do video games cause behavior problems essay

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• Published: 13 March 2018

Does playing violent video games cause aggression? A longitudinal intervention study

• Simone Kühn 1 , 2 ,
• Dimitrij Tycho Kugler 2 ,
• Katharina Schmalen 1 ,
• Markus Weichenberger 1 ,
• Charlotte Witt 1 &
• Jürgen Gallinat 2  

Molecular Psychiatry volume  24 ,  pages 1220–1234 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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It is a widespread concern that violent video games promote aggression, reduce pro-social behaviour, increase impulsivity and interfere with cognition as well as mood in its players. Previous experimental studies have focussed on short-term effects of violent video gameplay on aggression, yet there are reasons to believe that these effects are mostly the result of priming. In contrast, the present study is the first to investigate the effects of long-term violent video gameplay using a large battery of tests spanning questionnaires, behavioural measures of aggression, sexist attitudes, empathy and interpersonal competencies, impulsivity-related constructs (such as sensation seeking, boredom proneness, risk taking, delay discounting), mental health (depressivity, anxiety) as well as executive control functions, before and after 2 months of gameplay. Our participants played the violent video game Grand Theft Auto V, the non-violent video game The Sims 3 or no game at all for 2 months on a daily basis. No significant changes were observed, neither when comparing the group playing a violent video game to a group playing a non-violent game, nor to a passive control group. Also, no effects were observed between baseline and posttest directly after the intervention, nor between baseline and a follow-up assessment 2 months after the intervention period had ended. The present results thus provide strong evidence against the frequently debated negative effects of playing violent video games in adults and will therefore help to communicate a more realistic scientific perspective on the effects of violent video gaming.

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The concern that violent video games may promote aggression or reduce empathy in its players is pervasive and given the popularity of these games their psychological impact is an urgent issue for society at large. Contrary to the custom, this topic has also been passionately debated in the scientific literature. One research camp has strongly argued that violent video games increase aggression in its players [ 1 , 2 ], whereas the other camp [ 3 , 4 ] repeatedly concluded that the effects are minimal at best, if not absent. Importantly, it appears that these fundamental inconsistencies cannot be attributed to differences in research methodology since even meta-analyses, with the goal to integrate the results of all prior studies on the topic of aggression caused by video games led to disparate conclusions [ 2 , 3 ]. These meta-analyses had a strong focus on children, and one of them [ 2 ] reported a marginal age effect suggesting that children might be even more susceptible to violent video game effects.

To unravel this topic of research, we designed a randomised controlled trial on adults to draw causal conclusions on the influence of video games on aggression. At present, almost all experimental studies targeting the effects of violent video games on aggression and/or empathy focussed on the effects of short-term video gameplay. In these studies the duration for which participants were instructed to play the games ranged from 4 min to maximally 2 h (mean = 22 min, median = 15 min, when considering all experimental studies reviewed in two of the recent major meta-analyses in the field [ 3 , 5 ]) and most frequently the effects of video gaming have been tested directly after gameplay.

It has been suggested that the effects of studies focussing on consequences of short-term video gameplay (mostly conducted on college student populations) are mainly the result of priming effects, meaning that exposure to violent content increases the accessibility of aggressive thoughts and affect when participants are in the immediate situation [ 6 ]. However, above and beyond this the General Aggression Model (GAM, [ 7 ]) assumes that repeatedly primed thoughts and feelings influence the perception of ongoing events and therewith elicits aggressive behaviour as a long-term effect. We think that priming effects are interesting and worthwhile exploring, but in contrast to the notion of the GAM our reading of the literature is that priming effects are short-lived (suggested to only last for <5 min and may potentially reverse after that time [ 8 ]). Priming effects should therefore only play a role in very close temporal proximity to gameplay. Moreover, there are a multitude of studies on college students that have failed to replicate priming effects [ 9 , 10 , 11 ] and associated predictions of the so-called GAM such as a desensitisation against violent content [ 12 , 13 , 14 ] in adolescents and college students or a decrease of empathy [ 15 ] and pro-social behaviour [ 16 , 17 ] as a result of playing violent video games.

However, in our view the question that society is actually interested in is not: “Are people more aggressive after having played violent video games for a few minutes? And are these people more aggressive minutes after gameplay ended?”, but rather “What are the effects of frequent, habitual violent video game playing? And for how long do these effects persist (not in the range of minutes but rather weeks and months)?” For this reason studies are needed in which participants are trained over longer periods of time, tested after a longer delay after acute playing and tested with broader batteries assessing aggression but also other relevant domains such as empathy as well as mood and cognition. Moreover, long-term follow-up assessments are needed to demonstrate long-term effects of frequent violent video gameplay. To fill this gap, we set out to expose adult participants to two different types of video games for a period of 2 months and investigate changes in measures of various constructs of interest at least one day after the last gaming session and test them once more 2 months after the end of the gameplay intervention. In contrast to the GAM, we hypothesised no increases of aggression or decreases in pro-social behaviour even after long-term exposure to a violent video game due to our reasoning that priming effects of violent video games are short-lived and should therefore not influence measures of aggression if they are not measured directly after acute gaming. In the present study, we assessed potential changes in the following domains: behavioural as well as questionnaire measures of aggression, empathy and interpersonal competencies, impulsivity-related constructs (such as sensation seeking, boredom proneness, risk taking, delay discounting), and depressivity and anxiety as well as executive control functions. As the effects on aggression and pro-social behaviour were the core targets of the present study, we implemented multiple tests for these domains. This broad range of domains with its wide coverage and the longitudinal nature of the study design enabled us to draw more general conclusions regarding the causal effects of violent video games.

Materials and methods

Participants.

Ninety healthy participants (mean age = 28 years, SD = 7.3, range: 18–45, 48 females) were recruited by means of flyers and internet advertisements. The sample consisted of college students as well as of participants from the general community. The advertisement mentioned that we were recruiting for a longitudinal study on video gaming, but did not mention that we would offer an intervention or that we were expecting training effects. Participants were randomly assigned to the three groups ruling out self-selection effects. The sample size was based on estimates from a previous study with a similar design [ 18 ]. After complete description of the study, the participants’ informed written consent was obtained. The local ethics committee of the Charité University Clinic, Germany, approved of the study. We included participants that reported little, preferably no video game usage in the past 6 months (none of the participants ever played the game Grand Theft Auto V (GTA) or Sims 3 in any of its versions before). We excluded participants with psychological or neurological problems. The participants received financial compensation for the testing sessions (200 Euros) and performance-dependent additional payment for two behavioural tasks detailed below, but received no money for the training itself.

Training procedure

The violent video game group (5 participants dropped out between pre- and posttest, resulting in a group of n  = 25, mean age = 26.6 years, SD = 6.0, 14 females) played the game Grand Theft Auto V on a Playstation 3 console over a period of 8 weeks. The active control group played the non-violent video game Sims 3 on the same console (6 participants dropped out, resulting in a group of n  = 24, mean age = 25.8 years, SD = 6.8, 12 females). The passive control group (2 participants dropped out, resulting in a group of n  = 28, mean age = 30.9 years, SD = 8.4, 12 females) was not given a gaming console and had no task but underwent the same testing procedure as the two other groups. The passive control group was not aware of the fact that they were part of a control group to prevent self-training attempts. The experimenters testing the participants were blind to group membership, but we were unable to prevent participants from talking about the game during testing, which in some cases lead to an unblinding of experimental condition. Both training groups were instructed to play the game for at least 30 min a day. Participants were only reimbursed for the sessions in which they came to the lab. Our previous research suggests that the perceived fun in gaming was positively associated with training outcome [ 18 ] and we speculated that enforcing training sessions through payment would impair motivation and thus diminish the potential effect of the intervention. Participants underwent a testing session before (baseline) and after the training period of 2 months (posttest 1) as well as a follow-up testing sessions 2 months after the training period (posttest 2).

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA)

GTA is an action-adventure video game situated in a fictional highly violent game world in which players are rewarded for their use of violence as a means to advance in the game. The single-player story follows three criminals and their efforts to commit heists while under pressure from a government agency. The gameplay focuses on an open world (sandbox game) where the player can choose between different behaviours. The game also allows the player to engage in various side activities, such as action-adventure, driving, third-person shooting, occasional role-playing, stealth and racing elements. The open world design lets players freely roam around the fictional world so that gamers could in principle decide not to commit violent acts.

The Sims 3 (Sims)

Sims is a life simulation game and also classified as a sandbox game because it lacks clearly defined goals. The player creates virtual individuals called “Sims”, and customises their appearance, their personalities and places them in a home, directs their moods, satisfies their desires and accompanies them in their daily activities and by becoming part of a social network. It offers opportunities, which the player may choose to pursue or to refuse, similar as GTA but is generally considered as a pro-social and clearly non-violent game.

Assessment battery

To assess aggression and associated constructs we used the following questionnaires: Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire [ 19 ], State Hostility Scale [ 20 ], Updated Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale [ 21 , 22 ], Moral Disengagement Scale [ 23 , 24 ], the Rosenzweig Picture Frustration Test [ 25 , 26 ] and a so-called World View Measure [ 27 ]. All of these measures have previously been used in research investigating the effects of violent video gameplay, however, the first two most prominently. Additionally, behavioural measures of aggression were used: a Word Completion Task, a Lexical Decision Task [ 28 ] and the Delay frustration task [ 29 ] (an inter-correlation matrix is depicted in Supplementary Figure 1 1). From these behavioural measures, the first two were previously used in research on the effects of violent video gameplay. To assess variables that have been related to the construct of impulsivity, we used the Brief Sensation Seeking Scale [ 30 ] and the Boredom Propensity Scale [ 31 ] as well as tasks assessing risk taking and delay discounting behaviourally, namely the Balloon Analogue Risk Task [ 32 ] and a Delay-Discounting Task [ 33 ]. To quantify pro-social behaviour, we employed: Interpersonal Reactivity Index [ 34 ] (frequently used in research on the effects of violent video gameplay), Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale [ 35 ], Reading the Mind in the Eyes test [ 36 ], Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire [ 37 ] and Richardson Conflict Response Questionnaire [ 38 ]. To assess depressivity and anxiety, which has previously been associated with intense video game playing [ 39 ], we used Beck Depression Inventory [ 40 ] and State Trait Anxiety Inventory [ 41 ]. To characterise executive control function, we used a Stop Signal Task [ 42 ], a Multi-Source Interference Task [ 43 ] and a Task Switching Task [ 44 ] which have all been previously used to assess effects of video gameplay. More details on all instruments used can be found in the Supplementary Material.

