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Matthew Davis
Tristan Saldaa
English 001 (81446)
December 5 2017
Are Video Games the Key to Learning Effective Pro Social Emotions without
Social Interaction?
Many people believe that video games lead to a life of violence and that
video games should not stay in the lives of many because of the negative
repercussions. Reports of violence and dangerous effects stemming from video
games are inaccurate and in fact the main thing taught is pro social emotions,
examples being compassion, empathy, forgiveness, and many more. Society has
left a negative, disgusting, and misleading reputation around video games, when
in fact instead a positive imprint should be left and society should look onto the
positive elements instead of focusing on the negatives that have a lesser effect
anyways. People tend to blame video games for events like mass shootings and
tragedies, but video games a merely a scapegoat for the people to feel better about
themselves rather than come to terms with the fact that many people have
problems leading to some performing what many consider tragedies.
Plenty of articles and books have been written to establish the growing
fact that video games do not have a negative effect but instead a positive one.
Easily believable to think video games can distribute negative effects when
looking on the outside point of view where many games contain blood, gore,
swearing, and a lot of things generally looked down upon from society. Once
looking deeper than the first layer of video games the truth shall be discovered,
only then can people see that video games hold key elements to growing a person
and contributes by implementing pro social emotions into their lifestyle almost
secretly. People do not play video games to grow their social understanding,
people play for the opposite reason in fact, to escape reality and live peacefully
away from their problems. Despite the reason to play, while not thinking about
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social interaction, many video games display a situation that an average person
might find themselves in and gives the player a chance to react without
repercussion and test what strategies are best.
Moral sensitivity, the ability to see how actions will affect those around
holds key to being a strong and empathetic person. Matthew Gizard conducted an
experiment to test if video games actually increased or decreased levels of moral
sensitivity throughout the body. These experiments were conducted through guilt,
and how guilty the player felt after committing heinous actions that one would
hopefully never committ outside of the video game world. To the surprise of
many players who acted immorally on screen had higher levels of guilt and
heightened sensitivity toward concepts like fairness, loyalty, and purity
(Gizard1). Not to say that the player who acted more morally on screen has no
signs of loyalty or fairness but just generally has less than the average video game
player ensuring the fact that video games teach much more than violence and
negativity, but rather positivity and benevolence. If left in the game world, video
games can teach plenty, guilt itself can be an important motivator(Gizard1) and
has potential to lead to opposite actions as the negative video game actions.
A group of four researchers all with degrees in the fields of psychology
experimented with elementary schoolers to see if video games were an effective
method to teach kids pro social emotions. In the experiment, kids got split into
two groups, some being taught with the use of video games and some being
taught without. The results came back astounding when discovered that the group
with video games in the involvement of their learning showed enhanced social
skills of impulse control, emotion regulation, social initiation and many more.
One of the most important skills learned through the experiment was the fact that
the group without video games showed signs of less social satisfaction and social
self efficiency afterwards. The ability to improve self esteem could be vital to any
child still developing and the ability to establish and maintain positive
relationships with peers is a key developmental milestone (Ashley B. Craig). If
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developing these skills can be established early on consistently, the world could
see massive improvements.
The idea that playing any violent video games increases aggression levels
and can lead to a dangerous person is a common misconception, only a diet of
consistent violent video games with no break leads to a more antisocial behavior.
With simple logic the assumption that if playing antisocial games (violent) can
lead to antisocial behavior, then playing pro social games can lead to prosocial
behavior (Routledge1). Clay Routledge conducted an experiment to see which
people would stand up for another in the case of harassment. Eighteen people who
had played prosocial games and eighteen who played antisocial games were
selected to undergo this test. The testers would get placed into a room where they
witness someone getting verbally harassed in a situation thought as reality. Only
four out of the eighteen antisocial gamers stood up for their fellow human when
ten prosocial gamers stood up. Violence stays only one part of a video game, one
of many, and kids and adults are not simply playing games that promote
violence, they are playing games with violent content (Routledge1), the simple
difference makes everything change.
Different types of video games have different effects on the brainstems, a
first person shooter might not have the same effect as a role playing game, the
content still remains as the most effective factor but the genre of game comes in a
close second. J. Slade Lollock spoke on the importance of video games taking
part in a pro social emotion society and used the work simulation video game
Papers, Please as example. The role playing game demands the player
contemplate the consequences of the seemingly arbitrary geopolitical borders that
maintain boundaries of inclusion and exclusion (Lellock1). Papers, Please stands
as the perfect example for a video game to have the potential to grow the brain
immensely, the game takes on realistic situations and punishes the player for
going about the problem in a reckless and careless way. Games like Papers,
Please should be replicated, there is much as stake regarding the role video
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games play in teaching and learning in the social sciences(Lellock). Games that
take on real life problems have the potential to create something outstanding.
