CYBERPSYCHOLOGY, BEHAVIOR, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING Volume 16, Number 8, 2013 ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2012.0639
Associations Between Game Use and Cognitive Empathy: A Cross-Generational Study Dong-Hee Shin, PhD,1 and Dohyun Ahn, PhD2
Abstract
Adolescence is a sensitive period of time for developing social abilities such as cognitive empathy. Thus, social experiences in this time period are more influential in forming the social abilities than during other periods in life. Video games are agent-based media in which game players carry out their own action in a mediated world whose rules are predefined by algorithms. This means that game players do not have to engage their cognitive empathy when playing games. Thus, prolonged use of video games during adolescence can result in the underdevelopment of cognitive empathy. This survey from three age groups (adolescents aged 16–19, adults aged 37–41, elders aged 58–62) demonstrated that only among adolescents was the amount of time spent in game play negatively associated with cognitive empathy. The findings of this study can contribute to understanding the nature of video game play and its negative effects by focusing on the manner of media use rather than the messages in media, and focusing on cognitive empathy, which has rarely been examined.
Introduction
V
ideo games are one of the most popular entertainment media. Almost all adolescents (97 percent) play video games and nearly one-third of them play games daily.1 Despite the popularity of video games, our understanding regarding the nature of video game play is still being developed. Compared with observers who witness events and characters of noninteractive media, unique video game features allow game players to become agents.2 Becoming an agent, game players can obtain abilities from game experiences such as enhanced visual–spatial attention ability.3 However, the unique features of video games have unintended consequences, especially for adolescents, that have rarely been examined in extant literature. Although the nature of video games, that is, user control, requires players to actively engage in controlling the elements of video games at the behavioral level, such activity paradoxically makes players inactive at the psychological and neural levels in the domain of social cognition.4 Thus, prolonged use of video games can negatively influence social abilities such as cognitive empathy.5 This effect can be detrimental to adolescents, because adolescence is a sensitive period and therefore a major opportunity to develop social abilities.6 Development of cognitive empathy Humans are the only species that can build complex societies without resorting to blood relationships. Rapid and
automatic understanding of others’ thoughts and feelings makes it possible for humans to deal with social complexities.7,8 Despite the nonobservable nature of mental states, cognitive empathy as social cognition enables one to understand others’ minds. These social abilities are operationalized by the network of brain regions called the social brain, the brain networks including the medial prefrontal cortex, orbital frontal cortex, superior temporal sulcus, and temporal pole junction.8–10 Cognitive empathy emerges during infancy. Twelvemonth-old infants can attribute agency to an object.11 At 15 months, infants begin to understand that others may or may not have false beliefs.12 Cognitive empathy continues to advance across adolescence.13 Using a communication game that tests whether participants can correctly use the perspective of others to perform the actions directed by the other, participants aged from 7 to 18 made more errors than adult participants between the ages of 19 and 27.14 These results suggest that cognitive empathy is developing until late adolescence. Game use and cognitive empathy The development of the social abilities during adolescence has significant implications. Adolescence can be a sensitive period, as it is a major opportunity for acquiring social abilities, especially cognitive empathy.6 Thus, social experiences undergone during sensitive periods can be more influential in molding and shaping the social brain than those in other
1
Department of Interaction Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea. Graduate School of Mass Communication, Sogang University, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea.
