi-hand if you forgot The Enquirer is UK-based and thought they were talking about American Football. I was halfway through the article before I realized my mistake.
Maybe they should've hired some real psychologists. I see two problems with this:
1. (any) emotion = violence
which obviously isn't true. they say they noticed heart beating, pressure etc etc - but you get these same reactions whether you win or you lose. so theoretically, even if you win (and therefore happy or at least satisfied) you're more likely to hurt someone, which is highly dubious.
2. when playing sports games, a) they're usually played by the fans of that sport
b) players tend to pick their favourite teams.
so not only they're really into the game, but they are already emotionally invested in the game because they don't want to see their favourite team lose. both of which, obviously, tends to increase the emotionality of the players.
in one word, hogwash...
It is not about the action it is about emotional investment and consequences.
In a football game you invest 10+ minutes per game and may be in a sudden death tournament so there may be even more invested. When the opposition scores all that time might have been lost. Those games rarely have re-load points.
If you die in a shooter you re-spawn and start again. You expect to die and it happens a lot so it has little emotional impact.
Yeah, actually n00bs always go around flipping cars over because HE WAS SPAWN KILLING!
rofl.
Do you see Gamers causing riots and flipping cars over, beating each other to death because their team lost at Call of Duty?