PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF FIRST- PERSON SHOOTER GAMES

FIRST PERSON GAMES

• Definition:
• “… in which the player assumes the field of vision of the protagonist…but the rest of the character model is not seen.” ¹

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• Examples:
• Counterstrike, Call of Duty, PUBG Battleground, Minecraft

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

WHAT MAKES THESE GAMES VIOLENT

Rating: Mature ²

Unsanitized violence: blood/gore, strong language

Rating: E10+

Sanitized Violence: fantasy violence, mobs attacked turn red then disappear ³

PERSONAL OPINION

• There are documented effects of first - person shooter games
• BUT the current methodology to study these effects are inefficient
• Studies on aggression ⁴ ~ not ethical for participants to be aggressive to each other
• Time Playing Games ⁴ ~ only playing games between 5 – 20 minutes 🡪 not enough to understand the controls
• Type of Game Chosen ⁵ ~ depending on the difficulty or fast-paced nature of the game, can lead to more frustration (e.g., Call of Duty, Halo, Doom)
• These effects are affected by different factors
• Age of Player ^{6, 7} ~ average video game player is about 34 years old, development can affect game selection
• Gender ^8,9 ~ there are gendered differences when exhibiting: example: physical violence and spatial attention (more seen in boys)
• Culture ~ different norms around being outwardly aggressive or reactive

VIDEO GAMES: THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON

• United States ¹⁰ ~ more than 165 million players
• Mobile Games (85.2%) and FPS (57.8%) ¹¹
• Japan ¹² ~ 73.4 million players
• Play more role-playing games with cooperative fights with computer-controlled players & text reading¹³

GUN-CULTURE VS. NON-GUN CULTURES

• Gun Control Laws
• United States:
• Bipartisan Safer Communities Act¹⁴ ~ added increases security on buyer >21; ’red flag’ laws: removing guns from people considered a threat; $15 billion in funding for mental health programs
• Japan:
• Police and military can have access to handguns and rifles / hunters must take a course & pass a test to get a shotgun¹⁵
• Causalities related to guns ¹⁶
• Per 100,000 people

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PAST AND PRESENT SCAPEGOATING OF VIDEOGAMES

Bloomberg

Times Magazine

CNN

New York Times

BRIEF BACKGROUND ON THE POLITICS OF VIDEO GAMES

• Games are inherently political
• Based on the framing of the argument: ”How politicians respond to the ’facts’ of the external world, but how they conceptualize or ‘frame’ that world in their own discourse¹⁷
• 2004 Presidential Election ~ videogames became aligned with political discourse ¹⁸
• John Kerry’s Tax Invaders vs. Space Invaders
• Relevant Example:
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas¹⁸
• Eating mechanic: eat to keep stamina and energy

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OPPOSING OPINION 1: ‘VIDEOGAMES CAUSE VIOLENCE’

• Former President Trump
• ”…This includes gruesome and grisly videogames that are now commonplace.” ¹⁹
• Context: Parkland Shooting
• Senator Cruz
• “desensitizing the act of murder in videogames has contributed to the epidemic of mass shootings.” ²⁰
• Context: Uvalde Shooting

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This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

OPPOSING OPINION 2: ‘VIDEOGAMES DO NOT CAUSE VIOLENCE’

• Antonin Scalia
• In the case: Brown v. Entertainment Merchants ²¹

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• Hilary Clinton
• “People suffer from mental illness in every other country on earth; people play video games in virtually every other country on earth…the difference is the guns.” ²⁰
• ~ 5% of mass shooting are related to severe mental illness ²²

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• Jin Mo ‘Tobi’ Yang
• “I think the mass shootings occur because you can easily access guns in the U.S” ²³

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

CRIMINOLOGY LITERATURE

• Motivated offenders who play videogames at home, can’t commit crimes elsewhere ²⁴
• Context: Routine Activity Theory ^{25 ~} perpetrator must be in the same location as the victim 
• Messner 1986 ²⁶
• Even violent television decreases violent crimes.
• Markey et al. 2019 ²⁷
• “6.8% of the time when the perpetrator was White but mentioned videogames only 0.5% of the time when the perpetrator was Black.” 
• Reasoning: “….a stereotypical association between racial minorities and violent crime.” 

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PSYCHOLOGY LITERATURE

Positive Effects

• Cognitive Control
• Videogame players had better performance in a N-back task and faster reaction times ²⁸
• Lazy Eye Shooters ²⁹
• Pros ~ helps with visual acuity
• Cons~ takes 40 hours of playtime to learn the controls �

Negative Effects

• Empathy Studies ^30,31
• In adult studies ~ no difference in empathy; In children studies ~ long term exposure leads to lower empathy scores
• Desensitization
• Can happen with sanitized and unsanitized violence
• “Exposure to media violence can lead to lowering empathy concern for other…” ³²

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES & AGGRESSION

• Study 1: Comparison of Japanese and American Students
• “the sex of the participant strongly predicted physical aggressiveness.” ³³
• Meta– Analysis ¹³:
• Analyzed 134 papers
• Found: “The effect of culture (Eastern vs. Western) was not significant in any of the research designs.” ; longitudinal studies ~ the effect was larger in Western than Eastern Studies
• Main Take Away:
• Culture (beliefs/social norms) in combination with exposure can predict physical and indirect/relational aggression ³⁴

NEUROSCIENCE LITERATURE

• Positive Effects
• Cognitive Flexibility ~ ability to adapt
• “VGPs showed smaller switching costs (i.e., greater cognitive flexibility) than NVGPs supporting the idea that playing FPS games is associated with increased cognitive flexibility.” ³⁵

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• Visual Search ~ “the common task of looking for something in a cluttered visual environment” ³⁶
• “FPS video games often require the player to search for a target against a distracting background… sniper hiding behind bushes or the rubble of a building..” ³⁷

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• Visual Attention
• ‘After only 10 days of training on an action game, participants showed increased capacity for visual attention” ³⁸
• Spatial - how much detail
• Temporal ~ how fast

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NEUROSCIENCE LITERATURE CONT’D

• Negatives
• Conditioned reward for violence
• “participants who played an FPS game that rewards headshots are most likely to hit a mannequin's head using “bullets” from a realistic gun. This effect occurred after only 20 min of gameplay” ³⁹
• Examples:
• Fighting games with ‘finishing moves’ ~ very brutal attacks that is rewarded by extra points and cheering sounds ³⁴

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This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

SOLUTIONS

Current Solutions

• Rating System
• ”Over 75% of teen gamers under 17 report playing Mature-rated games...” ⁴⁰
• Justin John Roberts ~ “Any 13-year-old can bypass [them] in about 5 minutes” ⁴¹

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• Parental Supervision
• Japanese 5^th graders having their own TV sets (14%) compared to American 5^th graders (39%) ⁴²

Potential Future Solutions

• Education
• Children (Elementary – Highschool)
• Includes: internet safety, pros and cons of playing videogames, and possible effects

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• Parents/caregivers:
• Podcast series/radio segment ~ for on the go
• Video series like crash course

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MAIN TAKE AWAYS

• More research is needed
• On both the positive and negative effects & the different factors (age, sex, culture)
• Research needs to be accessible (not just publishing the most shocking results) 

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• Media bias hinder the information needed to make an informed opinion 
• Need to look about both the research that supports and rejects your opinion 

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SPECIAL THANKS

My mentor: Kristana Textor

University of Rochester: DMS program

Collaborative Writing Group

U of R research librarian: Arjay

REFERENCES+ QUESTIONS