2
599
600 periods such as adulthood and elderhood. A question arises whether playing video games, including console, computer, and mobile-device games, can influence cognitive empathy. The answer to this question depends on the social nature of playing games.15 Unlike observation-based media such as television, video games are performance-based media. Users are agents who carry out their own actions instead of witnessing the actions of other agents.2 Furthermore, playing games is essentially following a series of predefined rules.16,17 Thus, it is unnecessary for game players to allocate mental resources to cognitive empathy, because game players do not have to engage in inferencing other agents’ mental states. This means that video game users do not have many opportunities to stimulate the social brain. Because of the nature of sociality regarding games, video games may have negative effects on cognitive empathy. Consistent with the social nature of game playing, a survey found that prolonged use of video games was negatively associated with cognitive empathy.5 However, it is not clear whether the negative association between game use and cognitive empathy is limited to adolescents or not. The sample of the previous survey included individuals aged from 19 to 39, which includes late adolescents and early adults whose social brains are still developing. To address this limitation, it is necessary to compare the association across generations such as adolescence, adulthood, and elderhood. If adolescence is the sensitive period for the development of the social brain, and video games are agent-based media that do not require using the social brain, then a negative association between playing games and cognitive empathy should be observed among adolescents. On the other hand, adults and elders should not experience the damaging effects of playing video games on their cognitive empathy, since their social brains, presumably, have already matured. Furthermore, because this association comes from media features, that is, user control and predefined rules, specific content such as violence does not necessarily influence cognitive empathy. Methods Participants In total, 479 individuals (252 males and 227 females) participated in this study. Samples were randomly identified from a research pool managed by a firm specializing in online surveys. The sociodemographics of the research pool nearly, though not perfectly, match with those of the South Korean population. Participants’ age ranged from 16 to 62 years (M = 39.00, SD = 16.84), and all were native Koreans (the questionnaire was in Korean). Participants received reward points that could be exchanged for 1,000 Korean won (KRW; approximately $1). Overview of the survey The questionnaire comprised four sections. First, participants were screened by age, which is an independent measure. Participants also identified their sex in this stage. Once participants were granted permission to participate in the study, they read the introduction of the survey and proceeded to answer the questionnaire. The first section included
SHIN AND AHN the dependent measures that assessed empathy and other questionnaires for unrelated studies, and the second section addressed the independent measures, the amount of time respondents spent on games and other media, which is not reported in this study, and game contents that respondents prefer to use. The third section asked about demographic information such as education and annual income. Finally, participants received a debriefing and left the survey site. Measures Age. Participants’ age was obtained by asking the question ‘‘How old are you?’’ Three groups were selected to participate in this survey: adolescents aged 16–19, adults aged 37–41, and elders aged 58–62. The age range of 16–19 was selected because this age range represents late adolescence, and the age range of 58–62 was selected because people of this age group were the oldest group to actively participate in the online survey pool. Individuals aged 37–41 were selected because they represented typical adulthood, and they were in the middle of our sample regarding adolescence and elderhood. Game use. Game use was measured by asking the following question: ‘‘In retrospect over the past week, on an average day, how much time do you spend playing games (e.g., computer games, video games, or smartphone games)?’’ Participants could select one of the following options: ‘‘never use,’’ ‘‘less than 1 hour,’’ ‘‘1 to 2 hours,’’ ‘‘2 to 3 hours,’’ ‘‘3 to 4 hours,’’ and ‘‘more than 4 hours.’’ The last three options (‘‘2 to less than 3 hours,’’ ‘‘3 to less than 4 hours,’’ and ‘‘more than 4 hours’’) were reduced to one category, because participants who selected 3 to less than 4 hours and more than 4 hours were too few to analyze. Thus, game use was categorized by four groups: never use, less than 1 hour, 1 to 2 hours, and more than 2 hours. Preference for game content. Preference for game content was measured to control for the effects of game content. Participants were instructed: ‘‘There are many kinds of games. Please select the media content that you like to play.’’ Seven kinds of game content were presented, along with examples. They were action games (e.g., battles, fighting, shooting, racing), massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG; e.g., Lineage), sports games (e.g., baseball), construction-simulation games (e.g., building cities), operation-simulation games (e.g., operating airplanes), board games/puzzle games (e.g., chess and Tetris), and card games (e.g., poker). Each game’s content was presented by a sevenpoint scale ranging from ‘‘dislike very strongly’’ (1) to ‘‘like very strongly’’ (7). The seven-point scale was reduced to three categories, ‘‘dislike’’ (1), ‘‘neutral’’ (2), and ‘‘like’’ (3), for the purpose of analyses, combining ‘‘dislike very strongly’’ and ‘‘dislike strongly’’ into ‘‘dislike,’’ combining ‘‘dislike a little bit,’’ ‘‘neutral,’’ and ‘‘like a little bit’’ into ‘‘neutral,’’ and combining ‘‘like strongly’’ and ‘‘like very strongly’’ into ‘‘like.’’ Cognitive empathy. Drawing on theories of mind research, the empathizing quotient (EQ) is a recently developed self-report measure for empathy consisting of cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and social skills.18,19 This study
AGE, GAME USE, AND EMPATHY
601 gested that cognitive empathy was negatively correlated with game use, r (477) = - 0.12, p = 0.009, and the preference for action games, r (477) = - 0.09, p = 0.05. However, cognitive empathy was positively correlated with board games, r (477) = 0.11, p = 0.02. No other kinds of game content, including MMORPG, were correlated with cognitive empathy. Education was not correlated with cognitive empathy, r (477) = - 0.004, p = 0.94; neither were income levels r (477) = 0.06, p = 0.20. Thus, education and income levels were not included in the analyses.
