Adachi, who is pursuing a Ph.D in psychology, determined that aggression and competition were linked in a 2011 study. But that study was lab-controlled. However, this 2013 paper is based on a “longitudinal” study, a self-report that followed 1,771 high school students over four years. “The strength is you’re asking about real-world activities, as supposed to measuring aggression in the laboratory,” said Adachi.
To better study the relationships between violence in videogames and competition, Adachi, along with his co-author Teena Willoughby, examined a wide range of videogame genres. Adachi said, “I looked specifically at sports and racing games, because these games tend to be competitive, but they don’t tend to be as violent as first person shooters.” He also studied competitive forms of gambling, such as poker, along with non-competitive forms, such as a raffle.
The result? “Demolishing the Competition” spelled it out:
[C]ompetitive video game play was correlated moderately positively with aggression. In contrast, the correlations between noncompetitive video game play and aggression were small and mostly negative. Competitive gambling also was correlated moderately positively with aggression, whereas the correlations between non-competitive gambling and aggression were small and positive.
Or put more simply, “It is competitive video game play and competitive gambling rather than non-competitive video game play and non-competitive gambling, that are linked more strongly to aggression.”
Aggression includes hostile verbal behavior…as well as physical.
With this in mind, I wonder if researchers who linked violent videogames to aggressive behavior had drawn their conclusions incorrectly. Some researchers may have had their participants play games like Mortal Kombat, games that, yes, are violent. But they also happen to be highly competitive.
Adachi said, “It’s not to say that competition is bad, by any means, but that competition is related to aggression.” (This harkens back to a time, he said, when humans competed with each other for land and mates.) “There are many important and good aspects of competition. Especially with videogames, there needs to be more research looking at the positive aspects.”
Interestingly, “Demolishing the Competition” noted that players who cooperate with each other in games were the least aggressive of all.
Adachi is currently following up on this line of thought. “For example, when playing Call of Duty, you can play [a team-based deathmatch], which means you’re cooperating with different people in a competition. One thing I’m looking at right now is some of the positives outcomes when you’re cooperating with other players.”
Does this mean that helping your buddy fend off enemies in Nuketown makes you a less aggressive, more considerate person? As soon as his paper on the topic is published, Adachi will let us know...in a non-confrontational way, of course.
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