There is much debate about whether or not violent video games (VVG) lead to aggressive or violent behavior (AVB). VVGs are games that represent violence as the only or best solution to resolve conflicts. Aggression refers to feelings of anger or violence, without necessarily acting on those feelings. Violence refers to the use of physical force with the intent to hurt someone or something. The conflict stems from two camps of beliefs; one that VVG does not lead to AVB, due to its timing effects and other third-party variables. The other, that children learn AVB through VVG, and that the nature of play itself increases aggression temporarily and perhaps in later years. In this essay I will argue that VVG leads to AVB. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay One argument that VVG does not lead to AVB is the idea that VVG only shows a short-term increase in aggressive thoughts and feelings after playing VVG, but that it does not reach the levels of AVB. The study conducted by Polman, Castro, and Aken (2008) aimed to test the differential effects of playing versus watching VVG on real-life aggressive behaviors. They hypothesized that playing a VVG would lead to higher levels of aggression than watching a VVG or playing a non-VVG. Participants were a total of 28 boys and 28 girls, aged between 10 and 13 years. Participants were randomly and approximately equally distributed across the gaming conditions of active violent (played a VVG), passive violent (watched VVG play on a television), active nonviolent (played a non -VVG). VVG was a street fighting game, which depicted blood as players punched each other. The non-VVG was a racing game. Both games were rated equally competitive. Each condition lasted approximately 10 minutes. Subsequently, participants engaged in two sessions of free play following exposure to the condition. Other children then filled out a questionnaire in which they named participants who exhibited certain forms of aggressive physical, verbal or relational behavior, such as hitting, fighting or teasing someone. Children were asked to rate the intentions of aggressive acts, and the acts were coded as aggressive only if children rated them as deliberately hostile. The nomination of peers as a measure of aggression was a strength of the study, as it reflected greater accuracy of aggressive behaviors. They found that playing VVG led to higher levels of aggression, compared to simply watching VVG among boys alone. However, boys were equally aggressive in both the active and passive violent conditions and the nonviolent condition. Therefore, boys, regardless of exposure to violent or nonviolent media, were all equally likely to exhibit aggressive behavior. It was also found that the effects of VVG on aggressive behaviors were temporary, and aggressive behavior was much weaker within one hour. These findings are supported by Ferguson (2015), as playing VVG in the early years accounts for less than 1% of the variance in aggression in later years. It can therefore be interpreted that VVG increased AVB only temporarily. Furthermore, both violent and nonviolent groups produced similar levels of aggressive behavior. Adachi and Willoughby (2011) proposed the idea that competitiveness, rather than violence, may be the factor influencing aggression in VVG. He found no differencessignificant in aggression among participants who played a violent or nonviolent game of equal competitiveness, supporting the findings of this study. Therefore, from this study it can be concluded that VVG does not lead to AVB. However, the limitations of this study raise questions about the study's validity. First, almost all of the kids involved in the study played VVG a lot in real life and then behaved aggressively. According to social developmental theory, social behaviors are controlled by scripts developed through experience or observation (Meyers, 2002). Through frequent exposure to VVG, children develop aggressive scripts. Thus, exposure to the game may have activated pre-existing aggressive scripts, which increased their likelihood of behaving aggressively. Furthermore, the fact that some children may have experienced provocative situations was not taken into consideration. For the sake of this study, an extra hour of free play was conducted. This may have resulted in more opportunities than usual for challenging situations to occur, resulting in more children displaying aggressive behavior. Furthermore, the effect of VVG on behavior may not be detectable with the small sample size, explaining why no statistical difference was found for girls and no significant difference in aggressive behaviors between violent and nonviolent conditions among boys. The shortcomings of this study leave room for the thesis that VVG leads to AVB. Meyers (2002) conducted a study of 144 boys between the ages of eight and twelve to examine the differential and combined effects of exposure to violent television content and VVG on development. It was hypothesized that exposure to either violent content would lead to increased