Becoming bad through video games

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-08/dc-bbt073114.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 4-Aug-2014

Contact: John Cramer
Dartmouth College
Becoming bad through video games
Dartmouth study links risk-glorying video games to increases in teens' high-risk behavior

Previous studies show that violent video games increase adolescent aggressiveness, but new Dartmouth research finds for the first time that teen-agers who play mature-rated, risk-glorifying video games are more likely subsequently to engage in a wide range of deviant behaviors beyond aggression, including alcohol use, smoking cigarettes, delinquency and risky sex.

More generally, such games – especially character-based games with anti-social protagonists – appear to affect how adolescents think of themselves, with potential consequences for their alter ego in the real world.

The study appears Monday, Aug. 4, in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. A PDF is available on request. The findings follow a 2012 Dartmouth study that shows such video games may lead teens to drive recklessly and experience increases in automobile accidents, police stops and willingness to drink and drive.

•••••