Data analysis

On the basis of the research question whether violent video game playing enhances aggression and reduces empathy, the focus of the present analysis was on time by group interactions. We conducted these interaction analyses separately, comparing the violent video game group against the active control group (GTA vs. Sims) and separately against the passive control group (GTA vs. Controls) that did not receive any intervention and separately for the potential changes during the intervention period (baseline vs. posttest 1) and to test for potential long-term changes (baseline vs. posttest 2). We employed classical frequentist statistics running a repeated-measures ANOVA controlling for the covariates sex and age.

Since we collected 52 separate outcome variables and conduced four different tests with each (GTA vs. Sims, GTA vs. Controls, crossed with baseline vs. posttest 1, baseline vs. posttest 2), we had to conduct 52 × 4 = 208 frequentist statistical tests. Setting the alpha value to 0.05 means that by pure chance about 10.4 analyses should become significant. To account for this multiple testing problem and the associated alpha inflation, we conducted a Bonferroni correction. According to Bonferroni, the critical value for the entire set of n tests is set to an alpha value of 0.05 by taking alpha/ n  = 0.00024.

Since the Bonferroni correction has sometimes been criticised as overly conservative, we conducted false discovery rate (FDR) correction [ 45 ]. FDR correction also determines adjusted p -values for each test, however, it controls only for the number of false discoveries in those tests that result in a discovery (namely a significant result).

Moreover, we tested for group differences at the baseline assessment using independent t -tests, since those may hamper the interpretation of significant interactions between group and time that we were primarily interested in.

Since the frequentist framework does not enable to evaluate whether the observed null effect of the hypothesised interaction is indicative of the absence of a relation between violent video gaming and our dependent variables, the amount of evidence in favour of the null hypothesis has been tested using a Bayesian framework. Within the Bayesian framework both the evidence in favour of the null and the alternative hypothesis are directly computed based on the observed data, giving rise to the possibility of comparing the two. We conducted Bayesian repeated-measures ANOVAs comparing the model in favour of the null and the model in favour of the alternative hypothesis resulting in a Bayes factor (BF) using Bayesian Information criteria [ 46 ]. The BF 01 suggests how much more likely the data is to occur under the null hypothesis. All analyses were performed using the JASP software package ( https://jasp-stats.org ).

Sex distribution in the present study did not differ across the groups ( χ 2 p -value > 0.414). However, due to the fact that differences between males and females have been observed in terms of aggression and empathy [ 47 ], we present analyses controlling for sex. Since our random assignment to the three groups did result in significant age differences between groups, with the passive control group being significantly older than the GTA ( t (51) = −2.10, p  = 0.041) and the Sims group ( t (50) = −2.38, p  = 0.021), we also controlled for age.

The participants in the violent video game group played on average 35 h and the non-violent video game group 32 h spread out across the 8 weeks interval (with no significant group difference p  = 0.48).

To test whether participants assigned to the violent GTA game show emotional, cognitive and behavioural changes, we present the results of repeated-measure ANOVA time x group interaction analyses separately for GTA vs. Sims and GTA vs. Controls (Tables  1 – 3 ). Moreover, we split the analyses according to the time domain into effects from baseline assessment to posttest 1 (Table  2 ) and effects from baseline assessment to posttest 2 (Table  3 ) to capture more long-lasting or evolving effects. In addition to the statistical test values, we report partial omega squared ( ω 2 ) as an effect size measure. Next to the classical frequentist statistics, we report the results of a Bayesian statistical approach, namely BF 01 , the likelihood with which the data is to occur under the null hypothesis that there is no significant time × group interaction. In Table  2 , we report the presence of significant group differences at baseline in the right most column.

Since we conducted 208 separate frequentist tests we expected 10.4 significant effects simply by chance when setting the alpha value to 0.05. In fact we found only eight significant time × group interactions (these are marked with an asterisk in Tables  2 and 3 ).

When applying a conservative Bonferroni correction, none of those tests survive the corrected threshold of p  < 0.00024. Neither does any test survive the more lenient FDR correction. The arithmetic mean of the frequentist test statistics likewise shows that on average no significant effect was found (bottom rows in Tables  2 and 3 ).

In line with the findings from a frequentist approach, the harmonic mean of the Bayesian factor BF 01 is consistently above one but not very far from one. This likewise suggests that there is very likely no interaction between group × time and therewith no detrimental effects of the violent video game GTA in the domains tested. The evidence in favour of the null hypothesis based on the Bayes factor is not massive, but clearly above 1. Some of the harmonic means are above 1.6 and constitute substantial evidence [ 48 ]. However, the harmonic mean has been criticised as unstable. Owing to the fact that the sum is dominated by occasional small terms in the likelihood, one may underestimate the actual evidence in favour of the null hypothesis [ 49 ].

To test the sensitivity of the present study to detect relevant effects we computed the effect size that we would have been able to detect. The information we used consisted of alpha error probability = 0.05, power = 0.95, our sample size, number of groups and of measurement occasions and correlation between the repeated measures at posttest 1 and posttest 2 (average r  = 0.68). According to G*Power [ 50 ], we could detect small effect sizes of f  = 0.16 (equals η 2  = 0.025 and r  = 0.16) in each separate test. When accounting for the conservative Bonferroni-corrected p -value of 0.00024, still a medium effect size of f  = 0.23 (equals η 2  = 0.05 and r  = 0.22) would have been detectable. A meta-analysis by Anderson [ 2 ] reported an average effects size of r  = 0.18 for experimental studies testing for aggressive behaviour and another by Greitmeyer [ 5 ] reported average effect sizes of r  = 0.19, 0.25 and 0.17 for effects of violent games on aggressive behaviour, cognition and affect, all of which should have been detectable at least before multiple test correction.

Within the scope of the present study we tested the potential effects of playing the violent video game GTA V for 2 months against an active control group that played the non-violent, rather pro-social life simulation game The Sims 3 and a passive control group. Participants were tested before and after the long-term intervention and at a follow-up appointment 2 months later. Although we used a comprehensive test battery consisting of questionnaires and computerised behavioural tests assessing aggression, impulsivity-related constructs, mood, anxiety, empathy, interpersonal competencies and executive control functions, we did not find relevant negative effects in response to violent video game playing. In fact, only three tests of the 208 statistical tests performed showed a significant interaction pattern that would be in line with this hypothesis. Since at least ten significant effects would be expected purely by chance, we conclude that there were no detrimental effects of violent video gameplay.

This finding stands in contrast to some experimental studies, in which short-term effects of violent video game exposure have been investigated and where increases in aggressive thoughts and affect as well as decreases in helping behaviour have been observed [ 1 ]. However, these effects of violent video gaming on aggressiveness—if present at all (see above)—seem to be rather short-lived, potentially lasting <15 min [ 8 , 51 ]. In addition, these short-term effects of video gaming are far from consistent as multiple studies fail to demonstrate or replicate them [ 16 , 17 ]. This may in part be due to problems, that are very prominent in this field of research, namely that the outcome measures of aggression and pro-social behaviour, are poorly standardised, do not easily generalise to real-life behaviour and may have lead to selective reporting of the results [ 3 ]. We tried to address these concerns by including a large set of outcome measures that were mostly inspired by previous studies demonstrating effects of short-term violent video gameplay on aggressive behaviour and thoughts, that we report exhaustively.

Since effects observed only for a few minutes after short sessions of video gaming are not representative of what society at large is actually interested in, namely how habitual violent video gameplay affects behaviour on a more long-term basis, studies employing longer training intervals are highly relevant. Two previous studies have employed longer training intervals. In an online study, participants with a broad age range (14–68 years) have been trained in a violent video game for 4 weeks [ 52 ]. In comparison to a passive control group no changes were observed, neither in aggression-related beliefs, nor in aggressive social interactions assessed by means of two questions. In a more recent study, participants played a previous version of GTA for 12 h spread across 3 weeks [ 53 ]. Participants were compared to a passive control group using the Buss–Perry aggression questionnaire, a questionnaire assessing impulsive or reactive aggression, attitude towards violence, and empathy. The authors only report a limited increase in pro-violent attitude. Unfortunately, this study only assessed posttest measures, which precludes the assessment of actual changes caused by the game intervention.

