Wii motion controls do not lead to violence, study says

Using the Wiimote to plant a street sign into your enemy's head in Mad World doesn't lead to real world violence, a new study has found.

People with more fear in their heads than brains have often wondered whether or not the Wii motion controls that debuted in 2006 have led to an increase in video game-related violence. A new study out this week, hopefully, dispels these lingering misconceptions about video games for the last time.

The study was the work of Villanova's Dr. Patrick Markey. It examined 118 participants' "psychoticism" levels, which translates roughly into how hostile or aggressive they became while playing Manhunt 2 and the notoriously violent murder sim Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008* (*sarcasm).

Long story short, the study concluded motion controls had no effect on people's hostility or aggression levels. Whether a person was mashing a button or using a swiping motion to mash someone's head made no difference whatsoever.

However, as many people already suspect is the case, those people who had high levels of psychoticism (predisposed to violence, in other words), "were much more affected by violent video games than other participants," the study said.

For many that's a given, but for those late the game players, this could serve as yet another bookend to the video game violence issue.

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/...d-to-violence/

well thank goodness we have people to look into this for us. I was worried I was turning into a psychopathic killer for a minute.