Of all the games that people play, the blame game is perhaps one of the oldest - it's almost as old as the human race itself. These days, it seems that violent video games are occupying a top spot on the lists of finger pointers. But are video games the real issue? Or is there something deeper at stake here?

Join us as we take a closer look at how this classic "pastime" relates to human nature. More perspectives follow after the jump.

The lore of the Elves in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is a rich one, no doubt. What you probably may not realize is that there's a lot more to these long-lived characters than story. A lot of the lore is grounded in Chinese philosophy and Jungian psychology as well.

Join us as we take a look at how the characteristics of the elves line up with the principles of yin-yang and analytical psychology. More psychobabble awaits after the jump!

Remember what Blizzard said about BlizzCast Episode 2 being double the fun? Well, Blizzard wasn't kidding, that's for sure. Company Vice President of Development Chris Metzen and WoW designer Geoff Goodman had a lot to say about the Diablo and StarCraft series, and World of Warcraft, respectively, in the latest Blizzard BlizzCast. Read all about it in the full article, located right after the jump.

Love, the prevalent emotion during Valentine's Day which just passed, is still very mysterious to some. Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) conducted a study to find out if love is really blind, and the results say yes. Check out the full article to learn more.

Another response came from psychology expert and self-help author Cooper Lawrence regarding her admittedly misinformed statements about Mass Effect and its sex scene. In her latest note to MTV News, Lawrence explained that she went live as a developmental-psychology expert, not an expert on Mass Effect. For more details, check out the full article.

It's already being passed around, but if it missed your radars, here's "The Making of NiGHTS" video from the bonus DVD being given away to those who pre-ordered Sega's NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams for the Nintendo Wii. Find the video at the full article.

In a recent study conducted by a University of Montreal professor, it was concluded that aggressive behavior in children nowadays is genetic rather than a by-product of violent media as previously assumed with the many issues popping up about violence-related cases due to video games.

Richard Tremblay, a professor of pediatrics, psychiatry and psychology, explains that modern media is still relevant to their development and subsequent behavior; however, there were many recorded incidents of violent youths even before the television appeared.

Tremblay has been tracking over 35,000 Canadian children over the past 20 years and presented his findings earlier this week in London at a meeting of The Royal Society, the UK's academy of science. He sums up his study by saying:

We’re looking at to what extent the chronically aggressive individuals show differences in terms of gene expressions compared to those on the normal trajectory. The individuals that are chronically aggressive have… more genes that are not expressed. [This] is an indication that the problem is at a very basic level.

Maternal factors were also seen as potential reasons for violent behavior in children. Smoking, drinking, poor nutrition, and excessive stress can all affect the neurobiological development of the fetus. This may lead to kids with impaired communication or social interaction skills and who are prone to violent and aggressive behavior.

Scientists from the Laboratory for Neural Computation and Cognition at the University of Arizona have found links to the learning behavior of humans and the genes associated with the neurotransmitter Dopamine.

So far, three genes have been pinpointed to affect the production of Dopamine in a person's brain. These genes defined the ability of an individual to learn from both positive and negative decisions they make.

Assistant professor of Psychology and the head of the research team behind the project Michael Frank noted:

When making these kinds of choices, you do not explicitly recall each individual positive and negative outcome of all of your previous such choices. Instead, you often go with your gut, which may involve a more implicit representation of the probability of rewarding outcomes based on past experience

Of the three genes being studied, DSRPP-32 and DRD2 were found to be responsible for the long-term learning and retention of knowledge. The third gene, COMT predicted how a person would change strategies after he or she got hurt by a wrong decision.

Frank further elaborated on the three genes and the reason for their focusing on it:

The reason we looked at these three individual genes in the first place, out of a huge number of possible genes, is that we have a computer model that examines how dopamine mediates these kinds of reinforcement processes in the striatum and prefrontal cortex.

The model makes specific predictions on how subtle changes in different aspects of dopamine function can affect behavior, and one way to get at this question is to test individual genes

Frank admitted that the findings need more research before it can be confirmed. Hopefully this will be further pursued because the findings will be useful not only in developing treatments for patients suffering from Parkinson's disease, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and schizophrenia but also to identify the type of instruction methods to be used on individuals for maximum effect.

If you ever ate mothballs as a youngster thinking they were Mentos left by someone in the closet and you're here now, alive and well, reading this article, it's a safe bet you're not going for them again. That's because your brain has learned something that day and will not allow you to do that again unwittingly.

In the United Kingdom's University of Exeter's School of Psychology, researchers are now discovering how exactly the human brain learns from past mistakes. All the while, it was believed by many in the field that the frontal lobes which commandeer complex mental processes was responsible for the feat, but a new way of testing has proven otherwise.

What actually happens is that the lower temporal regions near the temples send a message within a tenth of a second that warns a person about a mistake he made in the past. Although not fully conscious, it's often enough to make people do a double-take on things.

The study also shows that the temporal area which is mostly associated with recognition is actually more akin to learning than originally thought.

Professor Andy Wills says that this fast process helps us in a lot of ways. "For example," he says "when driving abroad the rules of the road sometimes differ. We may make a mistake the first time we misinterpret a situation, for example not realizing that in the States cars can turn right on a red light. The next time we’re driving out there and see a red light, this early warning signal will immediately alert us to our previous mistake to prevent us from repeating it."

Think that your innocent-looking toddler brother or sister are all sunshine and smiles and no darkness inside? Better think again. Dr. Vasudevi Reddy from the University of Portsmouth's psychology department, studied more than 50 children and interviewed their parents - and was surprised with what she discovered.

In the past, it was established that children's brains are not capable of lying until they reach the age of four. However, Dr. Reddy's research showed that even infants seem to know how to get their parents' attention with fake crying and fake crying. Dr. Reddy said:

Fake crying is one of the earliest forms of deception to emerge, and infants use it to get attention even though nothing is wrong. You can tell, as they will then pause while they wait to hear if their mother is responding, before crying again.

When children reach the age of eight months, they exhibit more elaborate forms of deception, such as doing something forbidden behind their parents' backs and even diverting their parent's attention. Dr. Reddy adds, "Later it becomes more sophisticated by saying, 'I don't care' when threatened with a punishment - when they clearly do."

All in all, Dr. Reddy identified seven kinds of deception performed by children as young as six months to three years of age. "It demonstrates they're clearly able to distinguish that what they are doing will have an effect," Dr. Reddy said of children being capable of lying. "This is essentially all adults do when they tell lies, except in adults it becomes more morally loaded."

So when someone accuses your cute little sister that she stole a cookie or broke a jar, better investigate first before believing your pigtailed sister when she says she didn't do it. Children experiment and learn at a very early age which lies to use in certain situations, and at the same time will learn the repercussions of their actions when properly dealt with.