Fantasy war games, are they creating socio-paths?

[dimreepr]

I grew up without such games and I’m very aware of the difference between fantasy world violence and real world violence.

 

After reading this story:

 

After his two young sons wanted to play violent video games, a father made the decision to take them to see the real devastation caused by war in a bid to put them off guns.

Carl-Magnus Helgegren told The Huffington Post UK that he wanted show his boys Leo, 11 and Frank, 10 about the reality of war, hoping to make them think before playing war games like the Call Of Duty franchise.

A crucial issue, Helgegren told HuffPost is that he wanted his children to understand that marketing guns to young people in video games, not only hides the reality of war, but also, can ultimately fund arms manufacturers that are involved in real-life conflict.

 

 

 

I began to wonder if I would be quite so sure of the difference, had I grown up immersed in such games; rather than playing war games with my friends in the real world where the consequences are obvious such as throwing stones or hitting others with my stick gun.

 

I wonder if the switch that’s turned off in socio-paths is being turned off in children who play these games, at what age is this switch set, if it’s settable?

 

 

[Delta1212]

I did grow up playing them, and I'm still the person who takes bugs outside and releases them rather than squashing them.

 

So I'm going to go with "probably not."

[dimreepr]

How immersed was your gaming?

 

Did you also play outside with friends?

[swansont]

If only people had studied this before, we might have some insight. I'm tempted to say Google is your friend, but this is one of those instances where there is probably a really low signal/noise ratio, with a lot of opinion being presented as fact from the "think of the children!" crowd.

 

The short answer is there is no clear connection People have been decrying the effect of some dastardly influence on children for a long time. Comic books in days past were thought to be a abad influence. Then it was role-playing games. Some studies have shown an influence, but are heavily context-driven, i.e. not all violence in video games is equal. Other studies show no effect once you have accounted for certain factors — it may be that kids with more aggressive tendencies are drawn to playing video games, meaning that if there is a correlation the causation is reversed. You can add confirmation/sampling bias to all this, by recalling the stories where violent people played violent video games and not paying any attention to all the other cases.

 

It's an easy target and a simple explanation, and some people want/like easy explanations so they don't have to think too hard. The truth is probably that it's much more nuanced than that.

[Ltmufufu]

While i don't know much about sociopaths, i'm concerned with this distinction between fantasy and reality. Fantasy is not necessarily a vehicle for real action, in fact it is often the opposite. Societies that have introduced access to porn into the public sphere, have been seen to have a lower rate of sexual assaults than countries that have not done so.

What if in some cases virtual violence can actually act as a buffer for real violence?

Besides it seems overly simple to look only at this one factor, as noted, there are probably many things that determine the creation of a sociopath.

If we were to say that fantasy is simply a vehicle for action, we would also have to say that people who fantasize about enjoying rape, will also enjoy actual rape, which seems an utterly grotesque and wrong thing to assume.

[Greg H.]

Disclaimer: I play a lot of video games and all of the below is anecdotal.

 

I play the MMO Eve Online, and I see a lot of this on the forums for the game: "OMG, you play a bad guy in the game and you like it, so you must be a <insert the mental illness of your choice here>". While I am sure there is probably some subset of the gaming community that are, in fact. sociopaths, I'm not convinced that it's all that deviated from the population average. Indeed, I am old enough to remember when Rock and Roll was the Devil's Music, and later when Dungeons and Dragons caused you to go mentally insane and bite the heads off of puppies (or some such nonsense).

 

Having dealt with mental illness my entire life (I'm bipolar, as was my grandfather and one of my children), I can tell you from experience that the causes of (and treatments for) these sorts of things are never just point problems. There's never a simple easy thing that you can point at and go "Yes, that's the problem we just have to fix that!"

 

I'm going to agree with Swansont and say that the truth is, people want something to blame that's easy to understand. They also, by and large, find it easier to blame something that either don't like or don't understand. But as I see so often on these forums, Correlation is not causation and the plural of anecdote is not evidence.

 

The simple truth is that the human mind and consciousness is such a complex thing that we, as a species and a society, really don't understand it that well. Two people can (and often do) react to the same stimuli (for example, accident victims) in wildly different ways and laying down a generality like "Video games are bad!" is not only disingenuous, it also potentially masks the real cause of a person's issues.