Saying that video games have the potential to accomplish world peace
would be irrational and ignorant but video games do have the potential to
accomplish peace over smaller arguments. The claim just made all depends on the
type of game being played, if the game is a game that has no repercussions then
the likelihood of the game being a peacemaker stays very low. When playing a
game that holds the player responsible, digital games have the capacity to affect
a players ethical mindset (Darvasi1). Ethics would not usually get thought of
first if at all when thinking of video games but has great effect on learning pro
social emotions. Games that force the player to deal with problems after making a
decision hold the most value, letting the player have a virtual attempt at
something that could be seen in real life, essentially a playful; simulation,
rehearsal, and experimentation that may transfer to real life(Darvasi1).
On the theme of peace, Jonathan Ore delves into the difference between a
serious game and an empathy game. The main difference being the games
considered serious dont use their narratives and mechanics to provoke powerful
human emotions and the empathy games do provoke those emotions. Video
games hold more power in the narrative than given credit for and have the
potential to inspire outstanding things in people. Video games that have a core
basis of empathy have inspired many, have many left to inspire, and when done
right, games such as these can be more effective than traditional media like film
or books in inspiring compassion (Ore1). Although not only games based on
empathy can provide inspiration and teach pro social emotions, empathy games
just have a higher chance of doing so. Serious games lack the connection between
the player and the character, while empathy games bring you much closer to the
reality of the situation (Ore1). Games based of empathy achieve certain levels of
peace throughout the world.
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To truly know how video games can teach empathy, one must know the
definition of empathy, the tendency to feel pain when others are suffering. People
less often feel empathy when something happens to a disliked person in their life.
In video games, often the characters do not exist in reality and live fictitiously
instead leading to more empathy shown by the player. Most people do not have
vendettas against fictional characters preventing them from showing empathy.
Susan Krauss makes a strong case for why videogames arent inherently bad
and can sharpen your mental skill (Krauss1). Krauss as well as many other
professors conducted an experiment on the difference between prosocial games
and regular games and recorded how the results varied. The results once again
proved to show that prosocial games have a large effect on peoples empathy
levels. Prosocial games prove time and time again that videogames can affect
someone enough to take a prosocial change.
Jordan Shapiro tackled the uncharted waters of platforming games and
how compassion and empathy relates to that aspect of gaming. Shapiro speaks
often about how heroism the main idea behind platform games and how people
put themselves into the shoes of the hero and imagine that the acts of justice get
performed by themselves rather than the character. The relation to prosocial
emotions stems from the player believing more things become possible as the
player furthers their journey. A appreciation for the hero builds as the hero does
not perform the impossible because he is a hero, but he is a hero because he
performs the impossible(Shapiro1). Professor Shapiro also delves into the
difference between kids playing games and adults playing games, Shapiro
believes that the age gap affects how certain people perceive the message of a
game.
Overall, the answer to the heavily debated question of can video games
teach prosocial emotions effectively ends as a complete and utter yes. Not only
can video games effectively teach people prosocial emotions but facts show the
games have just as strong of an effect or more of an effect than movies and music.
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The commonly thought idea that videogames shouldnt stay allowed for kids and
teach only violence proves to stand incorrect for the most part. The claim would
only stand correct in the case of someone who only plays certain video games all
the time leaving no time for games that get considered prosocial games. A
situation where someone plays zero prosocial games rarely appears, once
appearing there lies slight chance that someone will learn from the blood and gore
contained in a game, but instead the player would just lack the amount of
prosocial connection that a different player would have. Despite the false truths of
video games teaching only violence, the main focus should stay on the positive
video games do for people in a community and how most people stand oblivious
while the facts fly right over their heads.
All in all the main reasons video games have been proven to teach players
prosocial emotions lie depending on the game. Most games provide the player
with a situation that may someday come across them and now the players will
have a good idea on how to act when such a situation arises. Video games give a
safe area to see how things would play out without the painful outcome if things
did not turn out the way that was expected. Video games also have people watch
difficult situations that a character must face and get emotionally attached to the
point where their compassion and empathy levels rise dramatically. People need
to stay aware of the fact that video games are not all bad, but instead have the
potential to change lives for the better by infecting the brain with positivity
through prosocial emotions.
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Source #1
Zawacki, Kevin. Playing Violent Video Games Makes You a Better Person, Study
Says: A New Study out of the University of Buffalo Posits Violent Video Games
Boost Moral Sensitivity--and Might Lead to Real-World, 'pro-Social' Behavior.
New York Beast, July 2014
Source #2
Craig, Ashley B, and Emily R Brown . Enhancing Children's Social Emotional
Functioning Through Virtual Game-Based Delivery of Social Skills Training.
New York, Mar. 2016
Source #3
Routledge, Clay. The Social Benefits of Video Gaming. Psychology Today,
Sussex Publishers, 7 June 2010,
Source #4
Lellock, Slade J. Media Review: Papers, Please (2013) Work Simulation
Role-Playing Video Game. Feb. 2015,
Source #5
Darvasi, Paul. Empathy, Perspective, and Complicity. Vol. 3, MGIEP, 2016.
Source #6
Ore, Johnathan. Are Video Games the Key to World Peace? Google, Google,
28 Feb. 2017,
Source #7
Krauss, Susan. How Videogames Can Promote Empathy. Google, Google, 27
Sept. 2011,
Source #8
Hollywood Reporter | Entertainment News. The Hollywood Reporter,