Psychologists have shown repeatedly the importance of imitation in learning behavior, in both animals and people. If you are around young kids much, it is especially obvious. But the same applies in more subtle ways among adults in the workplace and social settings. Thoughts influence actions.

In the situations you describe, where is the parent to help filter?

If you see something violent on TV, it’s easy to say to you child: “Now, you know, that’s not real. If it WAS real, that man would have been hurt badly, or may have even died. You don’t like to get hurt…. it feels bad, right? So you don’t want to do that, because you’ll hurt someone else.”

Even a 2 year old can “cope” under that situation. You help the child build a filter:
- This is not real
- If it was real, bad things could happen

Back to parenting. Content is not inherently evil, but a lack of parenting IS.

I’ve seen kids watch a show that had someone “beating up a bad guy” and then suddenly they are mimicking that behaviour. I’ve seen kids play “Mortal combat” and other games at school where it’s “really awesome” to mimick the fight moves. Until someone gets kicked in the face anyways.

So much media attention to the “Gangsta” and so many people packing weapons. In movies, music, video games and TV everywhere you can tune into people glorified by being violent. But I’m sure that’s all a coincidence that our society is becoming increasingly violent as an accepted way to handle personal disputes.

I wonder how anyone (who does not have something to gain by it) can objectively say that what when we are exposed too violence on a daily basis in society doesn’t become accepted behaviour. Those who aren’t affected by it are just numb to the “shock and awe” effect of it.

You would have to live in a pretty big ivory tower not to see it. And I don’t need someone to spend $50,000 on a study to know what I can see by simply looking around.

This topic comes up every time a new form of entertainment comes up.

When I was a kid we played Cowboys and Indians, where we actually hit each other with weapons. Later came more complex forms of role playing – ie D&D and everyone was freaking out about how this was making people more violent and satanic.

While I believe it is possible to have an unbiased study in theory, it does seem to be rare. I wonder if there is a study that shows how many studies end up proving the opposite of what the organization is funding them to prove. Now that would be interesting

When studying children and the impact of these entertainment/play methods everyone seems to avoid the key question that is being brought up here. What is the home life of the children showing higher trends of violent behavior when compared to the others? What about the genetic factors – are there parents scoring the same way they are?

My gut tells me there is much less parenting going on with kids that have the higher violent tendencies. Heck just looking at the hours played you know there is less RL social interaction with the kids playing the games longer than most people work a full time job. How involved could their parents be in there life?

If you want to do a study about this topic I believe you need an apples to apples comparison. Take kids that do not play VVG. Introduce them to VVG and watch their behavior over time. Personally I would expect them to show a heightened level of violent thoughts (not actions) initially but over time it would drop.

If the thoughts translate into actions then I would study other factors in those children as well.

If someone wants to do a study on behavior they need to include the other environmental factors impacting that child. Exposure to a VVG is just one factor. Personally I see some of these games as therapeutic. It gives people with some curiosity toward the bad things a nondestructive outlet.