The present study goes beyond these studies by showing that 2 months of violent video gameplay does neither lead to any significant negative effects in a broad assessment battery administered directly after the intervention nor at a follow-up assessment 2 months after the intervention. The fact that we assessed multiple domains, not finding an effect in any of them, makes the present study the most comprehensive in the field. Our battery included self-report instruments on aggression (Buss–Perry aggression questionnaire, State Hostility scale, Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance scale, Moral Disengagement scale, World View Measure and Rosenzweig Picture Frustration test) as well as computer-based tests measuring aggressive behaviour such as the delay frustration task and measuring the availability of aggressive words using the word completion test and a lexical decision task. Moreover, we assessed impulse-related concepts such as sensation seeking, boredom proneness and associated behavioural measures such as the computerised Balloon analogue risk task, and delay discounting. Four scales assessing empathy and interpersonal competence scales, including the reading the mind in the eyes test revealed no effects of violent video gameplay. Neither did we find any effects on depressivity (Becks depression inventory) nor anxiety measured as a state as well as a trait. This is an important point, since several studies reported higher rates of depressivity and anxiety in populations of habitual video gamers [ 54 , 55 ]. Last but not least, our results revealed also no substantial changes in executive control tasks performance, neither in the Stop signal task, the Multi-source interference task or a Task switching task. Previous studies have shown higher performance of habitual action video gamers in executive tasks such as task switching [ 56 , 57 , 58 ] and another study suggests that training with action video games improves task performance that relates to executive functions [ 59 ], however, these associations were not confirmed by a meta-analysis in the field [ 60 ]. The absence of changes in the stop signal task fits well with previous studies that likewise revealed no difference between in habitual action video gamers and controls in terms of action inhibition [ 61 , 62 ]. Although GTA does not qualify as a classical first-person shooter as most of the previously tested action video games, it is classified as an action-adventure game and shares multiple features with those action video games previously related to increases in executive function, including the need for hand–eye coordination and fast reaction times.

Taken together, the findings of the present study show that an extensive game intervention over the course of 2 months did not reveal any specific changes in aggression, empathy, interpersonal competencies, impulsivity-related constructs, depressivity, anxiety or executive control functions; neither in comparison to an active control group that played a non-violent video game nor to a passive control group. We observed no effects when comparing a baseline and a post-training assessment, nor when focussing on more long-term effects between baseline and a follow-up interval 2 months after the participants stopped training. To our knowledge, the present study employed the most comprehensive test battery spanning a multitude of domains in which changes due to violent video games may have been expected. Therefore the present results provide strong evidence against the frequently debated negative effects of playing violent video games. This debate has mostly been informed by studies showing short-term effects of violent video games when tests were administered immediately after a short playtime of a few minutes; effects that may in large be caused by short-lived priming effects that vanish after minutes. The presented results will therefore help to communicate a more realistic scientific perspective of the real-life effects of violent video gaming. However, future research is needed to demonstrate the absence of effects of violent video gameplay in children.

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SK has been funded by a Heisenberg grant from the German Science Foundation (DFG KU 3322/1-1, SFB 936/C7), the European Union (ERC-2016-StG-Self-Control-677804) and a Fellowship from the Jacobs Foundation (JRF 2016–2018).

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October 2, 2018

Do Violent Video Games Trigger Aggression?

A study tries to find whether slaughtering zombies with a virtual assault weapon translates into misbehavior when a teenager returns to reality

By Melinda Wenner Moyer

Getty Images

Intuitively, it makes sense Splatterhouse and Postal 2 would serve as virtual training sessions for teens, encouraging them to act out in ways that mimic game-related violence. But many studies have failed to find a clear connection between violent game play and belligerent behavior, and the controversy over whether the shoot-‘em-up world transfers to real life has persisted for years. A new study published on October 1 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences tries to resolve the controversy by weighing the findings of two dozen studies on the topic.

The meta-analysis does tie violent video games to a small increase in physical aggression among adolescents and preteens. Yet debate is by no means over. Whereas the analysis was undertaken to help settle the science on the issue, researchers still disagree on the real-world significance of the findings.

This new analysis attempted to navigate through the minefield of conflicting research. Many studies find gaming associated with increases in aggression, but others identify no such link. A small but vocal cadre of researchers have argued much of the work implicating video games has serious flaws in that, among other things, it measures the frequency of aggressive thoughts or language rather than physically aggressive behaviors like hitting or pushing, which have more real-world relevance.

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Jay Hull, a social psychologist at Dartmouth College and a co-author on the new paper, has never been convinced by the critiques that have disparaged purported ties between gaming and aggression. “I just kept reading, over and over again, [these] criticisms of the literature and going, ‘that’s just not true,’” he says. So he and his colleagues designed the new meta-analysis to address these criticisms head-on and determine if they had merit.

Hull and colleagues pooled data from 24 studies that had been selected to avoid some of the criticisms leveled at earlier work. They only included research that measured the relationship between violent video game use and overt physical aggression. They also limited their analysis to studies that statistically controlled for several factors that could influence the relationship between gaming and subsequent behavior, such as age and baseline aggressive behavior.

Even with these constraints, their analysis found kids who played violent video games did become more aggressive over time. But the changes in behavior were not big. “According to traditional ways of looking at these numbers, it’s not a large effect—I would say it’s relatively small,” he says. But it’s “statistically reliable—it’s not by chance and not inconsequential.”

Their findings mesh with a 2015 literature review conducted by the American Psychological Association, which concluded violent video games worsen aggressive behavior in older children, adolescents and young adults. Together, Hull’s meta-analysis and the APA report help give clarity to the existing body of research, says Douglas Gentile, a developmental psychologist at Iowa State University who was not involved in conducting the meta-analysis. “Media violence is one risk factor for aggression,” he says. “It's not the biggest, it’s also not the smallest, but it’s worth paying attention to.”

Yet researchers who have been critical of links between games and violence contend Hull’s meta-analysis does not settle the issue. “They don’t find much. They just try to make it sound like they do,” says Christopher Ferguson, a psychologist at Stetson University in Florida, who has published papers questioning the link between violent video games and aggression.

Ferguson argues the degree to which video game use increases aggression in Hull’s analysis—what is known in psychology as the estimated “effect size”—is so small as to be essentially meaningless. After statistically controlling for several other factors, the meta-analysis reported an effect size of 0.08, which suggests that violent video games account for less than one percent of the variation in aggressive behavior among U.S. teens and pre-teens—if, in fact, there is a cause-and effect relationship between game play and hostile actions. It may instead be that the relationship between gaming and aggression is a statistical artifact caused by lingering flaws in study design, Ferguson says.  

Johannes Breuer, a psychologist at GESIS–Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Germany, agrees, noting that according to “a common rule of thumb in psychological research,” effect sizes below 0.1 are “considered trivial.” He adds meta-analyses are only as valid as the studies included in them, and that work on the issue has been plagued by methodological problems. For one thing, studies vary in terms of the criteria they use to determine if a video game is violent or not. By some measures, the Super Mario Bros. games would be considered violent, but by others not. Studies, too, often rely on subjects self-reporting their own aggressive acts, and they may not do so accurately. “All of this is not to say that the results of this meta-analysis are not valid,” he says. “But things like this need to be kept in mind when interpreting the findings and discussing their meaning.”

Hull says, however, that the effect size his team found still has real-world significance. An analysis of one of his earlier studies, which reported a similar estimated effect size of 0.083, found playing violent video games was linked with almost double the risk that kids would be sent to the school principal’s office for fighting. The study began by taking a group of children who hadn’t been dispatched to the principal in the previous month and then tracked them for a subsequent eight months. It found 4.8 percent of kids who reported only rarely playing violent video games were sent to the principal’s office at least once during that period compared with 9 percent who reported playing violent video games frequently. Hull theorizes violent games help kids become more comfortable with taking risks and engaging in abnormal behavior. “Their sense of right and wrong is being warped,” he notes.

Hull and his colleagues also found evidence ethnicity shapes the relationship between violent video games and aggression. White players seem more susceptible to the games' putative effects on behavior than do Hispanic and Asian players. Hull isn’t sure why, but he suspects the games' varying impact relates to how much kids are influenced by the norms of American culture, which, he says, are rooted in rugged individualism and a warriorlike mentality that may incite video game players to identify with aggressors rather than victims. It might “dampen sympathy toward their virtual victims,” he and his co-authors wrote, “with consequences for their values and behavior outside the game.”

Social scientists will, no doubt, continue to debate the psychological impacts of killing within the confines of interactive games. In a follow-up paper Hull says he plans to tackle the issue of the real-world significance of violent game play, and hopes it adds additional clarity. “It’s a knotty issue,” he notes—and it’s an open question whether research will ever quell the controversy.

Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?

Around 73% of American kids age 2-17 played  video games  in 2019, a 6% increase over 2018. Video games accounted for 17% of kids’ entertainment time and 11% of their entertainment spending. The global video game industry was worth contributing $159.3 billion in 2020, a 9.3% increase of 9.3% from 2019.

Violent video games have been blamed for school shootings , increases in bullying , and violence towards women. Critics argue that these games desensitize players to violence, reward players for simulating violence, and teach children that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflicts.

