A Better World Through Video Games

Over the last few years evidence has been mounting that violence in the media and especially interactive media such as video games contributes to aggression displayed by individuals.[1] This ability to influence our behaviour in such a way is concerning and may undermine attempts to build a peaceful society that nevertheless respects a person’s right of autonomy and the ability to choose the entertainment in which we wish to partake[2].

If we accept that the entertainment we consume may have negative effects on our behaviour, (and much as I hate to admit it the evidence is pretty convincing) at what point do we decide that it is our responsibility to curtail these forms of entertainment for the greater good?[3] I’ll leave you with that to ponder ‘cos that’s not actually what I’d like to address, this is just the lead-in.

The research suggests that, like yawns, aggression is contagious. Bad stuff. But, what about positive feelings and outcomes? Can we propagate happiness and kindness in the same way? A recent paper suggests: yes.

‘“Remain Calm. Be Kind.” Effects of Relaxing Video Games on Aggressive and Prosocial Behavior‘ is the title of a paper recently published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. In it authors  Jodi Whitaker and Brad Bushman look at the effects playing different sorts of video games has on post game behaviour. The full paper remains locked behind a pay-wall but a decent overview is provided here. Essentially the researchers randomly assigned participants to either relaxing, neutral or violent games. The participants then had their levels of aggression or prosocial tendencies measured in one of two ways.

In the first experiment the subjects participated in a mock competition (not mock to them, they thought it was real) in which they had to push a button faster than their “competitor” If the competitor won the study participant chose an amount of money to give them. If the competitor lost then the subjects got to blast them with noise, and could choose how loud and long the blast was.

Predictably, those who had played the violent games hit their opponents with longer and louder sound blasts than those who played the neutral games, who in turn were more aggressive than the relaxed gamers. Conversely the most money was given to winners by the participants who played relaxing games.

The second experiment was a little more subtle. Post gaming the participants were given a questionnaire measuring their mood, once this was completed the participants were told the experiment was over. The researcher then asked for help sharpening pencils for another study, how many pencils the participants choose to sharpen was used as a measure of prosocial behaviour.

As you will have inferred, the (now) hippy-dippy gamers opted to spend more of their time sharpening pencils than their amped-up counterparts. Thus the world is made just a little bit better through the use of video games. Or at least there are slightly more sharp pencils than there would otherwise have been, that’s progress, right?

I’d like to know the full suite of games that were used in the studies but we do have one example from each category: “Endless Ocean” is one of the relaxing games, “Super Mario galaxy” is a neutral game and “Resident Evil 4” is, of course, the violent game. Now I know what you’re thinking, “that stupid scuba game couldn’t possibly be as much fun as blasting zombies!” well, apparently, it is. An independent group of students rated the entertainment and enjoyment value of each of the games and the researchers were careful to match the game ratings.

I doubt that relaxing and calming games are likely to supplant the violent kind in the gaming ecosystem any time soon but it is nice to see that people can be influenced in good ways as well as bad by media.

To plagiarise and butcher a quote from Homer Simpson:

“To video games! The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

——————————————————————————-
Whitaker, J., & Bushman, B. (2011). “Remain Calm. Be Kind.” Effects of Relaxing Video Games on Aggressive and Prosocial Behavior Social Psychological and Personality Science DOI: 10.1177/1948550611409760

Footnotes:

1.Here’s a list of publications supporting a link between games and aggressive behaviour spanning couple of decades. Obviously more of a taster than a full list:

Bushman, B., & Gibson, B. (2010). Violent Video Games Cause an Increase in Aggression Long After the Game Has Been Turned Off Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2 (1), 29-32 DOI: 10.1177/1948550610379506
http://spp.sagepub.com/content/2/1/29.full.pdf+html

Gentile, D., Lynch, P., Linder, J., & Walsh, D. (2004). The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance Journal of Adolescence, 27 (1), 5-22 DOI: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2003.10.002
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.120.746&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Silvern, S. (1987). The effects of video game play on young children’s aggression, fantasy, and prosocial behavior Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 8 (4), 453-462 DOI: 10.1016/0193-3973(87)90033-5
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0193397387900335

Anderson, C., Shibuya, A., Ihori, N., Swing, E., Bushman, B., Sakamoto, A., Rothstein, H., & Saleem, M. (2010). Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in Eastern and Western countries: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 136 (2), 151-173 DOI: 10.1037/a0018251
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2010-03383-001

2. With the normal caveats of not harming anyone else or restricting their freedoms, yada yada. My point is how far up the chain do we determine that an action harms another?

3. As we do with other forms of potentially harmful behaviour eg speeding limits, driving blood alcohol limits etc.

Delayed Gratification = Success?

