Study Says Gamers Have Death Wish

A recent study has found that "Instead of joy resulting from victory and success", gamers find that, "wounding and killing the opponent elicited anxiety, anger, or both".

The study also noted the length of time a violent game is played did not lead to a deadening of the emotional response - thus indicating that desensitisation to violence due to playing games may not be a problem.

The study called 'The psychophysiology of James Bond: Phasic emotional responses to violent video game events', was published in the American Psychology Association's Emotion journal.

It looked at the responses of Finnish students as they played both a violent and a non-violent game. The scientists in question meant business, sticking electrodes into the skin and facial muscles of their Finnish subjects to gauge emotional arousal levels.

The students were also subjected to the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, which measures psychotic tendencies. It was noted that those who scored higher (more psychotic) had more neutral responses to killing... in video games that is.

So, what were the games? The non-violent game is fairly uncontroversial - Super Monkey Ball 2 (GameCube - 2003).

The violent game was 007 NightFire (GameCube, PS2, Xbox, PC - 2002 to 2003).

Do you play games because you have a death wish, or do you have a death wish because you play games? Tell us in the Forum.

^{Source: Telegraph}