Video game advocates contend that a majority of the research on the topic is deeply flawed and that no causal relationship has been found between video games and social violence. They argue that violent video games may provide a safe outlet for aggressive and angry feelings and may reduce crime. Read more background…

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1 Playing violent video games causes more aggression, bullying, and fighting. 60% of middle school boys and 40% of middle school girls who played at least one Mature-rated (M-rated) game hit or beat up someone, compared with 39% of boys and 14% of girls who did not play M-rated games. [ 2 ] A peer-reviewed study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that habitual violent video game playing had a causal link with increased, long-term, aggressive behavior. [ 63 ] Several peer-reviewed studies have shown that children who play M-rated games are more likely to bully and cyberbully their peers, get into physical fights, be hostile, argue with teachers, and show aggression towards their peers throughout the school year. [ 2 ] [ 31 ] [ 60 ] [ 61 ] [ 67 ] [ 73 ] [ 76 ] [ 80 ] Read More

Pro 2 Simulating violence such as shooting guns and hand-to-hand combat in video games can cause real-life violent behavior. Video games often require players to simulate violent actions, such as stabbing, shooting, or dismembering someone with an ax, sword, chainsaw, or other weapons. [ 23 ] Game controllers are so sophisticated and the games are so realistic that simulating the violent acts enhances the learning of those violent behaviors. [ 23 ] A peer-reviewed study found “compelling evidence that the use of realistic controllers can have a significant effect on the level of cognitive aggression.” [ 118 ] Two teenagers in Tennessee who shot at passing cars and killed one driver told police they got the idea from playing Grand Theft Auto III . [ 48 ] Bruce Bartholow, professor of psychology at the University of Missouri, spoke about the effects of simulating violence: “More than any other media, these [violent] video games encourage active participation in violence. From a psychological perspective, video games are excellent teaching tools because they reward players for engaging in certain types of behavior. Unfortunately, in many popular video games, the behavior is violence.” [ 53 ] Read More

Pro 3 Many perpetrators of mass shootings played violent video games. Kevin McCarthy, former U.S. Representative (R-CA), states: “But the idea of these video games that dehumanize individuals to have a game of shooting individuals and others – I’ve always felt that is a problem for future generations and others. We’ve watched from studies shown before of what it does to individuals. When you look at these photos of how it [mass shootings] took place, you can see the actions within video games and others.” [ 146 ] Many mass shootings have been carried out by avid video game players: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in the Columbine High School shooting (1999); James Holmes in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting (2012); Jared Lee Loughner in the Arizona shooting that injured Rep. Gabby Giffords and killed six others (2011); and Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway (2011) and admitted to using the game Modern Warfare 2 for training. [ 43 ] [ 53 ] An FBI school shooter threat assessment stated that a student who makes threats of violence should be considered more credible if he or she also spends “inordinate amounts of time playing video games with violent themes.” [ 25 ] Dan Patrick, Republican Lieutenant Governor of Texas, stated: “We’ve always had guns, always had evil, but I see a video game industry that teaches young people to kill.” [ 145 ] Read More

Pro 4 Violent video games desensitize players to real-life violence. Desensitization to violence was defined in a Journal of Experimental Social Psychology peer-reviewed study as “a reduction in emotion-related physiological reactivity to real violence.” [ 51 ] [ 111 ] [ 112 ] The study found that just 20 minutes of playing a violent video game “can cause people to become less physiologically aroused by real violence.” People desensitized to violence are more likely to commit a violent act. [ 51 ] [ 111 ] [ 112 ] By age 18, American children will have seen 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence depicted in violent video games, movies, and television. [ 110 ] A peer-reviewed study found a causal link between violent video game exposure and an increase in aggression as a result of a reduction in the brain’s response to depictions of real-life violence. [ 52 ] Studies have found reduced emotional and physiological responses to violence in both the long and short term. [ 55 ] [ 58 ] In a peer-reviewed study, violent video game exposure was linked to reduced P300 amplitudes in the brain, which is associated with desensitization to violence and increases in aggressive behavior. [ 24 ] Read More

Pro 5 By inhabiting violent characters in video games, children are more likely to imitate the behaviors of those characters and have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy. Violent video games require active participation and identification with violent characters, which reinforces violent behavior. Young children are more likely to confuse fantasy violence with real world violence, and without a framework for ethical decision making, they may mimic the actions they see in violent video games. [ 59 ] [ 4 ] Child Development and Early Childhood Education expert Jane Katch stated in an interview with Education Week , “I found that young children often have difficulty separating fantasy from reality when they are playing and can temporarily believe they are the character they are pretending to be.” [ 124 ] U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his dissent in Brown v. ESA that “the closer a child’s behavior comes, not to watching, but to acting out horrific violence, the greater the potential psychological harm.” [ 124 ] Read More

Pro 6 Exposure to violent video games is linked to lower empathy and decreased kindness. Empathy, the ability to understand and enter into another’s feelings is believed to inhibit aggressive behavior. In a study of 150 fourth and fifth graders by Jeanne Funk, professor of psychology at the University of Toledo, violent video games were the only type of media associated with lower empathy. [ 32] A study published in the American Psychological Association’s Psychological Bulletin found that exposure to violent video games led to a lack of empathy and prosocial behavior (positive actions that benefit others). [ 65] [ 66] Eight independent tests measuring the impact of violent video games on prosocial behavior found a significant negative effect, leading to the conclusion that “exposure to violent video games is negatively correlated with helping in the real world.” [ 61] Several studies have found that children with high exposure to violent media display lower moral reasoning skills than their peers without that exposure. [ 32] [ 69] A meta-analysis of 130 international studies with over 130,000 participants concluded that violent video games “increase aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, and aggressive behaviors, and decrease empathic feelings and prosocial behaviors.” [ 123] Read More

Pro 7 Video games that portray violence against women lead to more harmful attitudes and sexually violent actions towards women. A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence found that video games that sexually objectify women and feature violence against women led to a statistically significant increase in rape-supportive attitudes, which are attitudes that are hostile towards rape victims. [ 68 ] Another study found that 21% of games sampled involved violence against women, while 28% portrayed them as sex objects. [ 23 ] Exposure to sexual violence in video games is linked to increases in violence towards women and false attitudes about rape, such as that women incite men to rape or that women secretly desire rape. [ 30 ] Carole Lieberman, a media psychiatrist, stated, “The more video games a person plays that have violent sexual content, the more likely one is to become desensitized to violent sexual acts and commit them.” [ 64 ] Target Australia stopped selling Grand Theft Auto V in response to customer complaints about the game’s depiction of women, which includes the option to kill a prostitute to get your money back. [ 70 ] Read More

Pro 8 Violent video games reinforce fighting as a means of dealing with conflict by rewarding the use of violent action with increased life force, more weapons, moving on to higher levels, and more. Studies suggest that when violence is rewarded in video games, players exhibit increased aggressive behavior compared to players of video games where violence is punished. [ 23 ] [ 59 ] The reward structure is one distinguishing factor between violent video games and other violent media such as movies and television shows, which do not reward viewers nor allow them to actively participate in violence. [ 23 ] [ 59 ] An analysis of 81 video games rated for teens ages 13 and up found that 73 games (90%) rewarded injuring other characters, and 56 games (69%) rewarded killing. [ 71 ] [ 72 ] People who played a video game that rewarded violence showed higher levels of aggressive behavior and aggressive cognition as compared with people who played a version of the same game that was competitive but either did not contain violence or punished violence. [ 71 ] [ 72 ] Read More

Pro 9 The US military uses violent video games to train soldiers to kill. The U.S. Marine Corps licensed Doom II in 1996 to create Marine Doom in order to train soldiers. In 2002, the U.S. Army released first-person shooter game America’s Army to recruit soldiers and prepare recruits for the battlefield. [ 6 ] While the military may benefit from training soldiers to kill using video games, kids who are exposed to these games lack the discipline and structure of the armed forces and may become more susceptible to being violent. [ 79 ] Dave Grossman, retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army and former West Point psychology professor, stated: “[T]hrough interactive point-and-shoot video games, modern nations are indiscriminately introducing to their children the same weapons technology that major armies and law enforcement agencies around the world use to ‘turn off’ the midbrain ‘safety catch’” that prevents most people from killing. [ 77 ] Read More

Con 1 Studies have shown violent video games may cause aggression, not violence. Further, any competitive video game or activity may cause aggression. Lauren Farrar, producer for KQED Learning’s YouTube series Above the Noise , stated: “Often times after tragic mass shooting, we hear politicians turn the blame to violent video games, but the reality is that the research doesn’t really support that claim… In general, violence usually refers to physical harm or physical acts that hurt someone– like hitting, kicking, punching, and pushing. Aggression is a more broad term that refers to angry or hostile thoughts, feelings or behaviors. So everything that is violent is aggressive, but not everything that is aggressive is violent. For example, getting frustrated, yelling, talking back, arguing those are all aggressive behaviors, but they aren’t violent. The research on the effects of violent video games and behavior often looks at these milder forms of aggressive behavior.” [ 140 ] A peer-reviewed study in Psychology of Violence determined that the competitive nature of a video game was related to aggressive behavior, regardless of whether the game contained violent content. The researchers concluded: “Because past studies have failed to equate the violent and nonviolent video games on competitiveness, difficulty, and pace of action simultaneously, researchers may have attributed too much of the variability in aggression to the violent content.” [ 125 ] A follow-up study tracked high school students for four years and came to the same conclusion: the competitive nature of the games led to the increased hostile behavior. [ 126 ] Read More

Con 2 Violent video games are a convenient scapegoat for those who would rather not deal with the actual causes of violence in the US. Patrick Markey, psychology professor at Villanova University, stated: “The general story is people who play video games right after might be a little hopped up and jerky but it doesn’t fundamentally alter who they are. It is like going to see a sad movie. It might make you cry but it doesn’t make you clinically depressed… Politicians on both sides go after video games it is this weird unifying force. It makes them look like they are doing something… They [violent video games] look scary. But research just doesn’t support that there’s a link [to violent behavior].” [ 138 ] Markey also explained, “Because video games are disproportionately blamed as a culprit for mass shootings committed by White perpetrators, video game ‘blaming’ can be viewed as flagging a racial issue. This is because there is a stereotypical association between racial minorities and violent crime.” [ 141 ] Andrew Przybylski, associate professor, and director of research at the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University, stated: “Games have only become more realistic. The players of games and violent games have only become more diverse. And they’re played all around the world now. But the only place where you see this kind of narrative still hold any water, that games and violence are related to each other, is in the United States. [And, by blaming video games for violence,] we reduce the value of the political discourse on the topic, because we’re looking for easy answers instead of facing hard truths.” [ 139 ] Hillary Clinton, Former Secretary of State and First Lady, tweeted, “People suffer from mental illness in every other country on earth; people play video games in virtually every other country on earth. The difference is the guns.” [ 142 ] Read More