used 13 items for cognitive empathy, such as ‘‘I can easily tell if someone else wants to enter a conversation’’ and ‘‘I am quick to spot when someone in a group is feeling awkward or uncomfortable’’ (a = 0.90). Each statement was followed by a seven-point scale ranging from ‘‘strongly disagree’’ (1) to ‘‘strongly agree’’ (7). The Korean version of the EQ was translated by five psychologists and tested in Korean samples.20,21 Confounders. Participants’ demographic information such as education (middle school student/middle school graduate, high school student/high school graduate, college student/college graduate, masters student/master’s degree, or PhD student/PhD degree) and annual income were gathered to control for possible confounding effects.
Main analyses To test whether the effect of playing video games on cognitive empathy was prominent among adolescents, a twoway ANOVA was performed with age (adolescents vs. adults vs. elders) and game use (never use vs. less than 1 hour vs. 1 to 2 hours vs. more than 2 hours). Age had no effect on cognitive empathy, F(2, 476) = 0.86, p = 0.43. Neither did game use, F(3, 475) = 2.00, p = 0.11. However, the ANOVA yielded the significant interaction of age · game use, F(6, 472) = 2.13, p = 0.05, g2p = 0.03. The planned contrast revealed that adolescents who did not play games (M = 5.14, SE = 0.18) [95 percent confidence interval (95 percent CI): 4.80, 5.49] had higher empathy than those who played games for more than 2 hours (M = 4.37, SE = 0.10) [95 percent CI: 4.17, 4.56]. Among adults and elders, however, cognitive empathy was not significantly varied by the amount of time spent playing games. Also, when cognitive empathy was contrasted by game use, no significant difference was observed. For example, adolescents who did not play games (M = 5.14, SE = 0.18) [95 percent CI: 4.80, 5.49] did not have significantly higher cognitive empathy than adults who did not play games (M = 4.59, SE = 0.12) [95 percent CI: 4.36, 4.82] or elders who did not play games (M = 4.78, SE = 0.09) [95 percent CI: 4.59, 4.96]. No significant difference was observed among those who played for more than 2 hours, either. Details are summarized in Table 1. To examine the effects of game content on cognitive empathy, a two-way ANOVA was conducted with preference for action games (dislike vs. neutral vs. like) and preference for board games (dislike vs. neutral vs. like), both of which
Results Descriptive summary Among a total of 479 participants, there were 152 adolescents (M = 17.80, SD = 1.09), 171 adults (M = 39.04, SD = 1.41), and 156 elders (M = 59.63, SD = 1.36). Participants spent an average of 2.35 hours in game play (SD = 1.09). Cognitive empathy was, on average, 4.65 (SD = 0.77). The average annual income was KRW 30,213,600 (approximately $30,000; SD = 28,238,240). Preliminary analyses To identify confounding factors such as game content, this study compared means of preference for game content among three age groups using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson’s correlation. In terms of preference for violent video games (i.e., action video games that feature battles, fighting, shooting, or racing), adolescents (M = 2.03, SD = 0.65) preferred them over adults (M = 1.72, SD = 0.68) and elders (M = 1.47, SD = 0.57). The differences were significant, F(2, 476) = 28.98, p = 0.000, g2p = 0.11. In terms of preference for board/puzzle games (i.e., chess or Tetris), the difference was nearly significant, F(2, 476) = 2.54, p = 0.08. No other kinds of game content, including MMOPRG, were different by age group. Zero-order correlation analyses sug-
Table 1. Descriptive Summary of Cognitive Empathy by Age and Game Use 95 percent CI Age Adolescents (n = 152)
Adults (n = 171)
Elders (n = 156)
Game use (daily)
N
M
SE
LB
UB
Never use Less than 1 hour 1–2 hours More than 2 hours Never use Less than 1 hour 1–2 hours More than 2 hours Never use Less than 1 hour 1–2 hours More than 2 hours
19 41 33 59 44 58 47 22 66 54 17 19
5.14 4.77 4.65 4.37 4.59 4.63 4.68 4.56 4.78 4.65 4.53 4.82
0.17 0.12 0.13 0.10 0.11 0.10 0.11 0.16 0.09 0.10 0.18 0.17
4.80 4.53 4.38 4.17 4.36 4.43 4.46 4.24 4.59 4.45 4.17 4.48
5.49 5.00 4.91 4.56 4.82 4.82 4.89 4.88 4.96 4.85 4.89 5.16
The data set was produced by two-way analysis of variance with age and game use. Cognitive empathy ranges from 1 to 7. CI, confidence interval; LB, lower bound; M, mean; N, number; SE, standard error; UP, upper bound.
