Gamers Are More Aggressive To Strangers 227
TheClockworkSoul writes "According to NewScientist, victorious gamers enjoy a surge of testosterone — but only if their vanquished foe is a stranger. Interestingly, when male gamers beat friends in a shoot-em-up video game, their levels of the hormone plummeted. This suggests that multiplayer video games tap into the same mechanisms as warfare, where testosterone's effect on aggression is advantageous. Against a group of strangers — be it an opposing football team or an opposing army – there is little reason to hold back, so testosterone's effects on aggression offer an advantage. 'In a serious out-group competition you can kill all your rivals and you're better for it,' says David Geary, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Missouri in Columbia, who led the study. However, when competing against friends or relatives to establish social hierarchy, annihilation doesn't make sense. 'You can't alienate your in-group partners, because you need them,' he says."
So, does Slashdot count as a "game"? (Score:4, Funny)
Bad feelings about killing teammates (Score:4, Funny)
I find that I feel bad if I kill someone on my own team by accident.
Then I feel better when I teabag them anyway. Laughter is definitely the best medicine.
Re:Anthropogists the world over (Score:5, Funny)
I play with my co-workers at lunchtime. I can tell you I get no satisfaction from killing them... none at all *looks shiftilly around*
*STAB STAB STAB STAB*
Re:So, does Slashdot count as a "game"? (Score:5, Funny)
THATS IT!
If you start fucking with me, you get what you deserve. My SimCity 2000 server is up, join it bitch and I'll crush you!
That is why... (Score:4, Funny)
If every soldier got to personally know their enemy, there would be no war.
The lack of communication, and the alienation and dehumanization of the foe are what justifies violent recourse. If only saddam hussein hadn't denied Bush's friend request on facebook...
Re:Gamers... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:That is why... (Score:5, Funny)
Knowing someone doesn't mean you won't kill them if you are given the chance and situation to do so.
Re:AArgh (Score:1, Funny)
I coach youth wrestling and see something similar. There are some kids who just cannot take practice against a teammate seriously - they joke around, their attention wanders, and the ADD kids become downright dangerous. But in a match, against a stranger, it's like their doppelganger stepped onto the mat - very focused, executing moved with speed and precision they never showed elsewhere. And the ADD kids change to - now they hyper-focus, which isn't very good from a coaches standpoint.
Well I guess it's a good thing that I, as a guy with ADD, was on the Debate Team rather than the Wrestling Team in high school.:)
Re:Bad feelings about killing teammates (Score:1, Funny)
> you're killing the virtual equivalent of some kid who was drafted by leadership and forced to fight under the penalty of death.
I think for most people the background history is not so important as 'this guy is standing around with a gun and WILL kill me whether he's a draftee or a volunteer'. A 'his-life-or-mine' situation is still his life or mine whether one, both, or neither of us are draftees.
Now if the game was, "here's poor Hans, he got his draft notice in the mail today. Fitfully he sleeps, having bad dreams about the uncertain future. Mission screen: sneak into Hans house tonight and stab him in the face!" I'd expect that one to bother people. If the game were about bombing Dresden, I'd expect it to bother people. But the enemy AI in today's WW2 games generally don't have second thoughts about national socialism and the morality of man killing man, stare longingly at the photo of Helga back home, and go deserter the day before the mission starts; they stand there and try to kill you.