Con 3 Simple statistics do not support the claim that violent video games cause mass shootings or other violence. Katherine Newman, dean of arts and sciences at Johns Hopkins University, explained: “Millions of young people play video games full of fistfights, blazing guns, and body slams… Yet only a minuscule fraction of the consumers become violent.” [ 84 ] [ 86 ] [ 87 ] [ 91 ] [ 92 ] A report by the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education examined 37 incidents of targeted school violence between 1974 and 2000. Of the 41 attackers studied, 27% had an interest in violent movies, 24% in violent books, and 37% exhibited interest in their own violent writings, while only 12% showed interest in violent video games. The report did not find a relationship between playing violent video games and school shootings. [ 35 ] Patrick M. Markey, director of the Interpersonal Research Laboratory at Villanova University, stated, “90% of young males play video games. Finding that a young man who committed a violent crime also played a popular video game, such as Call of Duty, Halo, or Grand Theft Auto, is as pointless as pointing out that the criminal also wore socks.” [ 84 ] Further, gun violence is less prevalent in countries with high video game use. A study of the countries representing the 10 largest video game markets internationally found no correlation between playing video games and gun-related killings. Even though US gun violence is high, the nine other countries with the highest video game usage have some of the lowest violent crime rates (and eight of those countries spend more per capita on video games than the United States). [ 97 ] Read More

Con 4 As sales of violent video games have significantly increased, violent juvenile crime rates have significantly decreased. In 2019, juvenile arrests for violent crimes were at an all-time low, a decline of 50% since 2006. Meanwhile, video game sales set a record in Mar. 2020, with Americans spending $5.6 billion on video game hardware, accessories, and assorted content. Both statistics continue a years-long trend. [ 143 ] [ 144 ] Total U.S. sales of video game hardware and software increased 204% from 1994 to 2014, reaching $13.1 billion in 2014, while violent crimes decreased 37% and murders by juveniles acting alone fell 76% in that same period. [ 82 ] [ 83 ] [ 133 ] [ 134 ] [ 135 ] The number of high school students who had been in at least one physical fight decreased from 43% in 1991 to 25% in 2013, and student reports of criminal victimization at school dropped by more than half from 1995 to 2011. [ 106 ] [ 107 ] A peer-reviewed study found that: “Monthly sales of video games were related to concurrent decreases in aggravated assaults.” [ 84 ] Read More

Con 5 Studies have shown that violent video games can have a positive effect on kindness, civic engagement, and prosocial behaviors. Research shows that playing violent video games can induce a feeling of guilt that leads to increased prosocial behavior (positive actions that benefit others) in the real world. [ 104 ] A study published in Computers in Human Behavior discovered that youths exposed to violence in action games displayed more prosocial behavior and civic engagement, “possibly due to the team-oriented multiplayer options in many of these games.” [ 103 ] Read More

Con 6 Many risk factors are associated with youth violence, but video games are not among them. The U.S. Surgeon General’s list of risk factors for youth violence included abusive parents, poverty, neglect, neighborhood crime, being male, substance use, and mental health problems, but not video games. [ 118 ] A peer-reviewed study even found a “real and significant” effect of hot weather on homicides and aggravated assaults, showing that heat is a risk factor for violence. [ 124 ] Read More

Con 7 Violent video game players know the difference between virtual violence in the context of a game and appropriate behavior in the real world. By age seven, children can distinguish fantasy from reality, and can tell the difference between video game violence and real-world violence. [ 99 ] [ 100 ] Video game players understand they are playing a game. Kids see fantasy violence all the time, from Harry Potter and the Minions to Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry. Their ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality prevents them from emulating video game violence in real life. [ 9 ] Exposure to fantasy is important for kids. Fisher-Price toy company stated: “Pretending is more than play: it’s a major part of a child’s development. Fantasy not only develops creative thinking, it’s also a way for children to deal with situations and problems that concern them.” [108] Read More

Con 8 Violent video games provide opportunities for children to explore consequences of violent actions, develop their moral compasses and release their stress and anger (catharsis) in the game, leading to less real world aggression. Violent games allow youth to experiment with moral issues such as war, violence, and death without real world consequences. A researcher at the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media wrote about her research: “One unexpected theme that came up multiple times in our focus groups was a feeling among boys that violent games can teach moral lessons… Many war-themed video games allow or require players to take the roles of soldiers from different sides of a conflict, perhaps making players more aware of the costs of war.” [ 2 ] [ 38 ] A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that children, especially boys, play video games as a means of managing their emotions: “61.9% of boys played to ‘help me relax,’ 47.8% because ‘it helps me forget my problems,’ and 45.4% because ‘it helps me get my anger out.” [ 37 ] Researchers point to the cathartic effect of video games as a possible reason for why higher game sales have been associated with lower crime rates. [ 84 ] A peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Adolescent Research concluded that “Boys use games to experience fantasies of power and fame, to explore and master what they perceive as exciting and realistic environments (but distinct from real life), to work through angry feelings or relieve stress, and as social tools.” The games serve as a substitute for rough-and-tumble play. [ 36 ] Read More

Con 9 Studies claiming a causal link between video game violence and real life violence are flawed. Many studies failed to control for factors that contribute to children becoming violent, such as family history and mental health, plus most studies do not follow children over long periods of time. [ 10 ] [ 95 ] Video game experiments often have people playing a game for as little as ten minutes, which is not representative of how games are played in real life. In many laboratory studies, especially those involving children, researchers must use artificial measures of violence and aggression that do not translate to real-world violence and aggression, such as whether someone would force another person eat hot sauce or listen to unpleasant noises. [ 84 ] [ 94 ] According to Christopher J. Ferguson, a psychology professor at Stetson University, “matching video game conditions more carefully in experimental studies with how they are played in real life makes VVG’s [violent video games] effects on aggression essentially vanish.” [ 95 ] [ 96 ] Read More

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The evidence that video game violence leads to real-world aggression

A 2018 meta-analysis found that there is a small increase in real-world physical aggression among adolescents and pre-teens who play violent video games. Led by Jay Hull, a social psychologist at Dartmouth College, the study team pooled data from 24 previous studies in an attempt to avoid some of the problems that have made the question of a connection between gaming and aggression controversial.

Many previous studies, according to a story in Scientific American, have been criticized by “a small but vocal cadre of researchers [who] have argued much of the work implicating video games has serious flaws in that, among other things, it measures the frequency of aggressive thoughts or language rather than physically aggressive behaviors like hitting or pushing, which have more real-world relevance.”

Hull and team limited their analysis to studies that “measured the relationship between violent video game use and overt physical aggression,” according to the Scientific American article .

The Dartmouth analysis drew on 24 studies involving more than 17,000 participants and found that “playing violent video games is associated with increases in physical aggression over time in children and teens,” according to a Dartmouth press release describing the study , which was published Oct. 1, 2018, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

The studies the Dartmouth team analyzed “tracked physical aggression among users of violent video games for periods ranging from three months to four years. Examples of physical aggression included incidents such as hitting someone or being sent to the school principal’s office for fighting, and were based on reports from children, parents, teachers, and peers,” according to the press release.

The study was almost immediately called in to question. In an editorial in Psychology Today , a pair of professors claim the results of the meta-analysis are not statistically significant. Hull and team wrote in the PNAS paper that, while small, the results are indeed significant. The Psychology Today editorial makes an appeal to a 2017 statement by the American Psychological Association’s media psychology and technology division “cautioning policy makers and news media to stop linking violent games to serious real-world aggression as the data is just not there to support such beliefs.”

It should be noted, however, that the 2017 statement questions the connection between “serious” aggression while the APA Resolution of 2015 , based on a review of its 2005 resolution by its own experts, found that “the link between violent video game exposure and aggressive behavior is one of the most studied and best established. Since the earlier meta-analyses, this link continues to be a reliable finding and shows good multi-method consistency across various representations of both violent video game exposure and aggressive behavior.”

While the effect sizes are small, they’ve been similar across many studies, according to the APA resolution. The problem has been the interpretation of aggression, with some writers claiming an unfounded connection between homicides, mass shootings, and other extremes of violence. The violence the APA resolution documents is more mundane and involves the kind of bullying that, while often having dire long-term consequences, is less immediately dangerous: “insults, threats, hitting, pushing, hair pulling, biting and other forms of verbal and physical aggression.”

Minor and micro-aggressions, though, do have significant health risks, especially for mental health. People of color, LGBTQ people , and women everywhere experience higher levels of depression and anger, as well as stress-related disorders, including heart disease, asthma, obesity, accelerated aging, and premature death. The costs of even minor aggression are laid at the feet of the individuals who suffer, their friends and families, and society at large as the cost of healthcare skyrockets.

Finally, it should be noted that studies looking for a connection between game violence and physical aggression are not looking at the wider context of the way we enculturate children, especially boys. As WSU’s Stacey Hust and Kathleen Rodgers have shown, you don’t have to prove a causative effect to know that immersing kids in games filled with violence and sexist tropes leads to undesirable consequences, particularly the perpetuation of interpersonal violence in intimate relationships.

No wonder, then, that when feminist media critic Anita Saarkesian launched her YouTube series, “ Tropes vs. Women in Video Games ,” she was the target of vitriol and violence. Years later she’d joke about “her first bomb threat,” but that was only after her life had been upended by the boys club that didn’t like “this woman” showing them the “grim evidence of industry-wide sexism.”

Read more about WSU research and study on video games in “ What’s missing in video games .”

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Violent video games exposure and aggression: The role of moral disengagement, anger, hostility, and disinhibition

Mengyun yao.

1 Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing China

2 Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing China

Yuhong Zhou

Associated data.