aggression, that more aggression would be demonstrated in the VVG condition compared to the television condition, and that exposure to both forms of media would result in more aggressive behavior. aggressive. Participants were randomly assigned to one of six conditions: VVG, non-VVG, violent television content, nonviolent television content, or a combination of violent or nonviolent conditions. Violent content was a wrestling match or match, while non-violent content was a basketball match or match. In the fighting condition, violence, such as kicking or punching, was prevalent, encouraged, and rewarded. In basketball, violence has been discouraged and penalized. Participants were exposed to the condition for 15 minutes. Aggression among participants was assessed using three measures: a word stem completion task, on a Normative Beliefs About Aggression Scale (NOBAGS); and aggressive or nonaggressive interaction with a Bobo doll. The use of different measures of aggression allowed the measurement and comparison of the specific effects of VVG on individuals, namely priming, approval of aggressive behaviors and modeling of behaviors respectively, making this a strength of the study . The word stem completion task and NOBAGS were administered by one experimenter. For the Bobo doll measurement, participants were left alone for one minute and given the choice of playing with the Bobo doll or reading a National Geographic Kids magazine. Participants in both violent conditions were found to endorse higher levels of aggressive behaviors than those in nonviolent conditions. For example, they were more likely to form an aggressive word like "Gun" rather than "Fun", more likely to respond "It's perfectly fine" to hit someone if they saidsomething bad, and more likely to hit, kick or throw the Bobo doll. Older boys produced higher levels of aggressive behavior overall and responded with more aggressive words to the root word task. Unlike the previous study, this study suggests that VVG leads to AVB, as participants in both violent conditions behaved significantly more aggressively than participants in the control condition. However, the Bobo doll's measure of aggression may be unreliable, limiting the study's findings. . Younger participants may simply have been more interested in playing with the doll and less interested in reading a magazine, while older participants may have felt that they were “too old” to play with the Bobo doll. Therefore, the size of the Bobo doll may represent a perception of appropriate toys, rather than aggression. The results of this study were inconsistent with Adachi and Willoughby's (2011) findings regarding competition leading to aggression, rather than VVG. It can therefore be suggested that younger children imitate the behaviors they observe, as the participants in this study were younger than the participants in the previous study. Bandura's social learning theory supports this finding, as children learn social behaviors through direct experience and observation of models. They develop beliefs about social norms and acceptable behaviors based on experiences, modeling behaviors that are rewarded, rather than behaviors that are punished. In VVG, AVBs are usually rewarded and encouraged, usually through earning points. When children learn that AVBs are rewarded and go unpunished, they may then choose aggressive solutions during conflicts or even in everyday activities. VVG exposes players to modeling, reinforcement, and repetition of behaviors, improving children's learning (Meyers, 2002). Thus, social learning theory explains how children learn AVB by imitating behaviors in VVG. Studies have also suggested other reasons why VVG leads to AVB. One is the choice of background music. Zhang and Gao (2014) found that high-arousal music, usually incorporated into VVG, evoked more aggression in participants than low-arousal music. Another is the amount of blood in a VVG. Popular VVGs usually revolve around shooting or fighting themes and depict blood vividly. Harris (2007) found that participants in the high and medium blood conditions of a VVG had significantly increased hostility and aggression compared to participants in the low or no blood conditions. Therefore, elements of VVG, such as background music or the amount of blood, can be seen as directly impacting AVB as exposure to both has been found to increase AVB. Related to the topic of short-term effects of VVG on AVB, research on participants aged 12 to 16 found that an uncontrolled pattern of video game playing, rather than simply playing VVG, was associated with a increase in AVB. Addiction can cause this uncontrollable pattern of VVG play, and children are generally more susceptible to addiction because they have not developed a mature level of mindset and self-control (Usman & Inam, 2013). There are many elements that make a VVG compelling. Firstly, the fierce competition in the VVG market forces developers to introduce the latest techniques when developing VVG. This includes high-quality graphics, human-machine interaction and intelligence.