Abstract
As a typical form of empathy, empathy for pain refers to the perception and appraisal of others’ pain, as well as the corresponding affective responses. Numerous studies investigated the factors affecting the empathy for pain, in which the exposure to violent video games (VVGs) could change players’ empathic responses to painful situations. However, it remains unclear whether exposure to VVG influences the empathy for pain. In the present study, in terms of the exposure experience to VVG, two groups of participants (18 in VVG group, VG; 17 in non-VVG group, NG) were screened from nearly 200 video game experience questionnaires. And then, the functional magnetic resonance imaging data were recorded when they were viewing painful and non-painful stimuli. The results showed that the perception of others’ pain were not significantly different in brain regions between groups, from which we could infer that the desensitization effect of VVGs was overrated.
Highlights
The society has witnessed the rapidly development in video game industry
We mainly focused on the relationship between long-term exposure to video game violence and empathy to investigate the negative effects of media violence on empathy, especially empathy for pain for others
Based on past research on empathy among healthy participants (e.g., Akitsuki and Decety, 2009; Fan et al, 2011, 2014; Lamm et al, 2011) and certain types of groups (e.g., Mathews and MacLeod, 2005; Decety et al, 2009), as well as research on the affective processing and empathy among violent video gamers (e.g., Anderson et al, 2010; Barlett and Anderson, 2011; Zhen et al, 2011; Guo et al, 2013), the present study aimed to identify whether video game violence can affect the capacity of empathy for pain, if so, how video game violence can affect the capacity of empathy for pain
Summary
The society has witnessed the rapidly development in video game industry. A nonnegligible issue is that most of the video games contain violent content (Yoon and Somers, 2003), which could be harmful to the players, even jeopardize the public safety. Playing violent video games (VVGs) has a desensitizing physiological effect (Carnagey et al, 2007), and may be associated with non-violent delinquent behaviors (Anderson and Dill, 2000; Ferguson and Kilburn, 2009; Desai et al, 2010; Gunter and Daly, 2012), such as cheating, skipping school, stealing, and substance abuse. Previous researches have investigated the relationship between empathy and exposure to video game violence. It has been suggested that exposure to VVG was associated with lower empathy (Funk et al, 2004; Anderson et al, 2010). Ferguson and Kilburn (2010) conducted a meta-analysis and the results suggested that VVGs were not significantly associated with aggression, neither with prosocial behavior
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