--Original published at Ashley's Psyche

The debate over violent video games is a very difficult topic for me to make up my mind over. As an adamant lover of video games, I know that I have a bias opinion when it comes to censorship of violence in games. To me, blaming violence in children on the video games they play is not a fair statement. Although I do agree that children being exposed to violence in video games on a daily basis would be harmful, simply turning on the news every night would supply children with the same amount of violence in real life. Just as banning the news would be an unrealistic notion, the same can be said of completely banning all violence from video games.

As well, as an effort to prevent young children from witnessing extreme violence and gore, video game creators put specific ratings on their products in order to prepare the audience for the content they will be seeing. In fact, many of the more violent video games have specific ratings that do not allow children under a certain age to purchase the games themselves. Therefore, if a child who is younger than the recommended age range for a video game does acquire that game, it is likely that the parents supplied it to the child, which would not be the fault of the video gaming industry.

Overall, I believe that any regular exposure to something can be habitual-forming. I do agree that exposure to violence and gore in video games should be monitored by parents, as too much exposure can cause children to become influenced by the actions they are seeing; however, to make the claim that violence in video games is what is causing violence in children and that it should, therefore, be banned is unrealistic.

--Original published at Lynsey Wissler's Blog

Lynsey Wissler

Video Games

Violence in the Media has been controversial for decades. The increasing attention to the video game violence in the last 20 years has definitely raised some eyebrows. I think that video games are definitely getting more violent but how much research backs up the claim that children are becoming more violent. When just looking at the surface it would make sense that this is a possibility but how accurate is this claim. I personally think that video games as they are becoming more violent should definitely be making it clear that they are violent. However, I do not think that it should be the video game companies being punished for making the games this way (by banning). I think that if people are concerned about their children becoming violent then they should be using their own discretion on how much their children are playing the games. The video game companies are trying to please the customer, they cannot decide who plays their games and how often they are played; that decision goes back to the consumer. I feel that permanently banning video games will not solve the problem at hand. Possibly a solution to this problem would be making it a clear rating on how violent the games are for the parents who are giving their children these games. Another solution could be regulating the game makers. Overall, I do agree that video games are becoming more violent, however, how this is impacting children seems unclear to me. I feel that regulating the sales and making of the video games will not solve the problem and it is more the parent’s responsibility to monitor what and how much of these games their children are playing.

--Original published at Site Title

Violent video games are all over the place. If you talk to someone under 50, there is a good chance they have at least a vague idea of what Call of Duty is. The Call of Duty games are just a fraction of the violent video games available for people to play. If I had to guess, either games like that or sports games are the most popular video games on the market. Growing up, I would have described myself as a casual video game player. My games of choice were sports games like Madden or NBA 2k but I would occasionally play a game like Call of Duty or Halo while over at a friends house. The violence and gore really had no effect on me. Part of this is probably because I was a little older when my friends started playing those games and understood what was going on. I saw the violence as just part of the game and nothing else. Judging from the way everyone else talked about it, it seemed like they felt the same way. Of course there were those kids that wanted to be in the army because they liked playing first person shooters. As they grew up they were never more violent than any of the other kids. I see where calls to ban violent video games come from; those games could be a lot for a kid to handle. I don’t think that is the right path to take though. Even before video games, I was exposed to violence. Whether it was grabbing gun-shaped sticks and acting like soldiers with my little brother or hearing about something that made national news, violence was still there. Banning video games will only take away one form of exposure. It sucks that we live in a world like that but there isn’t much we can do about it at this point. Instead of trying to hide our kids from violence by doing things like banning video games, we should take it head on. Teach them that there is violence in the world and that in many cases it is wrong. Then teach them how handle conflicts without violence. It’s not an ideal solution but it beats hiding our kids away.

