The beneficial social effects of video games: Games that promote helpfulness

© 2010 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved

The effects of video games—good and bad

Video games often get bad press.

But there is evidence that video games can benefit kids in several ways.

Perhaps the most exciting prospects are educational video games and software .

It also appears that playing "action" video games may improve visual-spatial skills.

But what about the social effects of video games? There is evidence that playing violent video games makes people more aggressive and less sympathetic towards victims.

Do “prosocial” video games—games that feature characters helping each other—make kids friendlier?

Douglas Gentile led an international team of researchers to answer this question. Their findings lend support to the idea that certain video games encourage kids to respond to real people with sympathy and helpfulness (Gentile et al 2009).

The link between games and behavior

Researchers in Singapore surveyed 727 middle school students, asking kids to

• name their three favorite video games,

• estimate how much time they spent playing each game, and

• rate how often players help—or hurt—each other in the games

Next, researchers tested each child’s prosocial attitudes and behavior. Kids were asked whether or not they agreed with a series of statements (e.g., “I feel happy when I share my things with others”). Kids were also asked to interpret several social scenarios (e.g., “what would it mean if someone broke your watch?”)

The results? Kids who spent more time playing prosocial video games reported more prosocial behaviors. And, when presented with the social scenarios, these kids were also less likely to attribute hostile intentions to other people.

By contrast, kids who spent more time playing violent video games showed fewer prosocial traits and were more likely to attribute hostility to others.

Teasing apart cause and effect

Gentile’s team conducted two other studies help tease apart cause and effect.

In Japan, researchers interviewed students in the 5th-, 8th- and 11th grades at two different points in time.

Kids who said they spent more time playing prosocial games (at Time 1) went on to report more acts of prosocial behavior (at Time 2). The interviews took place 3-4 months apart, so it seems that playing prosocial video games predicted increased prosocial behavior over time.

Finally, in the U.S., researchers randomly assigned college students to play either

• a prosocial game (Super Mario Sunshine or Chibi Robo)

• a violent game (Ty2 or Crash Twin Sanity)

• a neutral game (Pure Pinball or Super Monkey Ball Deluxe)

Students were allowed to play for 20 minutes. Then researchers assigned students another task, one that cleverly tested the students’ willingness to help others.

Would you make it easy or hard for another person to win $10?

To answer this question, researchers asked the students for help creating a puzzle test. They explained to the students that the test would be given to someone else—a test-taker who would have 10 minutes to solve 10 puzzles. If the test-taker succeeded, he would win a gift certificate worth $10.

Students were presented with 30 puzzles to choose from—10 easy puzzles, 10 puzzles of intermediate difficulty, and 10 hard puzzles. Which puzzles should be included on the test? Students could help the test-taker by choosing more easy puzzles, or hurt the test-taker by choosing more difficult ones.

As predicted, experience with prosocial video games had an effect. Compared with students who’d just played violent or neutral games, students who’d played the prosocial games chose more easy puzzles. And the more prosocial content there was in the game, the stronger the effect: More helpful game situations led to more helpful behavior in the real world.

What about students who played violent video games? They didn’t just choose fewer easy puzzles. They also chose more difficult ones.

The bottom line

For more information about the potential for video games to make kids more aggressive, see this article about the effects of video games with violent themes. .

For information about encouraging prosocial behavior, see this article on the the perils of rewarding kids for being helpful.

Reference: The beneficial social effects of video games