l game players also proved to be more aggressive by choosing louder blasts than relaxing game players.
- The participants who played a relaxing game gave their opponents more money than players of the other two genres. This showed that they were in a happy and helping mood.
“The results were clear: relaxing video games made people kinder and less aggressive,” Bushman concluded.
The Second Experiment
In the second experiment, a sample of 116 college students played relaxing, neutral, and violent games for 20 minutes. After the gameplay, each participant was given a questionnaire that measured his mood. Another catch in this study was to sharpen the pencils, which the experimenter announced to use in another test.
The number of pencils participants chose to sharpen showed their prosocial behavior. The results of this study also stood for the hypothesis that relaxing video games makes people kinder and helpful. The students who played relaxing games chose more pencils to sharpen than those who played violent or neutral games.
- The people who sharpened more pencils also showed joy, happiness, and good mood through the questionnaire.
- The players of relaxing video games displayed more positive emotions than players of violent games.
“Relaxing video games put people in a good mood. And when people are in a good mood, they are more inclined to help others, and that’s better for everyone,” Bushman stated.
Investigators were diligent in choosing games of the same rating. A separated group of students rated the relaxing games as much good entertainment as the violent or neutral games were enjoyable. The games were of extreme contrast and, for this reason, violent games were rated more violent, and relaxing games were rated more relaxing because they showed off each other.
Experimenters gave the money in the first experiment and participants had no trouble in giving it away. In the second experiment, the participant had to engage himself in a tedious task, like sharpening the pencils. The relaxing games put people in a relaxing and good mood, promulgating emotions of kindness and help.