602 were identified to be associated with cognitive empathy in the preliminary analyses. Preference for action games had effects on cognitive empathy but did not reach a significant level, F(2, 476) = 2.50, p = 0.08, but preference for board games had significant effects on cognitive empathy, F(2, 476) = 3.14, p = 0.04, g2p = 0.02. Interaction of a board game by an action game was not significant, F(4, 474) = 1.93, p = 0.10. To explore the role of game content more thoroughly, a four-way ANOVA was conducted with preference for action games (dislike vs. neutral vs. like), preference for board games, age (adolescents vs. adults vs. elders), and game use (never use vs. less than 1 hour vs. 1 to 2 hours vs. more than 2 hours). Preference for board games had significant effects on cognitive empathy, F(2, 476) = 4.63, p = 0.01, g2p = 0.02. Cognitive empathy was not influenced by age, F(2, 476) = 0.21, p = 0.81; by game use, F(3, 475) = 1.01, p = 0.39; or by preference for action games, F(2, 476) = 1.226, p = 0.29. Interaction of age by game use was significant, F(6, 472) = 2.86, p = 0.01, g2p = 0.04. No other interaction was significant. Discussion This study explored whether adolescents’ game use, compared with adults’ and elders’, influences cognitive empathy. Since adolescents are still developing, they are more susceptible to the influence of media use than adults or elders who have already developed. As predicted, prolonged game use was only negatively associated with cognitive empathy among adolescents. This association can be explained by the development of the social brain and the nature of playing video games. Playing video games does not require game players to allocate mental resources to understand other agents, and this can lead to prolonged inactivity of the social brain. Adolescence is a sensitive period for development of the social brain. Thus, inactivity of the social brain during this period can result in delayed development of social abilities, especially cognitive empathy. The association in this study is not likely the effect of violent content such as preference for playing action video games. Preference for specific game content such as violent action games was not significantly associated with cognitive empathy. The only exception was preference for board games, which will be discussed in the following paragraph. Given that violence is a well-known variable that has negative effects on affective empathy,22 it is surprising that preference for violent action games did not have significant effects on cognitive empathy, which is closely linked to affective empathy.23,24 This may be because of the differences between affective and cognitive empathy. Although affective and cognitive empathy are fundamentally similar, affective and cognitive empathy are operated via distinct psychological and neurological processes.23,24 Future research is required to examine how affective and cognitive empathy are differentially influenced by media use. Most games such as MMORPGs, simulation games, or sport games were not associated with cognitive empathy, but board games were associated with cognitive empathy. Preference for board games was the only variable that had simple effects on cognitive empathy. This may be because of the nature of board games. Although board games have features of video games in general such as user control and predefined rules, the manner of playing board games is quite different
SHIN AND AHN from that of other games. Players of board games have to actively infer opponents’ intention, which is one of the main functions of cognitive empathy. Board games require players to be an observer as well as an agent. It is interesting that MMORPGs that have an integral social component did not have positive effects on cognitive empathy. This can be explained by the nature of MMORPGs. The social component of MMOPRGs, unlike board games, is not a main but an ancillary feature. The core feature of MMORPGs is to attack virtual characters controlled by predefined rules, but not to communicate with other human players. This result suggests that, if incorporating the features of inferencing others’ mental states like board games do, games can be an intervention for developing cognitive empathy. For future studies, it is worth examining the role of board games for improving cognitive empathy. The results of this study have significant practical implications. This study suggests that video game use in general needs to be restricted among children and adolescents whose social brains are still developing. Previously, concerns for exposure to media focused on whether the content of the media is antisocial or not.22 Thus, game playing was discouraged only when game content was antisocial. This study suggests that, regardless of content, playing games can harm adolescents by delaying the development of their critical social skills such as cognitive empathy. However, in