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The latest study by psychologist Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University suggests that playing some video games, like Minecraft, can have a positive impact on creativity.
Minecraft This is one of the most popular computer games, with more than 100 million copies sold since its release in 2011. According to some sources, it boosts creativity, and there is now a little scientific evidence to date. support for this claim, according to the findings of a new study published in the Creativity Research Journal.
Co-author Douglas Gentile is a psychologist at Iowa State University. His specialty is studying the influence of media on children, including video games, television, movies, music and even advertising. This includes both positive and negative effects, video game addiction and a possible link between media violence and aggression, and how certain games can enhance surgeons' skills.
"Literature seems to contradict what is really not," said Gentile. "Some studies show that games increase aggression, and others showing that it can increase prosocial behavior.Outside, it looks like they have to be good or bad, but it is not so that the world works.This dichotomous thought does not allow us to see what is happening, because we choose an idea and then we apply it to everything. "
The co-author and graduate student of Gentile, Jorge Blanco-Herrera, is a former professional player who wanted to explore the alleged link between Minecraft and creativity for his master's thesis. Minecraft is technically a video game type sandbox, which means that players do not have a specific back story, a prepared quest or a lot of directions. They are free to use the game space as they see fit, using the tools and blocks of the game to create just about anything, that it 's all about. act of a simple hut, a high-rise hotel, a basic truck or a TV in working order. Someone just recreated a painting by Bob Ross Minecraft. Gentile compares it to a virtual Legoworld.
"Given what we know about how games can have powerful effects on other dimensions, it's not an unreasonable assertion, it's just not tested," said Gentile, though internal Microsoft research on the subject can be conducted. Yet this claim is often cited as an argument in favor of introducing computer games in schools. "It seems foolish to make political decisions in schools based on an assertion that is not based on any scientific evidence," he said.
News Service of the State University of Iowa
For their study, Gentile et al. recruited 352 volunteers and gave them 40 minutes to play Minecraft, play a NASCAR video game or watch a TV show (Crocodile hunter). Some topics playing Minecraft were "primed", which means that they were invited to play as creatively as possible. Then the subjects were asked to perform specific tasks designed to measure their creativity.
It was hard to find the right metric to measure something as nebulous as "creativity". They chose two tasks often used in such experiments. In one of them, participants were invited to suggest as many uses as possible of a paper clip and a knife. The second task required that the subjects draw an extraterrestrial creature from another world; the more this creature looked like a human, the less the subject received points for his creativity.
The results were clear with the extraterrestrial drawing task: the subjects who had played Minecraft without any priming done the best. "So, the basic idea that Minecraft can improve creativity seems to be right, at least under certain circumstances, "said Gentile.But he was surprised to find that the subjects who play the directed version of Minecraftwhere they were invited to be creative, did not show the same effect. In fact, they turned out to be the least creative of the four groups, depending on the task chosen.
This may be due to additional pressure or self-awareness of the subjects, or perhaps it indicates a change in motivation; the group has several potential hypotheses. "We have no way of knowing what is correct because we were not expecting that effect," said Gentile. "We thought that these two conditions would be the same, or maybe even the one where we stimulated creativity would be the most creative." There seems to be something in the choice to do that that also matters.
"As a scientist, I simply wish to document its effects, whether or not you think it's good or bad, it's a value judgment," said Gentile, pointing out that the military , for example, values the increased aggression effect of some video games, while your average parent would probably not do it. "The research is starting to give a more interesting and nuanced picture.Our results are similar to those of other game research: you improve your practice, but How you may be practicing as important. "
DO I: Journal of Research on Creativity, 2019. 10.1080 / 10400419.2019.1594524 (About the DOIs).
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