Today we are going to step into the time machine and go back 21 years to 1989. It was in this year that the study to become known as the “Marshmallow experiment” was published. Performed by Walter Mischel at Stanford University this experiment showed an amazing thing, that testing a child’s self-control at 4yrs could predict academic success later in life.

The numerous experiments actually entailed in this study started with the same basic premise. Children were told that they could obtain a small reward immediately or could hold out for a more valuable reward later. The rewards were carefully calibrated to produce conflict in the child over whether to go for the immediate reward or wait for the larger reward (eg one marshmallow vs two, hence the name of the experiment). The experimenter would then leave the child alone and return a short (although not for the child) time later, typically about 15 minutes. The child could ring a bell at any time to recall the experimenter and receive their lesser reward.

Over a series of experiments the researchers examined what strategies were most effective at helping the child to delay their own gratification the longest. In some situations the rewards were fully visible, allowing the children to see only the immediate reward, only the delayed reward or both. In others the rewards were present in the room but hidden. We might find it obvious but those children who could see the rewards could not wait as long as those that had the rewards hidden.

It’s important to remember here that while some of the conclusions of the study seem obvious in hindsight (and possibly to anyone with young children) previous theories of the ability to delay gratification have considered the ability to conceptualise rewards instrumental to being able to to inhibit impulsivity. To explore this hypothesis then the researchers primed the children with various thoughts prior to the experiments, either by encouraging the children to think about the rewards or by giving them other fun things to think about.

The findings showed that how the child thought about the rewards significantly impacted how long they waited, whether or not the rewards was sitting in full display in front of them. Those children that were distracted by the fun thoughts could hold out longer than those who ere primed to think about the rewards.

To examine this further children where then primed to think about the rewards in different ways. Those who were told to think about what were termed “arousing” properties of the rewards, for example the texture and taste of a food reward, had much more difficulty delaying than those who were directed to think about the abstract qualities of the reward. Indeed, those children who were told to imagine real rewards were only pictures of the objects did much better than children who were told to imagine that pictures of the rewards were real.

One of the best strategies found by the study was for the child to imagine the arousing properties of a different food to the one they would get as a reward, eg thinking about the taste of pretzels while waiting for marshmallows.

So far so good, here’s where the real surprising aspect comes, in a follow-up to these experiments children from the original studies were then looked at more than ten years later to see if the ability to delay self gratification had effects later in life. They authors predicted that differences in the ability of children to delay when they had been given no strategies to help them (eg hiding the rewards) would perform better later in life than those who had the rewards removed from sight. This prediction turned out to be upheld, those students who could had been able to delay their own satisfaction without external help had higher test scores and were described by their parents as, to quote the study:

“more verbally fluent and able to express ideas; they used and responded to reason, were attentive and able to concentrate, to plan, and to think ahead, and were competent and skillful. Likewise they were perceived as able to cope and deal with stress more maturely and seemed more self assured.”

The results of this study seem to imply that those individuals who are able to spontaneously generate strategies to aid them in planing for and achieving future rewards are better equipped to deal with life. Hhmm, when I put it that way it seems obvious, I have to point out though that it is only through experiments and observations such as this that these conclusions become obvious. Without the ability to identify the ability of children to employ coping strategies themselves there would have been no basis upon which to predict this outcome.

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of this post, here’s a reward. An amusing video featuring a re-creation of the original experiment showing children in the sweet agony of indecision.

Youtube – Marshmallow Experiment

Submit To Open Laboratory 2010(What’s This?)

–
Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Rodriguez, M. (1989). Delay of gratification in children Science, 244 (4907), 933-938 DOI: 10.1126/science.2658056

Can the Order You View Things Affect Your Opinion of Them? Or, To Make a Good Impression Ensure You’re Introduced First

“First the worst, Second the best, Third the golden eagle.”

The above is a rhyme from my youth¹, the implication being that you really don’t want to be first in anything. First is the worst after all. Obviously this is not true in the world beyond the playground, firsts in every field are celebrated, sometimes in great disproportion to their inherent worth². How then is the position of first regarded by the human psyche? Do we give it more weight in other areas of our life? Can the order that we see things influence how we think about them, can we be manipulated into seeing things a certain way just by controlling what we see first?

Perhaps unsurprisingly the answer is yes. I should qualify that, it should be surprising that the order in which we observe something affects our decisions about it. We are after all rational beings aren’t we? We take in information, process it and come to conclusions based on the merits of what we have considered. Well, sort of. We are in actuality a mess of conflicting thoughts and desires, we all come with our own preconceptions and biases that can distort how we view the world without our really being aware of them. Is it really so surprising that we’ve found another one? Not to me, though this one is weird.

So what am I talking about really?3 Work performed by Dana Carney⁴ and Mahzarin Banaji looked at how the order we are exposed to things can affect the way we think about them and lead us to conclusions that otherwise we might not be justified in making. In a series of six experiments the question of how much influence the order we are exposed to stimuli affects our actions is asked. The experiments progressed from relatively cautious beginnings showing an implicit bias (using the Implicit Association Test – IAT as discussed in my previous post here) without explicit bias (self reporting) or real world consequences to actual choice biases in the real world.

