Action video games like "Fallout 4," "Grand Theft Auto" and "HALO" may increase the risk of suicide in people with suicide ideation.
New research from Texas Tech University revealed that people who are already thinking about suicide might become significantly more capable of attempting it after playing action video games.
Researchers said the latest study, based on the interpersonal theory of suicide that says an individual can acquire the capability for suicide via exposure to physically painful or psychologically provocative events, examined the relationship between video game play and capability for suicide.
"What we know from previous research is that not everyone who thinks about suicide goes on to attempt or die by suicide," explained Sean Mitchell. "What the interpersonal theory of suicide brought in was the acquired capability for suicide, which is meant to differentiate who may think about suicide but never attempt versus someone who thinks about suicide and does go on to attempt."
Mitchell is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Texas Tech University and the lead researcher of the current study.
"Acquired capability is an increased fearlessness about death, not being as afraid to die, and also an increased pain tolerance - not being as sensitive to pain. Increased acquired capability allows individuals to overcome the fear and pain that would inhibit a suicide attempt," Mitchell explained.
The latest study involved 228 students at Texas Tech who reported playing video games on a weekly basis. Participants were asked about the types of video games they played.
Action video games were defined as those that had first-person shooters, horror, fighting, sports or crime/war themes, including "Grand Theft Auto," "Call of Duty," "Streetfighter," and "Mortal Kombat." Adventure games were defined as those with role-playing and multiplayer online games like "The Sims" and "World of Warcraft." Simulation games included games like "Guitar Hero" and others from Wii and PlayStation Move. Educational games included those like "Tetris," "Chess" and "Solitaire."
Study analysis revealed that there was a significant link between hours of video game play and acquired capability for suicide.
"Results indicated that there was a significant positive association between hours of video game (VG) play and the acquired capability for suicide (ACS). The action category of VGs was a significant moderator of the relationship between hours of VG play and the ACS after adjusting for previous painful and provocative events," the researchers wrote in the study.
"This suggests that individuals who play many hours of action VGs may be more capable of lethal self-harm if they experience suicide ideation, although this association does not exist for individuals who play other categories of VGs," added the researchers.
"The more hours of video games you play, the higher your acquired capability tended to be," Mitchell explained. "But if we took into consideration what kinds of video games you're playing, we saw that if you play action games, which tend to be more violent, there is a stronger relationship between hours of video game play and acquired capability. However, if you don't play action games, there was no relationship. So, hours of video game play is associated with increased acquired capability only when they report playing action games."
The findings were published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking.