[dimreepr]

If only people had studied this before, we might have some insight. I'm tempted to say Google is your friend, but this is one of those instances where there is probably a really low signal/noise ratio, with a lot of opinion being presented as fact from the "think of the children!" crowd.

 

The short answer is there is no clear connection People have been decrying the effect of some dastardly influence on children for a long time. Comic books in days past were thought to be a abad influence. Then it was role-playing games. Some studies have shown an influence, but are heavily context-driven, i.e. not all violence in video games is equal. Other studies show no effect once you have accounted for certain factors — it may be that kids with more aggressive tendencies are drawn to playing video games, meaning that if there is a correlation the causation is reversed. You can add confirmation/sampling bias to all this, by recalling the stories where violent people played violent video games and not paying any attention to all the other cases.

 

It's an easy target and a simple explanation, and some people want/like easy explanations so they don't have to think too hard. The truth is probably that it's much more nuanced than that.

 

 

I realise this is an old debate and this ground has been raked over many times. I was always in the camp that at a fundamental level we all know the difference between real and fantasy violence.

 

However as these games become ever more realistic, coupled with the tendencies for some parents to be over-protective and keep their children within sight. As in modern military training that seek to desensitise the natural aversion most of us have to violence.

 

I think there may be a danger that over immersion in these worlds could be creating people who haven’t been exposed to real life situations in which they learn the negative consequences of going too far.

[Dekan]

 

I think there may be a danger that over immersion in these worlds could be creating people who haven’t been exposed to real life situations in which they learn the negative consequences of going too far.

 

That's a good point. Present-day video games don't teach a player much about negative consequences. Like the painful consequences of getting shot.

 

Could video-game machines be equipped with electrodes. Which had to be attached to your body, before you could start playing the game. Then in the game, every time you got shot ( say in the leg), the electrodes would deliver a painful shock to your leg.

 

Or better still - every time you shot someone else in the leg - you'd get a painful shock. To instil empathy with your fellow humans.

[Phi for All]

I think there may be a danger that over immersion in these worlds could be creating people who haven’t been exposed to real life situations in which they learn the negative consequences of going too far.

 

I think you're judging the majority based on a narrow view of one end of the spectrum. You hear the worst stories about kids who don't come out of their rooms to experience the real world, then suddenly we're creating monsters everywhere. There are always going to be things young people try that old people object to on some grounds or other. And still we don't have a population full of psychopaths, even though the media wants us to be worried enough about it to make their advertising effective.

[s1eep]

I'm not sure, but people are influenced by other people into things like terrorism. A cult, or group, is something some people fantasize about at a young age. I wonder if playing a game is just as influential as having a conversation with a person to some, maybe more sceptical minds?

 

I don't think they would allow a video game to be produced if it promoted terrorism. Are there control measures taken on games?

[swansont]

I think there may be a danger that over immersion in these worlds could be creating people who haven’t been exposed to real life situations in which they learn the negative consequences of going too far.

That's a good point. Present-day video games don't teach a player much about negative consequences. Like the painful consequences of getting shot.

As opposed to cap guns out in the back yard, which was the good wholesome fun I had as a kid (made even better because certain racist themes were not taboo, so we could indulge in even more strong life lessons without restraint). I'm not seeing the negative consequences of "Bang, bang, you're dead!"

[MonDie]

Among children, violent media is correlated with violent behavior, but the only supported mechanism AFAIK comes from evidence that videogames may temporarily inhibit altruism.

According to Kyle Smith of Berkeley, however, they can also do the opposite. http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/gaming_for_good/

... but that's got to be the crudest hypothesis I've ever heard...

Edited August 18, 2014 by MonDie

[CharonY]

I am not sure whether that is the intention of OP but sociopathy is generally regarded as a type of personality disorder. As is often the case, details and definitions can be fuzzy, but among the common factors named are often lack of empathy, poor impulse control and high self-confidence. The causes are under much discussion and appear to be very varied ranging from genetic influences to childhood upbringing. It will be almost impossible to elucidate defining elements. But based on that alone it is very unlikely that a singular aspect (such as games) will be the cause.

In addition, one has to distinguish whether media act as triggers for sociopathic individuals in a given study/observation or whether it is a contributor in the development of psychopathy.