In the first two experiments pairs of images (horses or people) were presented and then were rated for preference by the participants using either the IAT or an explicit seven point scale (eg “I strongly prefer x to y”). The implicit test showed a bias towards the first picture seen while the explicit measure did not.

Progressing from this the second two experiments attempted to determine if this implicit bias could be revealed in actions in the real world. Both used a pair of small consumables, either chewing gum or a lollypop, that would be placed on a table sequentially. The participant would then choose which item they preferred and would get to keep the item. In the first experiment subjects had to choose as quickly as they could (“within one second or so.”), this mimicked the IAT. In this condition 75% of participants chose the item placed on the table first.

The second experiment in this pair took place using commuters in a train station. Once again subjects were asked to choose one of two items which they were shown sequentially, this time however they were asked to either choose quickly or to take their time (mimicking the explicit test). In this set up 62% of the subject chose the first item in the time-pressured condition while no preference was seen if they could take their time.

Finally the study authors decided to test whether the preference for items seen first was due to an impulse to regard these items more positively than later seen items or if it was because the condition enhanced previously held beliefs about the object. In other words perhaps the first gum you see isn’t taken because your are made to think it’s better than the second gum but because you already have a positive view of gum and have this positive view reinforced by seeing one type first and so chose it for that reason.

To try and tease out these factors the authors used pictures of convicts in the final two experiments in order to use a stimulus that would naturally be seen negatively. In this set up participants were asked to indicate which criminal was a better candidate for parole. If first seem items have a more positive aspect imparted to them by virtue of being first then the first convict would be chosen. If on the other hand a baseline feeling about objects is enhanced then the second convict would be chosen. Once again however the IAT showed a preference for the first convict seen, labelling them better suited for parole. Also again, no preference was seen in the explicit measures.

What does this tell us about the general human capacity for decision making. Well superficially it’s good news. Given the time we will deliberate and make decisions based on the evidence available. If however we are working under time pressures then our implicit biases may come to the fore. There are however certain decisions that the authors of this study point out are known to be subject to implicit bias, such as consumer brand preference or even treatment preferences of doctors for specific patients.

We should be wary then of this new bias that has been thrown into the mix. Our heads are already full of biases that we may or may not be aware of, only by attempting to identify them do we stand much hope in correcting or tempering their influence on us.

So next time you need to make a snap decision, try to slow down and think it through. You may make a better choice⁵.

Submit To Open Laboratory 2010(What’s This?)

1. There seem to be versions of this around the world but the one above is most common in New Zealand as evidenced by this report.

2. Looking at you gold medal in Olympic BMX.

3. And how many rhetorical questions can I fit into one article? (does this one count? [or that one? {ok I'll stop now}])

4. Of the “Is Your Boss A Better Liar Than You? Probably, Yes” post.

5. On the other hand you may not want to think complex decisions through too much.

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Does Your Environment Determine Your Behaviour?

Last week I posted about the effects of alcohol availability on the amount of violence in an area and mentioned that disorder in the area might also contribute to this. I thought this needed expanding upon, are we really so shallow as a species that we allow the environment that we may be in only briefly to dictate how we behave?

This approach to behaviour is referred to as the Broken Windows Theory and states that signs of disorderly behaviour will beget more disorderly behaviour. These signs might be graffiti, littering or the observation that legitimate signage requesting a particular behaviour is being ignored. We are a species that learns by watching others, it is reasonable to conclude that we don’t only pick up good and productive behaviours in this way but potentially antisocial or destructive behaviours as well.

Acting on this theory cities around the world have embarked on projects to clean up urban areas in order to reduce the instance of petty crime. Trouble was that there was no conclusive evidence to back this theory up. A paper that goes some way towards rectifying this was published in late 2008. It looked at the effects of manipulating the environment on the propensity for people to break either social norms, police enforced ordinances or requests by companies.

The paper hypothesised that people were not merely copying behaviours but that indications of social or legal norms not being followed in an area allowed other personal goals to override our normal instincts to act in socially acceptable ways. To investigate this the researchers set up conditions to see if the breaking of one rule lead to the breaking of a different rule e.g. graffiti leading to littering or litter leading to stealing.

In all 6 studies were performed, in the first an ally where bicycles were commonly parked was set up to have either clean or graffiti covered walls. The effect of this environment on littering was then observed by attaching a useless flyer onto the bicycle handlebars and counting instances of littering compared to those that took the flyer with them (there were no bins in the ally). In the clean wall condition 33% of those collecting bikes littered, compared with 69% in the graffiti condition.

