How much do we really get out of videogames when we play them? Can they really teach us things or cause us to act in certain ways? Dr. Brad J. Bushman and Dr. Chris Ferguson both agree that they do, for both have participated in psychological studies involving the correlation between violence, race, and videogames. Whether it be positive or negative, videogames will influence how we think in one way or another, be it subconsciously or consciously. The Huffington Post is where I found these two researches with opposing views, who both implicitly agree that videogames alter the way of thinking of its gamers. It seems that gamers will relate the characters that they play directly with reality, and most times it is totally unintentional. Playing as an avatar of a specific race, perhaps one different than yours would be easier for your mind to disconnect from and create stereotypes, generally leads people to draw conclusions from the actions preformed by this avatar to people in reality.
So, if videogames can install preconceptions or ideas into people, can we use that to our advantage like Dr. Ferguson suggests? What if people played videogames in which every race preformed the same tasks, would people just associate all races with the same thing, and essentially end racism by collectively characterizing all races at the same time? Sounds like an interesting idea. Maybe, like Dr Ferguson attests that we should just make every race be the hero. But this still wouldn't eliminate the fact that the gamers will be stereotyping huge amounts of people based on made up stories and loosely made associations. Videogames are likely perpetuating the issue of racism, but its' likely not the means of eliminating it.
People are what creates racism. Human beings stereotype each other, and when it comes to racism and the abuse of others based on false claims we begin to destroy each others' lives. We categorize things because we need to. Because if we didn't, then the massive amounts of information we take in on a daily basis would be really difficult to work with and comprehend. Mental categorization helps us to cope with life, helps us to survive. If we see a shark, or some animal that we categorized as dangerous based on other events, we were more likely to survive as we avoided it. This doesn't mean that the shark is actually going to be dangerous, though. In the world, there are on average 16 shark attacks with an average of two fatalities per year. Categorization may have helped and may help in some scenarios, but it doesn't make it perfectly accurate.
I think people really need to be careful when trying to understand the world around them. Everyone generalizes and categorizes, but sometimes we need to take a deeper look inside of ourselves to make sure we don't have any misguided preconceptions installed into our subconsciousness that have no merit or follow false information. Videogames can give you insight, or it can cause unintentional stereotyping.
Skyrim is a game I believe to give insight. In a mostly Nord driven land, racism is prominent and the player experiences what it is like to be subject to such racism. This can show the gamer the issues that racism brings about. The game teaches us in a way, by giving us experience, and further developing our understanding of society.
I think what you said about how stereotyping stems from the need to categorize things is a really good way to think about where stereotypes come from. It really shows why stereotypes are so heavy in life, and it also shows why they are so hard to break sometimes. Skyrim really place on the race and stereotyping card with the Kajit, and it is definitely a type of social commentary which Bethesda wanted to highlight, although skyrim is so vast sometimes you could do an entire story playthrough and not even notice some of the deeply ingrained racial undertones.
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