[MonDie]

And some psychologists think there should be a distinction between sociopathy and psychopathy.

 

Scott Bonn - How to Tell a Sociopath from a Psychopath

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201401/how-tell-sociopath-psychopath?tr=MostEmailedTh

 

Not to mention that other disorders could contribute. The 30-item psychopathy scale has about a 0.5 correlation with the No Meaning scale*, which could partially explain their reduced aversion killing. As a contributing factors, however, a general callous indifference and thrill-seeking behavior (both psychopathic traits) would be distinct from the dehumanization of an outgroup or anger inspired by persecutory delusions.

 

---

 

*The mismeasure of morals: Antisocial personality traits predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas (Bartels & Pizarro, 2011) (note: I think their title overstates their finding)

Edited August 29, 2014 by MonDie

[Amity]

I believe that you are generally born with mental illness. I don't believe violent video games create mental illness and subject some children to more violent tendencies. I think that they help escalate some people (adult and adolescent) to be more violent, or sociopath in your initial question, only if they have a prior condition.

[lizardlady]

I had been very worried about allowing my children to play such games, and in their early years even banned any kind of toy gun in my house. Eventually i allowed cap guns, nerf, light sabers etc. As they aged, they got into historical swords, and airsoft.

Then we eased into games.

Throughout all of this, I have been an active part in talking to them, explaining to them and imparting my morals on them.

We have no actual guns in my home. I am for gun control and quite liberal.

 

I have not seen any change in their morals or views since childhood. I think they are well adjusted. They like history and ancient weaponry and fantasy.

[Bill Angel]

When I was growing up there were no video games, but children did watch a lot of fantasy violence on TV. There were the westerns on TV and also the gangster movies. Most of us had an arsenal of cap guns and rifles. Some of these guns even fired plastic bullets which could have been harmful in they had hit someone in the eye. I really longed for a Daisy BB gun, but my parents would not get me one, even though some of the other kids had them.

In any case playing "Cops and Robbers" or "Cowboys and Indians" with toy guns did not carry over into an agenda in adulthood of antipathy towards either Native Americans or the police.

As a point of interest here a shot that I made recently at the Maryland State Fair of a mother instructing her young son in the use of a machine gun at a shooting gallery https://flic.kr/p/oJhvmc

Edited October 4, 2014 by Bill Angel

[tar]

Dimreepr,

 

I think your switch idea, or question is important here. There is a difference between how kids handle their fantasy-reality interactions. Some empathy switch, can get slightly, or temporarily, set wrong. If this goes to far it could cause real world harm.

 

Two events that I witnesses a few weeks apart a number of years ago illustrate a subtle difference in "play" behavior that indicated to me that some kids have better control of the "switch" than others.

 

Good case: Child playing Ninja in his driveway with a pretend sword, we made eye contact and he lowered his sword.

Bad case: Child standing on the grass between the sidewalk and road firing at cars with his finger. We made eye contact, he stepped toward me, almost into the street and shot me.

 

One had control of the situation, the other was losing it.

 

Regards, TAR

[MarieB]

Disclaimer: I play a lot of video games and all of the below is anecdotal.

 

I play the MMO Eve Online, and I see a lot of this on the forums for the game: "OMG, you play a bad guy in the game and you like it, so you must be a <insert the mental illness of your choice here>". While I am sure there is probably some subset of the gaming community that are, in fact. sociopaths, I'm not convinced that it's all that deviated from the population average. Indeed, I am old enough to remember when Rock and Roll was the Devil's Music, and later when Dungeons and Dragons caused you to go mentally insane and bite the heads off of puppies (or some such nonsense).

 

Having dealt with mental illness my entire life (I'm bipolar, as was my grandfather and one of my children), I can tell you from experience that the causes of (and treatments for) these sorts of things are never just point problems. There's never a simple easy thing that you can point at and go "Yes, that's the problem we just have to fix that!"

 

I'm going to agree with Swansont and say that the truth is, people want something to blame that's easy to understand. They also, by and large, find it easier to blame something that either don't like or don't understand. But as I see so often on these forums, Correlation is not causation and the plural of anecdote is not evidence.

