There is much debate about whether or not violent video games (VVG) lead to aggressive or violent behavior (AVB). VVGs are games that represent violence as the only or best solution to resolve conflicts. Aggression refers to feelings of anger or violence, without necessarily acting on those feelings. Violence refers to the use of physical force with the aim of harming someone or something. The conflict comes from two camps of beliefs; one that VVG does not lead to AVB, due to its temporal effects and other third variables. The other, that children learn AVB through VVG, and that the nature of the game itself increases aggression temporarily and perhaps in later years. In this essay, I will argue that VVG leads to AVB. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay One argument that VVGs do not lead to AVBs is the idea that VVGs only show a short-term increase term aggressive thoughts and feelings after playing VVG. , but it does not reach AVB levels. The study conducted by Polman, Castro, and Aken (2008) aimed to test the differential effects of gaming versus watching VVG on actual aggressive behavior. They hypothesized that playing a VVG would result in higher levels of aggression than watching a VVG or playing a non-VVG. The participants were a total of 28 boys and 28 girls, aged 10 to 13 years old. Participants were randomly and approximately equally assigned to game conditions: active violent (played a VVG), passive violent (watched VVG played on television), active non-violent (played a non-VVG) . VVG was a street fighting game, which depicted blood as players punched each other. Non-VVG was a running game. Both games were deemed equally competitive. Each condition lasted approximately 10 minutes. Afterwards, participants engaged in two sessions of free play following exposure to the disease. Other children then completed a questionnaire in which they named participants who exhibited certain forms of physical, verbal or relational aggressive behavior, such as hitting, fighting or teasing someone. Children were asked to rate the intentions of aggressive acts, and acts were only coded as aggressive if children viewed them as deliberately hostile. Peer nomination as a measure of aggression was a strength of the study, as it reflected greater accuracy of aggressive behaviors. They found that playing VVG resulted in higher levels of aggression than just watching VVG in boys only. However, boys were equally aggressive in active and passive violence conditions and in nonviolent conditions. Thus, boys, whether exposed to violent media or not, were equally likely to display aggressive behavior. It was also found that the effects of VVG on aggressive behavior were temporal and that aggressive behavior was significantly lower within an hour. These results are supported by Ferguson (2015), in that playing VVG in the early years accounts for less than 1% of the variance in aggression in later years. Therefore, it can be interpreted that VVG only increased AVB temporarily. Additionally, the violent and nonviolent groups both produced similar levels of aggressive behaviors. Adachi and Willoughby (2011) proposed the idea that competitiveness, rather than violence, might be the factor affectingaggressiveness among VVGs. He found no significant differences in aggression between participants who played a violent or nonviolent game of equal competition, confirming the results of this study. Therefore, it can be concluded from this study that VVG does not lead to AVB. However, the limitations of this study raise doubts about the validity of the study. First, almost all boys in the study played VVG a lot in real life and then behaved aggressively. According to social development theory, social behaviors are controlled by scripts developed through experience or observation (Meyers, 2002). Through frequent exposure to VVG, children develop aggressive scenarios. Therefore, exposure to the game may have activated pre-existing aggressive scripts, which increased their likelihood of behaving aggressively. Furthermore, it was not taken into account that some children might have been confronted with provocative situations. An additional hour of free play was organized as part of this study. This may have led to more provocative situations than usual, leading more children to engage in aggressive behavior. Furthermore, the effect of VVG on behavior may be undetectable with the small sample size, explaining why no statistical differences for girls and no significant differences in aggressive behaviors between the violent and nonviolent conditions were found. found in boys. The shortcomings of this study leave room for the argument that VVG does indeed lead to AVB. Meyers (2002) conducted a study of 144 boys aged eight to twelve years to examine the differential and combined effects of exposure to violent television content and VVG on development. It was hypothesized that exposure to either violent content would lead to an increase in aggression, that there would be more aggression demonstrated in the VVG condition than in the television condition, and that being exposed to both forms of media would result in higher levels of aggressive behavior. Participants were randomly assigned to one of six conditions: VVG, non-VVG, violent television content, nonviolent television content, or a combination of violent or nonviolent conditions. The violent content was a game or wrestling match, and the nonviolent content was a game or basketball match. In wrestling, violence, such as kicking or punching, was widespread, encouraged and rewarded. In basketball, violence was discouraged and penalized. Participants were exposed to the condition for 15 minutes. Aggression among participants was assessed using three measures: a word stem completion task, on a Normative Beliefs About Aggression Scale (NOBAGS); and aggressive or non-aggressive interaction with a Bobo doll. The use of different measures of aggression made it possible to measure and compare the specific effects of VVG on individuals, namely respectively the priming, the approval of aggressive behaviors and the modeling of behaviors, making it a point strength of the study. The word stem completion task and NOBAGS were administered by an experimenter. For the Bobo doll measurement, participants were left alone for one minute and given the choice of playing with the Bobo doll or reading a National Geographic Kids magazine. It was found that participants in both violent conditions engaged in higher levels of aggressive behaviors than those in nonviolent conditions. For example, they were more likely to form an aggressive word such as "Gun" rather than "Fun", more likely to respond that“It’s perfectly OK” to hit someone if they said something mean, and more likely to hit, kick, or kick. launch the Bobo doll. Older boys generally produced higher levels of aggressive behavior and responded with more aggressive words in the word stem finding task. Unlike the previous study, this study suggests that VVG does indeed lead to AVB, as participants in either violent condition behaved significantly more aggressively than participants in the control condition. However, measuring the Bobo doll's aggression may be unreliable, limiting the study's results. . Younger participants may simply be more interested in playing with the doll and less interested in reading a magazine, and older participants may feel like they are "too old" to play with the Bobo doll. Therefore, the Bobo doll measure may represent a perception of appropriate toys, rather than aggression. The results of this study are inconsistent with those of Adachi and Willoughby (2011) regarding competition leading to aggression, rather than VVG. We can then suggest that younger children imitate the behaviors they observe, because the participants in this study were younger than the participants in the previous study. Bandura's social learning theory supports this finding, in that children learn social behaviors through direct experience and observation of models. They develop beliefs about social norms and acceptable behaviors based on experiences, modeling behaviors that are rewarded rather than behaviors that are punished. At VVG, AVBs are generally rewarded and encouraged, usually by earning points. When children learn that AVBs are rewarded and go unpunished, they may then choose aggressive solutions during conflicts or even during everyday activities. VVG exposes players to modeling, reinforcement, and repetition of behaviors, thereby improving children's learning (Meyers, 2002). Therefore, social learning theory explains how children learn AVB by imitating VVG behaviors. Studies have also suggested other reasons why VVG leads to AVB. One of them is the choice of background music. Zhang and Gao (2014) found that high-arousal music, typically incorporated in VVGs, evoked more aggression in participants than low-arousal music. Another is the amount of blood in a VVG. Popular VVGs usually revolve around themes of shooting or fighting and depict blood vividly. Harris (2007) found that participants with peak and average blood conditions of a VVG showed a significant increase in hostility and aggression compared to participants with low or no blood conditions. Therefore, elements of VVG, such as background music or amount of blood, can be considered to have a direct impact on AVB, as exposure to either increases AVB. Regarding the argument of short-term effects of VVG on AVB, research on participants aged 12 to 16 found that an uncontrolled tendency toward video games, rather than simply playing VVG, was associated with an increase in AVB. Addiction can cause this uncontrollable pattern of VVG play, and children are generally more susceptible to addiction because they have not developed a mature level of mentality and self-control (Usman and Inam, 2013). Many elements make a VVG.