Young people who play video games have higher moral reasoning skills Young gamers have higher levels of moral reasoning skills than those who do not play video games, study suggests

Young people who play video games, including violent titles, display more developed moral reasoning skills than their non-gaming peers, a study has found.

Researchers from Bournemouth University asked 166 adolescents aged between 11 and 18-years old about their video game habits and questions designed to measure their moral development – the thought process behind determining what is right or wrong.

The children and teenagers who said they played more video games from a wide variety of genres had increased moral reasoning scores, including titles containing violent content.

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Violent games were found to have a positive relationship with moral reasoning while mature content was more likely to produce a negative one, the report published in published in journal Frontiers in Psychology found.

The Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty franchises were highlighted as examples of titles related to lower moral scores, alongside variables including the length of time spent playing games, how many years they’ve been playing games, the level of engagement and m0ral narrative within a game.

Male participants displayed significantly higher moral reasoning scores than their female counterparts, which contradicted previous findings, the researchers claimed. Girls also experienced higher levels of stress while playing.

While the majority of the students did play some form of video game, male students played games for longer and were more likely to play higher-rated and more violent titles than the girls.

The study suggested several explanations for the higher moral scores, including that developed moral reasoning could be supported by higher proficiency at morally disengaging with the subject, e.g. the ability to view the game as ‘just a game’.

Another reason is that video games may encourage team work, and that working within guilds and communities in the game could stimulate higher moral reasoning by promoting the consideration of societal implications.

The results of the survey suggested a transition in moral development between the ages of 12 and 14, with just 31.6 per cent of participants demonstrating what the researchers claimed was a mature morality.

Dr Sarah Hodge, a lecturer in Psychology at Bournemouth University and one of the study’s lead authors, said while there had been a great deal of research conducted into violent video games, the cognitive effects of such games were still unclear.

“We found that those who play games did have higher moral reasoning than those who didn’t so it might actually be potentially engaging morality,” she said.

“The positive impacts could have been from the types of games played. I use the example of balanced gameplay like a balanced diet to make sure there is lots of variety within the game play, not just playing violent shoot ‘em ups.”

The study highlighted the importance of taking a game’s moral content into consideration, and not singling out violence alone as a potentially damaging factor.

A study from March last year found playing violent games daily had no long-term effect on aggression in adults.

Other recent studies have claimed video game addiction can contribute to depression, anxiety and low self-esteem in players, affecting them both psychologically and physically, and that playing games can help people who have recently experienced trauma to suppress associated distressing memories.