 

The simple truth is that the human mind and consciousness is such a complex thing that we, as a species and a society, really don't understand it that well. Two people can (and often do) react to the same stimuli (for example, accident victims) in wildly different ways and laying down a generality like "Video games are bad!" is not only disingenuous, it also potentially masks the real cause of a person's issues.

I agree with you and especially with the last 2 paragraphs. In my opinion, people are quick to accept things that are easy to accept and they tend to be biased with things that are in conflict with their ideals and/or interests.

 

There are too many things to consider before claiming that fantasy war games create sociopaths. In my case I am an avid gamer and fan of war games, novels movies etc. I have played them war games for years since I was 12 and I continue to do so. My reason for playing war games is that it's just simply "fun" for me, I treat it lightly as how games should be treated. But I'm not a sociopath nor am I a person who glorifies war, in fact I condone the act of war. People have different reasons as to why they do the things they do and it is not fair nor reasonable to blame one single thing to be the cause of one's actions.

[Dekan]

This "Fantasy War Games" business brings up an important point.

There are two fundamentally different kinds of people:

 

1. Peaceful people, who want to read books, and study Science.

2. Aggressive people, who don't give a stuff about books, or Science. They just want to shout and fight.

 

I think that's clear, from everyday experience.

Now, suppose the aggressive people can be persuaded to buy video war-games. These games enable aggression to be fantasised, and worked off in private. Thus allowing the aggressive people to feverishly press buttons, kill and maim, and shout and exult in front of their video screens. Without causing any actual wars in the real world.

 

Isn't that a good thing?

Edited October 8, 2014 by Dekan

[MonDie]

Here it is.

 

EFFECTS OF VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES ON AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, AGGRESSIVE COGNITION, AGGRESSIVE AFFECT, PHYSIOLOGICAL AROUSAL, AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature (Anderson & Bushman, 2001)

http://public.psych.iastate.edu/caa/abstracts/2000-2004/01AB.pdf

 

published in Psychological Science Vol. 12.

Edited October 20, 2014 by MonDie

[tar]

Mondie,

 

Interesting, but it talked a lot about violent movies and tv and the compilation of studies was made back in 2001.

 

There has been the war on terror inbetween then and now, and there is a prosocial, helping aspect to fighting an actual enemy that wishes to destroy your society and your way of life.

 

I think now, in 2014 the ability to be a sweetheart to any and all, is not the only measure of prosocial behavior. Helping seemed to be the measure of prosocial behaviour, and I wonder if it would be considered prosocial to help fight and enemy, or rescue helpless people from harm by killing aggressors. There is after all, workcamps in North Korea, warlords in several African nations, ISIS chopping of peoples heads and women's clitori, and any number of places in the world, were ugliness and aggression are already apparent. There is a certain requirement that we, as a society retain, for warriors, who will protect us, and our way of life.

 

Besides, that is just the obvious benefit of aggressive behavior, there is also an argument that aggressive behavior is a useful characteristic for football players, successful salespeople, and lawyers, politicians and freedom fighters of all sorts and shapes and sizes.

 

My point is, that there is a role in society and in each of our characters for violence and aggression, and fun in a game, can be had, without spilling any actual blood, or breaking any actual laws or creating any actual losers, or inflicting any loss or pain on any actual person.

 

The key, is being able to control your aggression and apply it appropriately. It is also probably important not to let fantasy leak inappropriately into real life, and to remember that real people are smart, and capable and not only able to be hurt, but to hurt back.

 

So the study shows that aggression in a game or movie or show will up the aggression tendencies of the watcher. This is sort of obvious to me, but boys will be boys, and men will be men, and we have our ways to focus our testosterone on the things that will help our families, schools, teams, and society. And to play games that bleed off some of our natural aggression, that has no enemy to fight, in ways that won't hurt anybody. Such as violent games.

 

And in regards to the socio-paths who played violent games, I would remind you that they also probably drank milk and ate chocolate, which most likely did not contribute to their sociopathy. And most people that lose their sensitivity to others were hurt by others on some deep emotional level, in real life. Such pain can be inflicted by just about anybody on anybody, with or without the inflictor being aware of the pain they are causing. And there are shows that are disrespectful of others, that are not considered violent or evil, like Southpark, that I personally feel are responsible for a desensitising or empathy lessening current in our society, that nobody seems to worry about as much as violent video games, but which might be just as injurious to prosocial behavior, as playing a violent game.