In the second study the conditions were whether an injunction to not lock bicycles to a fence would affect whether or not people would take a police sanctioned detour. Two signs were placed along the fence of a car-park, the first prohibited locking bicycles to the fence while the second advised that the closest entrance to the car-park was closed and that a second entrance 200 metres further along had to be used. The entrance was closed with a temporary fence but a gap left that could be used. Bicycles were then conspicuously left either locked or not locked to the fence. When the bicycles were not locked to the fence 73% of people entering the car-park took the detour compared with only 18% when the bikes were seen violating the sign.

I think we can see a pattern emerging. I’m going to skip the third and forth studies that are variations on the littering theme and to go straight for the fifth and sixth. These two studies concerned stealing and had very similar set-ups, an envelope visibly containing a €5 note was set-up hanging out of a mail collection box. The box was then either clean and the area around it tidy or the box was graffitied or there was litter around the box. Taking or opening the envelope were both counted as stealing. The clean and tidy condition resulted in 13% of passers-by stealing the envelope, whereas the graffiti and litter conditions resulted in 27% and 25% of people stealing respectively.

What does this tell us about human behaviour? First off I see it as very positive, social conventions are a powerful factor for encouraging acceptable behaviour, on balance people prefer to act responsibly in the absence of cues that suggest irresponsible behaviour is tolerated. This suggests that policing general behaviour may be achieved in a subtle fashion by re-enforcing social conventions rather than with actual shows of force and punishment. That said the authors of the paper take a slightly more pessimistic view of areas that have already succumbed to spreading disorder, concluding with this thought:

“.. once disorder has spread, merely fixing the broken windows or removing the graffiti may not be sufficient anymore. An effective intervention should now address the goal to act appropriately on all fronts.”

The trick then is prevention rather than clean-up, at least in areas where behaviours have become entrenched. I think this is good news over all.

Submit To Open Laboratory 2010(What’s This?)

–
Keizer, K., Lindenberg, S., & Steg, L. (2008). The Spreading of Disorder Science, 322 (5908), 1681-1685 DOI: 10.1126/science.1161405

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I’m Certain That I Can Certainly be Wrong or Confidence and Memory, Is one a Good Measure of the Other?

A man is the sum of his memories, you know, a Time Lord even more so.

The Doctor, in “The Five Doctors”

We all know that our memories can’t always be trusted, time and life tends to erode the confidence we have in our memories. At least that is the case for normal memories. We also tend to have special memories that seem to be burned into our brains, events in our lives that hold such significance that it feels like we are in some sense still experiencing the moment the memory represents. Such memories are described as being “flashbulb memories” as if at that moment as sort of metaphysical flash went off and recorded every detail of an event vividly in our consciousness.

This “flashbulb” effect allows us to confidently recall these events days, weeks or even years later. Memories such as this may be unique to each individual but there are commonly cited examples of shared flashbulb memories such as where a person was and what they were doing when they heard about the events of 9/11. In fact this event was used in an experiment to test the accuracy of this type of memory. At Duke University on September 12th 2001, 54 students recorded their memories of hearing about the incident as well as a recent everyday event by answering a series of questions about the events. Then either 1, 6 or 32 weeks later they answered another questionnaire and this was used to evaluate the confidence and consistency of the memories.

Surprisingly there was no difference in the consistency of memory recall for the flashbulb memory compared to the everyday memory but the flashbulb memory continued to be reported with a high degree of confidence while confidence in the everyday memory decreased. This implies that while we can be very confident in the details of a memory this is no guarantee of their accuracy. In fact other studies between confidence and accuracy of recall (for example in eye witness reports of crimes) shows the same lack of correlation between how confident we are and how accurately our recall matches events.

With regard to confidence in memories hypnosis is often put forward as a means of increasing the reliability of recall (even featuring on Mythbusters). There is evidence however that what actually happens is the hypnosis increases the confidence of the recall but is not effective at increasing the accuracy of the information gained through this process.

Finally, as a little reward for getting this far that is modestly related to this subject, here’s an interesting little test that is meant to measure your risk IQ based on your confidence in the answers to certain questions rather than on the answers themselves. (as previously blogged on by Alison over on Bioblog). So go take the test and feel free to report back your score.

References:

Talarico, J., & Rubin, D. (2003). Confidence, Not Consistency, Characterizes Flashbulb Memories Psychological Science, 14 (5), 455-461 DOI: 10.1111/1467-9280.02453
Smith, V., Kassin, S., & Ellsworth, P. (1989). Eyewitness accuracy and confidence: Within- versus between-subjects correlations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74 (2), 356-359 DOI: 10.1037/0021-9010.74.2.356
Green, J., & Lynn, S. (2005). Hypnosis versus relaxation: accuracy and confidence in dating international news events Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19 (6), 679-691 DOI: 10.1002/acp.1133

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