Psychoworld.sk – human psychology news

Psychologists have taken the “media priming” effects of popular video console and PC-based games on the road, finding that virtual racing seems to lead to aggressive driving and a propensity for risk taking.
Extending prior findings on how aggressive virtual-shooter games increase aggression-related thoughts, feelings and behaviors, researchers found that of 198 men and women, those who play more virtual car-racing games were more likely to report that they drive aggressively and get in accidents. Less frequent virtual racing was associated with more cautious driving.

The studies make both theoretical and practical contributions. First, the results support social-cognitive explanations of media priming effects, in which people built up mental models – in this case, of aggressive thoughts and feelings – easily triggered by a learned stimulus. That inner aggression is then the starting point for aggressive behaviors.
The authors also showed that “positively framed” (the games are depicted as exciting and fun; they’re also very popular) risky media content activates thoughts and feelings of arousal and excitement that are linked to increased risk taking.

Given that children start playing these games on average at age 10 (based on previous research by co-author Jörg Kubitzki), the researchers are concerned that racing games may instill risk-taking attitudes that lead to unsafe driving when children grow up and get behind the wheel.

In an age when cohabitation and divorce are common, single parents concerned about the developmental health of their children may want to choose new partners slowly and deliberately, new research from The Johns Hopkins University suggests.

But why that?

The more transitions children go through in their living situation, the more likely they are to act out. They also found that the effect of family upheaval on children varies by race.

Each breakup, divorce, remarriage or new cohabitation, there is a period of adjustment as parents, partners, and children establish their places in a new family setting. Studying a nationally representative sample of mothers and their children, the researchers found that children who go through frequent transitions are more likely to have behavioral problems than children raised in stable two-parent families and maybe even more than those in stable single-parent families.

Changes at home seem to have a stronger negative impact on white children than on black children, the researchers found. There is also Family instability does appear to have a causal role in determining whether white children exhibit more behavior problems.

Instability isn’t the whole story, but looking at change tells us more about what explains children’s behavioral development than what we would see by looking at a cross-section. Read more here.