Effects of prosocial video games on prosocial behavior.

Abstract

Previous research has documented that playing violent video games has various negative effects on social behavior in that it causes an increase in aggressive behavior and a decrease in prosocial behavior. In contrast, there has been much less evidence on the effects of prosocial video games. In the present research, 4 experiments examined the hypothesis that playing a prosocial (relative to a neutral) video game increases helping behavior. In fact, participants who had played a prosocial video game were more likely to help after a mishap, were more willing (and devoted more time) to assist in further experiments, and intervened more often in a harassment situation. Results further showed that exposure to prosocial video games activated the accessibility of prosocial thoughts, which in turn promoted prosocial behavior. Thus, depending on the content of the video game, playing video games not only has negative effects on social behavior but has positive effects as well.

Playing prosocial video games increases empathy and decreases schadenfreude.

“…Lamers is the aggressive version of Lemmings: all creatures must be killed and the goal is that no one reaches the exit. Greitemeyer and Osswald (2010) showed that the content of Lamers was perceived as being more antisocial than the content of Tetris and Lemmings, respectively. In addition, there were no differences among the video games in terms of general mood and arousal.…”

“…Note, however, that these video games were extensively pretested and matched in terms of liking, perceived difficulty, arousal, and mood properties. In addition, Greitemeyer and Osswald (2010) showed that the effect of playing prosocial video games on prosocial behavior was not limited to a specific group of prosocial video games. Nevertheless, future research using a different set of video games would definitely improve the generalizability of our findings.…”

“…Future research is also needed to examine why playing prosocial video games increases empathy and decreases schadenfreude. Greitemeyer and Osswald (2010) showed that participants who had played a prosocial (relative to a neutral) video game reported more prosocial thoughts that they had while playing the video game. This greater accessibility of prosocial thoughts in turn evoked helping behavior.…”

“…Experimental studies showed that exposure to violent video games causally increases aggressive thoughts, affect, and behavior and decreases prosocial tendencies (for a summary, see Anderson et al, 2010). On the other hand, recent research revealed that playing prosocial video games increases prosocial cognitions and behavior (Gentile et al, 2009;Greitemeyer & Osswald, 2010) and decreases aggressive cognitions (Greitemeyer & Osswald, 2009). However, whereas the evidence for the effects of playing violent video games is abundant, investigating the effects of playing prosocial video games is still in its infancy.…”

(GbL #1) Life Skills Developed by Those Who Have Played in Video Game Tournaments

“…An experimental study conducted by Din and Calao (2001) showed that kindergartners in the experimental group performed significantly better on the posttest in the areas of spelling and decoding. Positive aspects of playing video games reported by others include improved classroom discipline (Lee, Luchini, Michael, Norris, & Soloway, 2004), social interaction (Lee, et al, 2004;Lenhart et al, 2008), the development of pro-social behavior (Greitemeyer and Osswald, 2010), and improved civic engagement (Lenhart et al, 2008). Furthermore, a study conducted by Nardi and Harris (2006) showed that video games players collaborated with each other in different ways.…”