The Effect of Modern War Games on the Prejudices of Children Essay Example for Free

The Effect of Modern War Games on the Prejudices of Children Essay The rise of video games among youth in recent decades has spurred many new studies into the psychological effects of continued video game usage on a high level. According to a study by The Pew Internet American Life Project, 97% of children and teens play video games (Lenhart, 2008). Video games and violence have also had a positive correlation, meaning they have some relation to each other in increased violence levels in adolescents. In recent years there have been a multitude of multi-platform supported games all with a plot that involves Middle Eastern cultures in a negative context. Could the effect of psychological conditioning and consistent positive reinforcement from the gameplay against radical Islamic terrorist groups develop into prejudices and generalized stigmas toward Middle Eastern cultures? These games that are being represented also share a close similarity to military simulation used to condition soldiers to combat, which I believe also proves that aggressive gameplay is indeed supportive, if not at part causal, for aggressive actions or thoughts. The groups who would be affected most by this would be children and teens, as they have the highest usage on a regular basis with teens up to fifty percent who had played a game â€Å"yesterday† (How Can Advertisers, 2009). Looking at both the pervasive and regular usage of children under the age of eighteen, it seems evident that whatever effect may be present would be experienced by a large portion of youth. Video game usage for these youth is happening at a time in their lives when they are forming and developing social ideology. In the stage of human development at this time in their lives, full reasoning skill and acknowledgement of the fact that it is only a game may not be present in all children. The game itself would be very important in the way that it would affect the player. In the same study done by The Pew Internet American Life Project, 86% of teens play games on a console such as a Xbox 360 or PS3 and 73% play games on their computer (Sood, 2008). If we look at record sales of games in the last few years we can see that the Call of Duty series has been extremely successful. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare sold more than 13 million copies since released according to figures from 2009 since the game was released in late 2007(Activision to Showcase, 2009). Its predecessor, Modern Warfare 2, set records with selling 4.7 million copies within 24 hours of its release (Molina, 2009). Another hit game series is Battlefield, especially in its versions Bad Company 2 and now Battlefield 3. In all of these blockbuster and hit games that were just mentioned there is an element of Arab hostility in which the player has to fight against a Middle Eastern militia or military faction. With video games now emerging as a significant industry affecting millions of people, we must consider what possible impact these games could be making on their customers. The psychological effect of conditioning is always in use by our brain, as it perceives stimuli and attempts to analyze it in conjunction to the situation surrounding it. This effect has been experimented on by many, but was fathered by Ivan P. Pavlov and later deeply researched by B. F. Skinner, a strong behaviorist (Staddon, 2003). This psychological paradigm states that all actions can be accounted for, both experimentally and in one’s natural development, by conditioning. Classical conditioning is based on the basic principles of a response that is generated by an unconditioned stimulus (US) which then results in an unconditioned response (UR). In cases, conditioning takes place when certain elements are present that, by themselves, initially do not produce the corresponding UR, this is called the conditioned stimulus (CS). After the conditioning process has occurred, the CS will illicit the same response as the US, before called the UR. The new response when using the CS is called the conditioned response (CR) (Staddon, 2003). In order to better understand the concept, here is an example of the above from a psychologist, John Watson, who conditioned a child, Little Albert, to fear certain stimuli. First, Watson took a rat, dog, and monkey and showed Albert each for the first time in his life. The result of the initial exposure showed that, initially, Albert had no fear of the animals. Watson then took his unconditioned stimulus (UCS), which was a gong noise, which upset Albert, the unconditioned response (UCR) (Swets, 2011). He then introduced the same rat, before not feared, to Albert in addition to the gong noise (UCS), which caused Albert to cry (UCR). After repeating this several times, the rat was then turned into the conditioned stimulus (CS). The fear transferred to the rat (CS) then exhibited the same response of crying, before the UCS and now the conditioned response (CR). Once the hairy rat was taught to be feared in this experiment, Watson then generalized Little Albert to several animals, which is the broadening of a condition to additional similar objects than the original stimuli (Swets, 2011). When a rabbit, which he hadn’t seen before and had no pre-existing condition of fear, upset Albert he associated the hairy aspect of the rabbit with the rat. A mask and dog were also feared. When Albert was shown these, he would then cry. The UCS in the case of the video games would be the enemy combatant. The UCR would be an act of aggression in the game that would defeat the opponent, normally by shooting or otherwise killing. This is obviously violent behavior, but not necessarily in the pretext of the game. The CS would be the fact that normally this enemy happens to be Arabic or Middle Eastern. Over the course of playing the game and repeating the same violent in-game actions, the CR would be thoughts of aggression or suspicion when shown Middle Eastern People. This perhaps leads to a stigma against Arabic people. The aggression documented in studies such as Anderson in 2000, and Ferguson in 2008 may not necessarily be augmented toward this prejudice, but rather it would manifest itself in a much less outwardly violent way resulting in a conscious or subconscious stigma. The connection between the UCR and the CR is that the UCR is learned aggression in gameplay, and that would be transferred into a real world application; an example would be a stigma or a prejudice. The conditioning element example for the racial prejudice is in the example above. It is unfair to credit the video game with the entire generation of such a stigma. There was a study and article just published by Erik Bleich that talks about Islamophobia and how western cultures have generally negative thoughts about Muslim people. The article