Defending the Doomed: Implicit Strategies Concerning Protection of First-Person Shooter Games

Abstract

Censorship of violent digital games, especially first-person shooter (FPS) games, is broadly discussed between generations. While older people are concerned about possible negative influences of these games, not only players but also nonplayers of the younger net-generation seem to deny any association with real aggressive behavior. Our study aimed at investigating defense mechanisms players and nonplayers use to defend FPS and peers with playing habits. By using a lexical decision task, we found that aggressive concepts are activated by priming the content of FPS but suppressed afterward. Only if participants were instructed to actively suppress aggressive concepts after priming, thought suppression was no longer necessary. Young people still do have negative associations with violent video games. These associations are neglected by implicitly applying defense strategies-independent of own playing habits-to protect this specific hobby, which is common for the netgeneration.

You Could Have Just Asked: The Perception of Motivations to Play Violent Video Games

“…One possible explanation for the discrepant views is mostly ignored: age differences and therefore generation conflicts. While the older generation is concerned about an increase of anti-social behavior and emotional instability due to violent games with which they are unfamiliar, young players tend to be skeptical of negative effects potentially to defend their identity as gamers (Kneer, Glock, Beskes, & Bente, 2012;Kneer, Munko, Glock, & Bente, 2012). Perception on the other hand is also influenced by experience/expertise with a subject (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995) and guided by pre-existing attitudes and knowledge (Greenwald et al, 2002;Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977).…”

“…Playing expertise as well as age led to defensive reactions in game studies of players -in case players were confronted with the common belief that violent video games are dangerous (Kneer, Munko, et al, 2012). Interestingly enough, not only players but young non-players also defended video games in order to protect a famous activity among their peers.…”

Understanding Why Scholars Hold Different Views on the Influences of Video Games on Public Health

“…Among both clinicians (Ferguson, ) and the general public (Przybylski, ), age is a strong predictor of negative attitudes about video games. In fairness, biases may work in both directions with younger people defensive about their hobby (Kneer, Munko, Glock, & Bente, ), just as older people may be reflexively hostile toward it. However, this may have less to do with age, per se, but rather the selective exposure of individuals of different ages to new media.…”

Twenty-Five Years of Research on Violence in Digital Games and Aggression

“…The importance of considering motivational aspects in digital game effects was underlined by Denzler, Häfner, and Fçrster (2011) who found that when playing a violent game with the goal to vent anger, accessibility of aggressive thoughts (measured with lexical decision tasks) was actually inhibited. Kneer, Munko, Glock, and Bente (2012) showed that young adults suppressed aggressive concepts when primed with violent game content as an implicit defense mechanism for their own gaming habits or even those of the generation they belong to (see also Kneer, Glock, Beskes, & Bente, 2012). Thus, many investigations found that violent content in games increases the accessibility of aggressive thoughts.…”