Based on the General Aggression Model (GAM), the current study investigated the interactive effect of personal factors (e.g., sensation‐seeking) and situational factors (e.g., violent video games exposure [VVGE]) on the trait aggressive behavior, and the mediating role of individual difference trait (e.g., moral disengagement, anger, and hostility). We recruited 547 undergraduates (48.45% male) from five Chinese universities. The results showed that VVGE was positively associated with moral disengagement, disinhibition, and the four aggressive traits (physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility), which were positively associated with each other. Moral disengagement was positively associated with both the disinhibition and the four aggressive traits. Disinhibition was positively associated with the four aggressive traits as well. When controlled for gender, moral disengagement, anger, and hostility wholly mediated the relationship between VVGE and aggression, but the moderation effect of disinhibition was not significant. These findings support the framework of GAM and indicate that moral disengagement, anger, and hostility may be the factors that increase the risk of a higher level of aggression following repeated exposure to violent video games.

1. INTRODUCTION

Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), a shooting game that Chinese players call “chicken dinner”, has recently become popular among young people, quickly overtaking Honor of Kings in terms of popularity. According to the China gaming industry report from January to June 2018, the top two games for sales in the mobile video games market were Action Role Playing Game (29.9%) and Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA; 17.4%), which accounted for nearly 50% of sales, and the proportion of Shooting Games has also increased significantly. Furthermore, the report showed that 35.9% of the game types were Shooting Games and 17.9% were MOBA in the Chinese client e‐sports game market (China Audio‐video & Digital Publishing Association Game Publishing Committee, 2018 ). Many games of such genres (e.g., PUBG) contain violent content (Teng, Li, & Liu, 2014 ), which explains to a certain extent the universality of violent video games.

Violent video games are those that depict intentional attempts by individuals (nonhuman cartoon characters, real persons, or anything in between) to inflict harm on others (Anderson & Bushman, 2001 ). The effects of violent video games have been a societal concern since the birth of the industry and have attracted much attention from researchers. A large body of research has found that violent video game exposure (VVGE) is associated with increased aggression among individuals at various ages (e.g., Gentile, Bender, & Anderson, 2017 ; Greitemeyer, 2018 ; Krahé, 2014 ; Teng et al., 2019 ; Velez, Greitemeyer, Whitaker, Ewoldsen, & Bushman, 2016 ). Also, some research has examined the pathways in the associations between VVGE and aggression; for instance, mediators such as hostile attribution bias, aggressive norms, and dehumanization (e.g., Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley, 2007 ; Gentile, Li, Khoo, Prot, & Anderson, 2014 ; Greitemeyer & McLatchie, 2011 ; Möller & Krahé, 2009 ), and moderators such as psychoticism, aggressive traits, neuroticism, and conscientiousness (e.g., Markey & Markey, 2010 ; Markey & Scherer, 2009 ). To the best of our knowledge, however, there have been few studies that have examined simultaneously the underlying mechanisms of the link between VVGE and aggression from the perspectives of social cognition (i.e., moral disengagement) and personality trait (i.e., sensation seeking, anger, hostility). Such a comprehensive study could help to develop interventions to reduce the relation between VVGE and aggressive behaviors from a theoretical perspective.

1.1. Violent video games exposure and aggression

Although some recent studies have not found a significant relationship between VVGE and aggression (Ferguson & Kilburn, 2010 ; McCarthy, Coley, Wagner, Zengel, & Basham, 2016 ; Pan, Gao, Shi, Liu, & Li, 2018 ), a relatively solid association has been established in experimental, cross‐sectional, and longitudinal studies in general. For example, most research in this area has found that violent video games increase aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal, and aggressive behaviors, and decrease empathic feelings and helping behaviors (e.g., Anderson et al., 2010 ; Gentile et al., 2017 ; Hasan, Bègue, & Bushman, 2012 ; Verheijen, Burk, Stoltz, Van, & Cillessen, 2018 ). In addition, some research in cognitive neuroscience has provided neuroimaging support for these effects (e.g., Gentile, Swing, Anderson, Rinker, & Thomas, 2016 ; Montag et al., 2012 ), and there are also meta‐analyses that have concluded that violent video games increase aggression (e.g., Bushman, 2016 ; Greitemeyer & Mügge, 2014 ).

How does VVGE affect individual aggression? The General Aggression Model (GAM), a general model to account for aggressive behavior, could answer this question. GAM consists of two major systems: personality development (distal processes) and social encounters (proximate processes). The proximate processes explain individual episodes of aggression using three stages, that is, personal and situational inputs influence internal states (cognition, affect, and arousal), which in turn affect appraisal and decision processes, which in turn influence aggressive and nonaggressive behavioral outcomes. Each cycle of the proximate processes serves as a learning trail that creates aggressive knowledge structures after many repetitions. Distal processes detail how biological and persistent environmental factors influence personality through changes in knowledge structures (aggressive beliefs and attitudes, aggressive perceptual schemata, aggressive expectation schemata, aggressive behavioral scripts, and aggression desensitization) and brain structure and function. The personality, in turn, influences personal and situational factors in a cyclical fashion (Allen, Anderson, & Bushman, 2018 ; Anderson & Bushman, 2002 ; Anderson & Bushman, 2018 ). VVGE has been assumed to be a situational input variable of proximal causal factors and an environmental factor of distal causal factors (Anderson & Bushman, 2018 ), that is, VVGE influences aggression through the two main systems of GAM.

Most violent video games primarily involve physical violence, and many of the multiplayer games also involve verbal violence (Adachi & Willoughby, 2016 ; Lemmens, Valkenburg, & Peter, 2011 ), therefore, we focused on self‐reported forms of physical aggression and verbal aggression in the current study.

1.2. Moral disengagement as a potential mediator

Moral disengagement is a cognitive predisposition that individuals reinterpret their immoral behaviors (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996 ). In general, individuals have their own moral standards that inhibit them from engaging in immoral conduct (Bandura, 1990 ), but these standards can be deactivated selectively through eight moral disengagement mechanisms (Bandura, 1999 ). Thus, an individual's moral disengagement mechanisms may be exerted when they commit aggressive acts.

Previous research has supported the moral disengagement theory that moral disengagement mechanisms can make individuals reconstruct aggression cognitively; thus aggression is more likely to occur (Bandura et al., 1996 ). For instance, numerous cross‐sectional studies have found that moral disengagement is positively associated with various forms of aggressive behavior such as physical aggression, verbal aggression, and bullying (e.g., Bussey, Quinn, & Dobson, 2015 ; Gao, Weng, Zhou, & Yu, 2017 ; Obermann, 2011 ; Rubio‐Garay, Carrasco, & Amor, 2016 ). Also, this correlation was found to be significant in juvenile delinquent samples (Wang, Lei, Yang, Gao, & Zhao, 2016 ; Zapolski, Banks, Lau, & Aalsma, 2018 ). Moreover, longitudinal studies have found that initial moral disengagement can predict later aggression among adolescents (e.g., Barchia & Bussey, 2011 ; Hyde, Shaw, & Moilanen, 2010 ; Paciello, Fida, Tramontano, Lupinetti, & Caprara, 2008 ; Sticca & Perren, 2015 ). In addition, a recent meta‐analysis has reinforced this link (Gini, Pozzoli, & Hymel, 2014 ; Killer, Bussey, Hawes, & Hunt, 2019 ).

Moral disengagement is not only a powerful predictor of aggression but also a product of VVGE. Some longitudinal research has established a stable link between the two, indicating that frequent exposure to violent video games in early sessions can predict higher levels of moral disengagement in later sessions; however, this effect was not found to be significant when the position of these two variables was reversed (Teng, Nie, Pan, Liu, & Guo, 2017 ; Wang, Ryoo, Swearer, Turner, & Goldberg, 2017 ). In addition, some cross‐sectional studies have also found an association between VVGE and higher levels of moral disengagement (Gabbiadini, Andrighetto, & Volpato, 2012 ; Teng, Nie, Guo, & Liu, 2017 ).

As mentioned above, moral disengagement may be a potential mediator in the relationship between VVGE and aggression. Richmond and Wilson ( 2008 ) found that the relationship between violent media exposure frequency and aggression was mediated wholly by moral disengagement. As for violent video games in particular, research has found that dehumanization, one of the moral disengagement mechanisms, mediates the effect of VVGE on aggressive behavior (Greitemeyer & McLatchie, 2011 ). Teng et al. ( 2019 ) further demonstrated through a longitudinal study that moral disengagement mediates the link between VVGE and aggression, especially for early adolescents. However, as the research‐tested adolescents from the ages of 12–19 years, it is unclear whether the results can be generalized to adults.

Our research aimed to further test the role of moral disengagement in the relationship between VVGE and aggression among college students. Based on the literature reviewed above, it is reasonable to expect that moral disengagement would play a mediating role in the relationship. Thus we propose the following hypothesis:

H1 : Moral disengagement will play a mediating role in the relationship between VVGE and aggression.

1.3. Anger and hostility as potential mediators

Anger involves physiological arousal and preparation for aggression, representing the emotional or affective component of behavior, and hostility consists of feelings of ill will and injustice, representing the cognitive component of behavior (Buss & Perry, 1992 ). Research has explored the relationship between VVGE, anger, hostility, aggression, as follows. Anger moderated the relationship between VVGE and aggression (Engelhardt, Bartholow, & Saults, 2011 ; Giumetti & Markey, 2007 ), hostility mediated the relationship between VVGE and aggression (Adachi & Willoughby, 2016 ; Bartholow, Sestir, & Davis, 2005 ; Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, 2004 ). But according to GAM, anger, and hostility may also be potential mediators.

According to the short‐term effects (proximal processes) of GAM, violent video gameplay, when combined with a provocation, may increase anger and hostility, thereby increasing the likelihood of subsequent aggressive behavior. The long‐term effects of GAM (distal processes) suggest that repeated exposure to violent video games changes aggressive knowledge structures, and finally contributing to enhanced aggressive personality (Anderson & Bushman, 2002 ; Anderson & Bushman, 2018 ). Rather trait anger and trait hostility are cognition correlated knowledge structures (Anderson & Bushman, 2001 ; Anderson et al., 2010 ). Therefore, according to GAM, anger, and hostility may be potential mediators. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis:

H2 : Anger and Hostility will play a mediating role in the relationship between VVGE and aggression.