continues to predict that Muslim-fearing people will become an emerging social group (Bleich, 2011) Bliech theorizes that since prominen t figures, in politics, media, or otherwise, have openly stated or engage in anti-Muslim plans that there is no stopping the movement. Soon people will start labeling themselves or actions by the possible fear of Muslims (Foner, 2011). After 9/11, there was a significant rise in suspicion and hate acts directed toward most Muslim people. With that increase, there was 18 to 26 percent of the civil rights violations that happened at the workplace. In a target group, there was an average drop of seventeen hours per week for younger Muslim Americans (Rabby, 2011). There are clear indications that there is a fear of Muslims. In fact, at the time of September 11, 2001, I was nine years old and I too had developed an irrational fear of all Muslims. The conclusion is that there is, and probably will be, a generalized fear of Muslims, due to ignorance or historical precedent, so long as terrorism has a main role in global politics. There is no general consensus that video games in themselves cause violent behavior, even though there are many studies that show a positive correlation, but it is agreed that it at least promotes aggression in people who already have aggressive tendencies. Video games were seen to provide a mode or method for enacting the violence that the individual would commit regardless of the game’s influence (Anderson, 2000). In a study done by Anderson and Dill in 2000 they also state that, â€Å"We believe that video game violence also primes aggressive thought†. Males during adolescence show considerable aggression toward other males in particular but also toward females. The evolutionary reasoning behind this is because younger males have to compete over possible mates, so a greater amount of aggression would yield a greater possibility of attaining the mate. (Hilton, 2000) Using this comparison, we could stipulate that a percentage of the gaming population is aggressive, given the natural percentage plus the increase because of the age category. Given this fact we would see that the more aggressive nature of the selected population would then be more likely to be affected by any effect the game would render to its players. Movies are also a form of visual information that most people can understand, given the wide presentation of most productions. Studies show that media presentations generate a strong effect on the consumers of the information. (Heusmann, 1994) . For example, in the twentieth century communist Russia was a strong force of fear that was widespread due to actual diplomatic relations and hostility. The movies of that time added unnecessary amounts of fear to the topic by generalizing all Russians as spies or communist invaders. The games present information and realism smoothly into the gameplay so that the user barely notices all of the interactions taking place while playing the game. Anderson and Dill also point out the correlation between general media and video games when they said, â€Å"Entertainment media affects our lives. What behaviors children and adults consider appropriate comes, in part, from the lessons we learn from television and the movies. There are good theoretical reasons to expect that violent video games will have similar, and possibly larger, effects on aggression.†(Anderson, Dill 2000) This could be reasoned because the level of involvement into the game correlates with the level of brain usage, because of the attention levels needed to operate in an immersive gameplay. The brain could be more likely to accept these facts and bits of information as truth presented to it. This truth could then be used to advance a possible, already present, stigma of terrorist to a more generalized stigma against Arabic people as a whole. The overall emergence of video games as a massively used media for youth has presented many areas of study for psychologists. The age of the individual, factoring psychological development phases and increased male aggressiveness, in conjunction with the prevalence of violent video games portraying Middle Eastern combatants sets up a possible prejudice effect on its users. This effect could be explained using simple conditioning and generalization, the natural aggressiveness of the subject, and a preexisting fear toward Muslim people all of which will result in a stigma or increased prejudice toward Middle Eastern people among select gamers. I would like to see a formal study on possible prejudice because its significance could be widespread amongst subjects and could be conveyed as racism. Works Cited Activision to Showcase Some of the Most Anticipated Games of the Year at E3 IGN. IGN Video Game Reviews, News Previews. 27 May 2009. Web. 08 Dec. 2011. Anderson, Craig A., and Karen E. Dill. Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78.4 (2000): 772-90. Print. Bleich, Erik. What Is Islamophobia and How Much Is There? Theorizing and Measuring an Emerging Comparative Concept. American Behavioral Scientist 55.12 (2011): 1535-540. Web. 4 Dec. 2011. Ferguson, Christopher J. Violent Video Games and Aggression. Criminal Justice and Behavior 35.3 (2008): 311. Web. 7 Dec. 2011. Foner, Nancy, and Christophe Bertossi. Immigration, Incorporation, and Diversity in Western Europe and the United States: Comparative Perspectives. American Behavioral Scientist 55.12 (2011): 1535-540. Sage Journals Online: American Behavioral Scientist. Sage Publications, Dec. 2011. Web. 5 Dec. 2011. Hilton, N. Zoe, Grant T. Harris, and Marnie E. Rice. The Functions of Aggression by Male Teenagers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79.6 (2000): 988-94. Print. How Can Advertisers Get Through to Teens? EMarketer. Market Research Statistics: Internet Marketing, Advertising Demographics EMarketer. 30 June 2009. Web. 1 Dec. 2011. Huesmann, L. Rowell. Aggressive Behavior: Current Perspectives. New York: Plenum, 1994. Print. Lenhart, Amanda, Joseph Kahne, Ellen Middaugh, Alexandra Macgill, Chris Evans, and Jessica Vitak. Teens, Video Games and Civics. Pew Research Centers Internet American Life Project. 16 Sept. 2008. Web. 07 Dec. 2011. Molina, Brett. Acti vision: Modern Warfare 2 Sells 4.7M Copies on First Day. News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. World USATODAY.com. 12 Nov. 2009. Web. 08 Dec. 2011. Rabby, Faisal, and William M. Rogers III. Post 9-11 U.S. Muslim Labor Market Outcomes. Atlantic Economic Journal 39.3 (2011): 273. SpringerLink. 26 July 2011. Web. 5 Dec. 2011. Sood, Medha. Pew Study Shows 53% of US Adults Play Computer Games. TopNews United States. 10 Dec. 2008. Web. 08 Dec. 2011. Staddon, J. E. R., and D. T. Cerutti. Operant Conditioning. Annual Review of Psychology 54.1 (2003): 115-44. Web. 24 Nov. 2011. Swets, Dr. Benjamin. Learning. PSY 101. GVSU, Allendale. 3 Oct. 2011. Lecture.