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ENGAGE TREND REPORT 04.05.10
Videogames Make You a Better Person
Two new studies suggest that playing videogames can make you a better person and have a profound impact on prosocial behavior.
The first, published in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in June, was conducted at Iowa State University's media research laboratory. A group of students played one of six games for 20 minutes. When their games were over, the participants were asked to choose easy, medium, or hard puzzles for a partner to complete and were told that their partner would receive a $10 gift voucher if he/she complete them. Those who had played a prosocial game were significantly more likely to help their partner by selecting easy puzzles. The opposite was true for those that played the violent game.
A second controlled experiment, conducted at the University of Sussex, in England, confirms the Iowa study's conclusions. In this piece of research, Students were asked to play Lemmings, which challenges students to protect animals from danger, and Tetris, which is a building block puzzle game. When the games were over, the students were asked to say what happens next in three incomplete stories. Those who played Lemmings suggested endings in which the characters in the stories exhibited significantly fewer aggressive thoughts, responses and actions than the ones suggested by the Tetris players.
The upshot for both studies is that videogames are a powerful medium with the ability to shape behaviors. Imagine having employees play 'helping' games at the start of each shift, molding their behavior towards better service and support and at the same time boosting employee and customer morale.
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