1.4. Disinhibition as a potential moderator

Although VVGE has a significant effect on aggression, not all individuals are affected by VVGE in equal measure. Research has found that users with particular characteristics are more susceptible to VVGE effects than others (Exelmans, Custers, & Van den Bulck ( 2015 ); Markey & Markey, 2010 ; Markey & Scherer, 2009 ). According to the GAM, the interactive dynamics of personal and situational (i.e. VVGE) factors, of biological and environmental (i.e. VVGE) factors will influence an individual's aggressive behaviors. Based on this theory, users’ characteristics such as personality traits could moderate the association between VVGE and aggression.

Previous research has found that callous‐unemotional traits, psychoticism, aggressive traits, and empathy could moderate the relationship between VVGE and aggression (Gao et al., 2017 ; Krahé & Möller, 2010 ; Markey & Scherer, 2009 ; Rydell, 2016 ). As another form of personality trait, sensation‐seeking may also serve as a moderator between VVGE and aggression. Sensation seeking is defined by the seeking of varied, novel, complex and intense sensations and experiences, and the willingness to take physical, social, legal and financial risks for the sake of such experiences (Zuckerman, 1994 ). Sensation seeking has been identified as a moderator of the relationship between violent media content and aggression (Slater, Henry, Swaim, & Cardador, 2004 ). However, Bisch and Lee ( 2009 ) found that the interaction effect between violent video games and sensation seeking was not significant. Sensation seeking contains four subscales: thrills and adventure‐seeking; experience seeking; disinhibition; and boredom susceptibility. It may be that particular dimensions are the main factors in the effect of sensation seeking as a moderator.

The disinhibition dimension may be qualitatively different from the other three dimensions (Krcmar & Greene, 1999 ). Disinhibition represents the desire for social and sexual disinhibition as expressed in social drinking, partying, and variety in sexual partners (Zuckerman, 1994 ). It is the reverse of inhibition and describes how people reduce their public self‐awareness, have less concern about the judgment of others, and thus ignore conventional constraints (Lin & Tsai, 2002 ). Research has found that the disinhibition dimension and the experience‐seeking dimension are related to adolescents’ exposure to violent television positively and negatively, respectively (Krcmar & Greene, 1999 ). Additionally, Aluja‐Fabregat ( 2000 ) found a positive relation between disinhibition and exposure to violent films in 8th‐grade boys and girls. Moreover, a recent study that compared gamers (former and ongoing) with non‐gamers found an association between disinhibition and VVGE (Kimmig, Andringa, & Derntl, 2018 ). Consequently, it seems that disinhibition is the main factor in the moderation of the relationship between VVGE and aggression via sensation seeking.

However, although research has identified sensation seeking as a moderator in the relationship between violent media use and aggression, some studies have not found this effect with regard to VVGE. Given the findings cited above, it is reasonable to deduce that the disinhibition dimension may play a different role in the relationship between VVGE and aggression. Thus we propose the following hypothesis:

H3 : Disinhibition will moderate the relationship between violent video games exposure and aggression.

1.5. The present study

The aims of the present study were twofold: first, we aimed to examine the mediating effect of moral disengagement, anger, and hostility in the relationship between VVGE and aggression among college students. Second, we aimed to examine whether disinhibition dimension of sensation seeking plays a role as a moderator between VVGE and aggression. These two questions can address the mechanisms of both mediation (i.e., how does VVGE increase aggression), and moderation (i.e., when and for whom is the effect most potent) of the relationship between VVGE and aggression.

2. METHOD AND MATERIALS

2.1. participants.

The present study used convenient cluster sampling technology to recruit 855 college students from five universities in China as participants, based on the accessibility. We recovered 757 surveys, and among them were 547 valid responses (excluding incomplete surveys and false answers). The final sample included 265 males and 282 females. The participants’ ages ranged from 16 to 26 years ( M  =   19.34; standard deviation  =   1.01).

2.2. Measures

2.2.1. video game questionnaire.

To measure VVGE, we used the video game questionnaire adapted by Gentile et al. ( 2004 ) from Anderson and Dill ( 2000 ). Participants were asked to list their three favorite video games, including any games played on computers, video game consoles, hand‐held devices, or in video arcades. They were also asked to record the frequency of their play on a 7‐point scale for each game (1   =   “rarely”, 7   =   “often”). They then rated the extent of the violence of each game's content and graphics on a 7‐point scale (1   =   “little or no violence”, 7   =   “extremely violent”). The average rating of the video games was used as the overall index of the VVGE. The index was calculated as: ∑[(the content rating + the graphics rating) × (the weekday frequency × 5 + the weekend frequency × 2)] ÷ the number of games. And participants who never played video games were given a VVGE score of one. The higher the score is, the higher the level of VVGE will be. In the present study, Cronbach's α for the scale is 0.83.

2.2.2. Moral disengagement scale (MDS)

The MDS was used to measure moral disengagement (Bandura et al., 1996 ). The Chinese version has been demonstrated to be a reliable and valid measurement (Yang & Wang, 2012 ). The scale includes 32 items divided into eight mechanisms: moral justification, euphemistic language, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, distorting consequences, attribution of blame, and dehumanization. All items use a 5‐point scale (1   =   “strongly disagree”, 5   =   “strongly agree”), and higher total scores indicate higher levels of moral disengagement. In the present study, Cronbach's α for the scale is 0.94.

2.2.3. Buss–Perry aggression questionnaire (BPAQ)

The BPAQ consists of 29 items, divided into four dimensions: physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility (Buss & Perry, 1992 ). All items use a 5‐point scale (1 = “strongly disagree”, 5 = “strongly agree”). The Chinese version of BPAQ has high validity and reliability (Wang et al., 2016 ). In the present study, Cronbach's α for the scale is 0.91.

The present study used the physical aggression and verbal aggression subscales to assess the trait aggressive behavior, and anger and hostility subscales to access the trait anger and trait hostility. Higher scores indicate higher aggression trait, respectively. In the present study, Cronbach's α for the physical aggression subscale is 0.81, verbal aggression subscale is 0.74, anger subscale is 0.83; hostility subscale is 0.80.

2.2.4. Sensation‐seeking scale (SSS‐V)

The SSS‐V (Zuckerman, Eysenck, & Eysenck, 1978 ) consists of 40 items based on forced choice. Participants choose one statement from two options that best describes them and receive one point for each choice that corresponds to sensation seeking. The Chinese version of the SSS‐V (Wang et al., 2000 ) shows good validity and reliability and has been widely used. In the present study, Cronbach's α for the sensation‐seeking scale is 0.61. The study used the disinhibition subscale to measure disinhibition; higher disinhibition scores represent higher disinhibition tendencies. Cronbach's α for the disinhibition subscale is 0.52, higher disinhibition scores represent higher disinhibition tendencies.

2.3. Procedure and data analysis

The study was approved by the researchers’ University Ethics Committee. Before the investigation, all participants were told that the study was being conducted anonymously and that their information would remain confidential. We then obtained informed consent and participants completed the questionnaires, guided by trained researchers. All the participants were voluntary and they were free to withdraw from the study at any time.

Descriptive statistics, gender differences, correlation analysis, and regression analysis of main variables were conducted using SPSS 22.0. The mediation and moderation analysis was carried out using PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013 ). The bootstrapping method (Hayes, 2013 ; Preacher & Hayes, 2004 ), which can attain robust standard errors for parameter estimation, was used to test the significance of the mediating effect and moderating effect. We set 5,000 bootstrapping samples and 95% bias‐corrected confidence intervals (CI). Cl containing zero indicated significant effects.

3.1. Preliminary analyses

The study used a self‐report design to collect data, which meant that common method variance may have existed. We used Harman's single‐factor test to test the common method bias. The test showed that there were 36 factors with eigenvalues greater than one, which together explained 65.24% of the total variance, with the largest single factor explaining 14.23% of the variance, which is less than the judgment standards of 40% (Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003 ). Therefore, the common method bias was not problematic in this study.

Table ​ Table1 1 shows the correlations between the main variables with gender dummy coded. VVGE was positively associated with moral disengagement, disinhibition, and the four aggressive traits, which were positively correlated with each other. Moral disengagement was positively associated with both the disinhibition and the four aggressive traits. Disinhibition was positively associated with the four aggressive traits. Gender, as a covariate in subsequent analyses, was positively associated with every variable except trait anger.

Correlations and means of study variables

Abbreviation: VVGE, violent video games exposure.

3.2. The mediating effect of moral disengagement, anger, and hostility

To test Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2 that moral disengagement, anger, and hostility would mediate the relationship between VVGE and aggression, we conducted the PROCESS macro Model 4 of SPSS (Hayes, 2013 ) with all data standardized. In the model, VVGE was entered as the predictor, moral disengagement, anger, and hostility as the mediators, aggressive behavior (the composite of physical aggression and verbal aggression) as the outcome variable, and gender was included as a covariate. The mediation effects of moral disengagement (0.03), anger (0.10), and hostility (0.02) were significant (see Table ​ Table2, 2 , Table ​ Table3, 3 , and Figure ​ Figure1). 1 ). Moral disengagement, anger, and hostility accounted for 14.29, 47.62, and 9.52% of the total effect, respectively. When controlling for moral disengagement, anger, and hostility, the direct effect of VVGE on aggression was not significant ( β  = 0.06; standard error  = 0.03; 95% CI = [−0.001, 0.12]). Moral disengagement, anger, and hostility wholly mediated the relationship between VVGE and aggression with 71.43% of the total effect.