 

Regards, TAR

[MonDie]

Apologies, I was (supposed to be) on hiatus.

 

For clarity, they reiterate the psychological definition of "aggression".

Aggression is behavior intended to harm another individual

who is motivated to avoid that harm. It is not an affect, emo-

tion, or aggressive thought, plan, or wish

So anger channeled productively would not be aggression. However, we can ask whether aggression is just one aspect of a broader range of effects, and whether there's an equally undesireable opposite to aggressive behavior.

 

 

 

There has been the war on terror inbetween then and now, and there is a prosocial, helping aspect to fighting an actual enemy that wishes to destroy your society and your way of life.

 

I think now, in 2014 the ability to be a sweetheart to any and all, is not the only measure of prosocial behavior. Helping seemed to be the measure of prosocial behaviour, and I wonder if it would be considered prosocial to help fight and enemy, or rescue helpless people from harm by killing aggressors. There is after all, workcamps in North Korea, warlords in several African nations, ISIS chopping of peoples heads and women's clitori, and any number of places in the world, were ugliness and aggression are already apparent. There is a certain requirement that we, as a society retain, for warriors, who will protect us, and our way of life.

You're suggesting that we must stop aggression by responding to it with aggression. However, if your enemy operates on the same principle, then this only creates a vicious cycle.

But you could distinguish types of aggressive behavior.

[tar]

MonDie,

 

I realize that two aggressors make a war, or conflict. Was merely pointing out that as a society one must meet an aggressor with aggression, or risk suffering the harm the enemy is wishing to inflict. And to this, aggressors that happen to be on your side, are prosocial elements.

 

Regards, TAR

[Willie71]

I am not sure whether that is the intention of OP but sociopathy is generally regarded as a type of personality disorder. As is often the case, details and definitions can be fuzzy, but among the common factors named are often lack of empathy, poor impulse control and high self-confidence. The causes are under much discussion and appear to be very varied ranging from genetic influences to childhood upbringing. It will be almost impossible to elucidate defining elements. But based on that alone it is very unlikely that a singular aspect (such as games) will be the cause.

In addition, one has to distinguish whether media act as triggers for sociopathic individuals in a given study/observation or whether it is a contributor in the development of psychopathy.

 

 

And some psychologists think there should be a distinction between sociopathy and psychopathy.

 

Scott Bonn - How to Tell a Sociopath from a Psychopath

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201401/how-tell-sociopath-psychopath?tr=MostEmailedTh

 

Not to mention that other disorders could contribute. The 30-item psychopathy scale has about a 0.5 correlation with the No Meaning scale*, which could partially explain their reduced aversion killing. As a contributing factors, however, a general callous indifference and thrill-seeking behavior (both psychopathic traits) would be distinct from the dehumanization of an outgroup or anger inspired by persecutory delusions.

 

---

 

*The mismeasure of morals: Antisocial personality traits predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas (Bartels & Pizarro, 2011) (note: I think their title overstates their finding)

Sociopath and Psychopath are different from an antisocial personality disorder. Robert Hare is well respected in the field, and is probably the leading expert on Psychopathy. Antisocial personality disorder is a combination of temperament and environment, whereas psychopathy exists regardless of environment. One of the distinctions is that an antisocial personality disorder experiences emotion, but tends to have a negative attributional bias, with a primary angry/aggressive response style. A Psychopath tends to have little emotion, requiring heightened levels of stimulation to experience feelings.

 

Re: the original topic, there is a fair bit of debate in the literature for several reasons. There is not a standard definition of aggression or exposure time. It is difficult to rule out the effects of parenting style, peer influences, and other contributing factors such as substance abuse. That said, we know there are physiological changes in the brain from exposure to violent media, a pattern of desensitivity to suffering, and a glorifying of antisocial behaviour.

 

The generally accepted stance is that vulnerable kids are affected to a much greater extent than well adjusted kids. The idea that violent kids are attracted to violent games skewing the results isn't well supported. Violent behaviour and antisocial attitudes tend to follow gaming, rather than the other way around. Boys are more affected than girls too.