the case of prosocial games in which content may have a positive effect on cognitive empathy, it is worth researching in the future to examine whether playing prosocial games influences cognitive empathy. This study has limitations. First, participants in the older age group spent their adolescence in a very different media environment from adolescents in this study. The older age groups less likely had chances to play video games during their adolescence because video game play 20 or 25 years ago was not as common as it is nowadays. This may have confounded the results in this study. It is possible that the older age group, if they had grown up playing video games regularly in their adolescence just like adolescents nowadays, might have had negative effects on their cognitive empathy from playing video games. If this is the case, the negative effect of playing video games on cognitive empathy in this study may not be limited to adolescents but to all populations. In addition, this study did not measure how long participants have played video games. Examining the impact of video game play, this variable can be a confounding factor because people who have played for a longer period might be more influenced by playing video games than those who have just been playing for a few weeks. Future research is required to address these limitations. Second, since this study is cross-sectional, we cannot rule out the possibility of a third variable. Moreover, this study did not include any neuroimaging variables or other variables that can directly assess brain development. This study simply compared the association between game use and cognitive empathy among three groups varied by age. Future research is needed to establish the causal link between playing video games and cognitive empathy. Third, the cognitive empathy of adolescents was not lower than that of adults and elders. Rather, adolescents responded with higher cognitive empathy than did adults and elders, especially among those who did not play games, although the
AGE, GAME USE, AND EMPATHY difference was not significant. If the social brain of adolescents is in development, cognitive empathy during adolescence should be lower than that of adults or elders whose social brain is already developed, which is not the case in this study. One possible explanation is that adolescents might overestimate their social abilities compared with adults and elders because adolescents tend to overestimate their overall capacity. Measuring cognitive empathy without resorting to self-reporting can help reveal whether adolescents overestimate their cognitive empathy. Although this study has many limitations, the findings contribute to understanding the nature and effects of game play by focusing on the manner of media use rather than the messages in media and by focusing on cognitive empathy. The findings of this study suggest that the act of playing games, regardless of content, can have negative influences. Author Disclosure Statement No competing financial interests exist. References 1. Lenhart A, Kahne J, Middaugh E, Macgill AR, Evans C, Vitak J. (2008) Teens, video games, and civics: teens’ gaming experiences are diverse and include significant social interaction and civic engagement. Washington, DC: PEW Internet & American Life Project. http://pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2008/ PIP_Teens_Games_and_Civics_Report_FINAL.pdf.pdf (accessed Jun. 14, 2013). 2. Klimmt C, Hefner D, Vorderer P. The video game experience as ‘‘true’’ identification: a theory of enjoyable alterations of players’ self-perception. Communication Theory 2009; 19: 351–373. 3. Green CS, Bavelier D. Effect of action video games on the spatial distribution of visuospatial attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 2006; 32:1465. 4. David N, Bewernick BH, Cohen MX, et al. Neural representations of self versus other: visual-spatial perspective taking and agency in a virtual ball-tossing game. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 2006; 18:898–910. 5. Ahn D, Shin D. Observers versus agents: divergent associations of video versus game use with empathy and social connectedness. Unpublished manuscript. 2012. 6. Blakemore SJ. The developing social brain: implications for education. Neuron 2010; 65:744–747. 7. Keltner D, Haidt J, Shiota MN. (2006) Social functionalism and the evolution of emotions. In Schaller M, Simpson JA, Kenrick DT, eds. Evolution and social psychology. New York: Psychology Press, pp. 115–142. 8. Frith U, Frith C. The social brain: allowing humans to boldly go where no other species has been. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 2010; 365: 165–176.
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Address correspondence to: Dr. Dohyun Ahn Graduate School of Mass Communication Sogang University 35 Baekbeom-ro, Mapo-gu Seoul 121-742 South Korea E-mail:
[email protected]
