The Neural Mechanisms Of The Fundamental Dimensions Of Social Cognition

With the development and popularity of computer and network electronics industry, video games has become more and more important in people’s everyday lives,especially popular among young generation. All adults believe that most violent games are so violent and bloody that will cause addiction of the young,which maybe increase their aggressive behaviors and reduce their pro-social behaviors. However some researchers think that violent games are just a way of entertainment, young people clearly know the game is virtual, and daily life is completely different. Some studies show that compared to non-violent video games, violent games does not make players more violent. Even some complex large social games can strengthen plays’ social interaction skills and related expertise. For a long time, in the offensive field of study,the theory that violent video games affect the player’s aggressive behavior is controversial. The model of GAM raised by Anderson think that violent video games can increase player’s aggressive, and explain how violent video games affect the player’s behaviors from individual cognition, behavior, emotion and physiological arousal perspectives. Researchers point out that every time playing games is a process to learning and practicing. Individuals rehearsal their aggressive thoughts and aggressive emotions, which gives rise to producing impulse and aggressive behaviors.Coupled with violent video games are more interactive, synchronous, repeatable and directly reinforcement, which makes attacks inducing more easily and even become a habit of behavior.But Ferguson denies the existence of the causal relationship between violent video games and aggressive behaviors. He raises the Catalyst Model(CM), arguing that violent games are just a catalyst to promote aggressive behaviors, the surroundings’ interaction(such as domestic violence and personality traits),the player’s own genes are the main factors leading to aggressive behaviors. That is when in stressful environment,aggressive person are more prone to have aggressive behaviors. The Trait Activation Theory raised by Tett and Burnett(2003)is another proof to explain the relationship between the two. This theory focuses on the personality,situation and behavior. They think the situation has "unique character", that a trait can predict a behavior or not depends on the situation. Only when individuals’ traits match with the context clues,they will exhibit corresponding behaviors. This theory emphasizes that situation adjust personalities and corresponding behaviors. When the game situation match with players’ aggressive personalities,the personalities will be activated and corresponding aggressive behaviors will appear. On the contrary,the corresponding behaviors will not appear. So whether violent video games can increase aggressive behaviors or not?Does different players have different behavior performance?In this paper, it describes the regulation of the personality between violent video games and aggressive behaviors, introducing trait activation theory to discuss the interaction between personality and violent video games, and further explain why some players are more susceptible to the effects of violent video games, and easier to conduct violent behaviors in real life.Based on related previous studies, this study tried to more seriously research the influence of personality and violent games on players’ aggression by using two logical and progressive way. In experiment 1,we used2(high aggressive traits or low aggressive traits)×2(violent or non-violent) to investigate the influences on aggressive behaviors of different subjects in different game situations. In study 2,we used resting-state fMRI to explore the long-term effects of violent video games in aggressive subjects. At last we putted forward some suggestions for intervening the negative impacts of future violent video games.The results show that 1) the impact of violent video games on aggressive behavior is regulated by players’ personalities, only subjects with high aggressive traits will significantly increase their aggressive behaviors in violent game situation. This may be due to violent game is only a situation acting as a catalyst, aggressive behaviors will appear when the situation matches with the players’ personality(high trait aggressive),the corresponding characteristics are activated and then aggressive behaviors appear. On the country(low aggressive traits), the corresponding aggressive behaviors do not occur. 2) Resting state fMRI results show that the activation oftemporal lobe, the frontal lobe, bilateral wedge anterior lobe, occipital lobe and bilateral insula increases; and the activation of bilateral cerebellar activity reduces.Maybe violent video games change the activity of default network and cerebellum area,which affects the player’s behaviors. Because of frequently exposing to violent video games, a lot of violent video games content, emotions, attitudes and skills associated with aggressive behaviors are stored in players’ brain. In the resting state, these memories are continuously processing unconsciously, the emotional and behavioral scripts related to aggressive behaviors are practiced repeatedly, leading to forming interconnected cognitive networks. When individuals encounter certain stimulation related to aggressive, the corresponding cognitive networks in brain will be activated to produce the relevant negative emotions(such as anger, revenge), and exhibit violent behaviors similar to the behaviors in violent video games.