--Original published at Site Title

Operant conditioning is a type of learning where behavior is controlled by consequences or rewards. Skinner believes that free will is not a thing because of operant conditioning. I disagree with Skinner, no matter if you are effected by the power of operant conditioning, you still have free will. Free will is the ability to make your own decisions. As I read more and more about operant conditioning, it sounds very similar to the way I was raised by my parents. I am rewarded for doing good things and punished for doing bad. But if I didn’t have free will why did I sometimes make bad choices that resulted in me getting punished? If we did not have free will, why do people make bad choices all the time? Frequently, people get into trouble with the law knowing there is a possibility of them suffering the consequences. If Skinner was right, then there would never be any crime in the world. Everyone would always make the right decision. Life is full of operant conditioning, if we do something right such as work hard at our job we might get a promotion. If we are slacking off at work, we might get fired. If we study hard we’ll ace the exam, if we don’t we might fail. We receive consequences and rewards for our actions on a daily basis. Whether or not it was a good choice, we still have the ability to make our own decisions no matter what the outcome may be.

--Original published at Site Title

Free will is the ability of one to act without restraint or freely. Having free will would mean we can choose our paths and have a sense of self control.  Believing that free will isn’t true conflicts with how we have molded society and our morals. Skinner’s view is that we believe in free will because we know about a certain behavior but not what causes it. He thinks environmental stimuli control our behaviors and that our behaviors are modified by either an award or punishment. Whatever stimuli present in this award/punishment system then controls how we behave. Free will is said to be an illusion that hides the real cause of human behavior : environmental circumstances and a previous history.

I believe in free will and that we aren’t fated for something particular. We have the ability to mold our lives and shape our futures knowingly and willingly. In fact our ability to act freely is what separates us from other species.  Other people can influence us and the environment can too, but we have the will to choose differently we are capable of changing a path we were heading down. Everyone is responsible for their own behavior not  believing in free will would suggest otherwise. Free will is not a mirage, we can actively respond to situations around us its not a passive process that happens automatically.

--Original published at Em

I believe that children are more violent when exposed to violence in media. I feel as if there is some knowledge that is innate and some is learned. I feel as if innate abilities are sleeping, emotions, eating. Social activities are not so innate. When I go to a new place for example central Pennsylvania 300 miles away from where I live I most definitely observed to see if there were blatant differences. Social interactions are learned. Nuances are specific to places but overall social interactions are learned. Bandura developed the social learning theory supported the claims that children learned through observation. The theory explains that children find models such as their parents, media, friends, or classmates. The social learning theory only works if the child is attentive, retains the information, can reproduce the behavior, and is motivated.

To  the best of my memory Bandura developed this theory from his experiment on the bobo doll. A bobo doll is a inflatable doll comparable to a punching bag.  First the child watched a model either express aggression by punching the bobo doll or by playing with other toys in the room. Another group had no model I do not recall their outcome.  After watching the model of their selected group (Aggression or playing with other toys) The child was left in the room. Children were aggressive towards the bobo after watching a model abuse a bobo doll. Therefore forming the social learning theory. I believe that child do learn from observation therefore increased influence of violence in any form will increase aggressive behavior. I think for the early early of my children’s childhood I would minimize video games with very graphic violence. I understand that children at a certain age understand it is a video game. I think the extent of violence could be minimized  to achieve the same climax  of the game.

--Original published at Kevin Psych Blog

The idea that violent video games and violence in the media causes children to become violent is ridiculous, I think. To begin with a bit of anecdotal evidence, I am someone who has played video games since I was five years old. Obviously as time went on and I got older I started moving into video games that featured a lot of violence and graphic images, but despite that, I have never been in or had the urge to be involved in any sort of violent actions against another person or animal. In fact I consider myself a huge advocate for pacifism and in fact I would almost say I’m radically opposed to anything that involves ending another life, as long as that life is real. Of course there are reasons outside of my personal experience. First of all, the violence people commit in games is often a stress reliever, it distracts people from their problems that might make them go out and hurt someone. It’s a similar concept to punching a pillow when your angry, it provides a healthy outlet for negative emotions. Second, to claim that people learn to use a gun from playing video games is completely false. A lot of anti-violent video game activists will claim that children are taught how to use weapons from the games they play, but many weapons take more in depth training than playing a game with a controller or keyboard and mouse to become proficient with. Many violent criminals are using weapons that are mostly intuitive like guns which really don’t take much work to figure out how to use. To claim they’re being taught by games is giving the games way too much credit than they really deserve. I think that overall, most violent criminals are people who are born with an inherent violent nature. They are people who already have the capacity to do harm and all it really takes is a motive, not an inspiration.