Testing the mediation effect of violent video games exposure on aggression (standardized coefficient)

Abbreviation: CI, confidence interval; VVGE, violent video games exposure.

The direct effect and the mediation effect of moral disengagement, anger, and hostility

Abbreviation: CI, confidence interval; ab, the mediation effect.

The relationship between VVGE, moral disengagement, anger, hostility, and aggressive behavior. VVGE, violent video games exposure

3.3. The moderating effect of disinhibition

To test Hypothesis 3 that disinhibition would moderate the relationship between VVGE and aggression, we conducted the PROCESS macro Model 1 of SPSS with disinhibition as a moderator, VVGE as the predictor, aggressive behavior as the outcome variable, gender as a covariate (Hayes, 2013 ). The results showed that the moderation effect of disinhibition was not significant ( β  = −0.04, t  = −0.90, 95% CI = [−0.12, 0.04]), see Table ​ Table4 4 .

Testing the moderation effect of violent video games on aggression (standardized coefficient)

4. DISCUSSION

Consistent with H1, our study found that moral disengagement played a mediating role in the relationship between VVGE and aggression, suggesting that college students with high levels of VVGE are more likely to use moral disengagement mechanisms, further resulting in enhanced aggressive behavior trait. This finding is consistent with the research of Teng et al. ( 2019 ), indicating that the mediation effect of moral disengagement can be generalized to adult college students. The result also adds support for the GAM by the indication that VVGE influences an individual's internal state of cognition—specifically, the cognitive predisposition of moral disengagement (Bandura et al., 1996 )—and ultimately an individual's level of aggression (Anderson, & Bushman, 2002 ; Anderson, & Bushman, 2018 ).

Each of the separate links in the mediation model is noteworthy. VVGE was positively associated with moral disengagement, the first stage of the mediation process, and this result is consistent with previous research (e.g., Gabbiadini et al., 2012 ; Greitemeyer & McLatchie, 2011 ). Teng et al. ( 2017 ) explained this result by the use of Bandura's social cognitive theory; that is, VVGE as a contextual variable influences an individual's moral values and cognition, including moral disengagement (Bandura, 2001 ). Moral disengagement was positively associated with aggressive tendencies, the second stage of the mediation process, and this adds support for previous research (e.g., Paciello et al., 2008 ; Wang et al., 2016 ). Bandura's moral disengagement theory proposes that the eight moral disengagement mechanisms can encourage individuals to reconstruct aggression cognitively (e.g., by making the outcome of their behavior appear less harmful; by minimizing their role in the outcome; and by reducing their recognition for the victim), thus aggression is more likely to occur (Bandura et al., 1996 ). Shu, Gino, and Bazerman ( 2011 ) suggest that moral disengagement influences anticipatory guilt reactions, prosocial tendencies, and cognitive and affective reactions; effects that are conducive to immoral or antisocial behavior, such as aggression.

Consistent with H2, our study found that anger and hostility mediated the relationship between VVGE and aggression, suggesting that high level of VVGE is associated with increased anger and hostility in college students, which finally resulted in enhanced aggressive behavior trait. This is in line with the findings from some previous work (Adachi & Willoughby, 2016 ; Bartholow et al., 2005 ; Gentile et al., 2004 ). The result supports the long‐term effects (distal processes) of GAM (Anderson & Bushman, 2002 ; Anderson, & Bushman, 2018 ), that repeated VVGE over longer periods of time leads to elevations in more stable aggressive traits (trait anger, trait hostility), and such traits are part of aggression‐related knowledge structures. Finally, the reinforced knowledge structures contribute to the enhancement of aggressive personality, which further influence individuals’ decision together with situational variables.

With regard to H3, our study found that the moderation role of disinhibition, a dimension of sensation seeking, between VVGE and aggression was not significant. Disinhibition represents stimulation seeking through experiences with other individuals, using substances to feel disinhibited, and living a “hedonistic lifestyle” (Wilson & Scarpa, 2014 ). The characteristics of violent video games provide users with an opportunity for obtaining such experiences above. First, many violent video games are now large online multirole cooperative games, making them a kind of collective activity. Then, violent video games are full of violent and bloody content with immediate reinforcement (Teng et al., 2014 ) whilst a player can be anonymous; characteristics that make playing such games an unrestricted activity. Players of violent video games can do anything they want and perform acts that they cannot do in real life. And in this process, players are in an excited state with increased physiological arousal (Anderson et al., 2010 ); that is, through violent video gameplay, players can feel disinhibited and live a hedonistic lifestyle. These considerations help to explain the strong association between violent video games and disinhibition, but our results suggest that disinhibition is not the main factor in sensation seeking to moderate the relationship between VVGE and aggression. It may be due to the low reliability of sensation seeking scales and the disinhibition subscales. Actually, a few college students said they could not make a decision between some forced choices, because they never experienced some activities on the scale. Besides, some activities are forbidden (such as drugs) and some activities are not suitable to be discussed in public (such as sex) in China. So some items may not adapt to Chinese society situation and should be localized first. Or other materials to measure sensation seeking and inhibition should be considered.

The present study expands previous research by generalizing the mediation effect of moral disengagement to adult college students and exploring trait anger and trait hostility as the mediators in the relationship between VVGE and aggression. The results also add support for the social cognitive theory and the GAM to a certain extent. Reducing exposure to violent video games and the probability of moral standards being deactivated (Teng et al., 2019 ) may be an effective intervention to reduce aggression.

However, the study has several limitations. First, the datasets were collected through cross‐sectional methods, and this limits the inference of causal relationships. Longitudinal research should be conducted in the future. Second, we used self‐report questionnaires to gather the data. Although the common method bias was not problematic, as shown in the preliminary analysis, social desirability bias may exist. Moreover, players with higher levels of moral disengagement or aggression may evaluate the violence level of games lower than their counterparts. Future research could collect data from multiple informants and explore mediation and moderation effects through experimental research. Third, the research methods and sample (using only five universities in southwest China) may have influenced the size of the effects; selecting a more representative sample or improving the research methods may help to increase the size of the effects.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Supporting information

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (grant no. 14XSH013, Grant No. 19BSH112), Chongqing Research Program of Basic Research and Frontier Technology (cstc2018jcyjAX0480), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant no. SWU1909226).

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Christopher J. Ferguson, The Conversation Christopher J. Ferguson, The Conversation

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/analysis-why-its-time-to-stop-blaming-video-games-for-real-world-violence

Analysis: Why it’s time to stop blaming video games for real-world violence

In the wake of the El Paso shooting on Aug. 3 that left 21 dead and dozens injured, a familiar trope has reemerged: Often, when a young man is the shooter, people try to blame the tragedy on violent video games and other forms of media.

This time around, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick placed some of the blame on a video game industry that “ teaches young people to kill .” Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California went on to condemn video games that “dehumanize individuals” as a “problem for future generations.” And President Trump pointed to society’s “glorification of violence,” including “ gruesome and grisly video games .”

These are the same connections a Florida lawmaker made after the Parkland shooting in February 2018, suggesting that the gunman in that case “was prepared to pick off students like it’s a video game .”

Kevin McCarthy, the GOP House minority leader, also tells Fox News that video games are the problem following the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. pic.twitter.com/w7DmlJ9O1K — John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) August 4, 2019

But, speaking as a researcher who has studied violent video games for almost 15 years, I can state that there is no evidence to support these claims that violent media and real-world violence are connected. As far back as 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that research did not find a clear connection between violent video games and aggressive behavior.

Criminologists who study mass shootings specifically refer to those sorts of connections as a “ myth .” And in 2017, the Media Psychology and Technology division of the American Psychological Association released a statement I helped craft, suggesting reporters and policymakers cease linking mass shootings to violent media, given the lack of evidence for a link.

A history of a moral panic

So why are so many policymakers inclined to blame violent video games for violence? There are two main reasons.

The first is the psychological research community’s efforts to market itself as strictly scientific. This led to a replication crisis instead, with researchers often unable to repeat the results of their studies. Now, psychology researchers are reassessing their analyses of a wide range of issues – not just violent video games, but implicit racism , power poses and more.

The other part of the answer lies in the troubled history of violent video game research specifically.

An attendee dressed as a Fortnite character poses for a picture in a costume at Comic Con International in San Diego, California, U.S., July 19, 2019. Photo by REUTERS/Mike Blake

Beginning in the early 2000s, some scholars, anti-media advocates and professional groups like the APA began working to connect a methodologically messy and often contradictory set of results to public health concerns about violence. This echoed historical patterns of moral panic, such as 1950s concerns about comic books and Tipper Gore’s efforts to blame pop and rock music in the 1980s for violence, sex and satanism.

Particularly in the early 2000s, dubious evidence regarding violent video games was uncritically promoted . But over the years, confidence among scholars that violent video games influence aggression or violence has crumbled .

Reviewing all the scholarly literature

My own research has examined the degree to which violent video games can – or can’t – predict youth aggression and violence. In a 2015 meta-analysis , I examined 101 studies on the subject and found that violent video games had little impact on kids’ aggression, mood, helping behavior or grades.

Two years later, I found evidence that scholarly journals’ editorial biases had distorted the scientific record on violent video games. Experimental studies that found effects were more likely to be published than studies that had found none. This was consistent with others’ findings . As the Supreme Court noted, any impacts due to video games are nearly impossible to distinguish from the effects of other media, like cartoons and movies.

Any claims that there is consistent evidence that violent video games encourage aggression are simply false.

Spikes in violent video games’ popularity are well-known to correlate with substantial declines in youth violence – not increases. These correlations are very strong, stronger than most seen in behavioral research. More recent research suggests that the releases of highly popular violent video games are associated with immediate declines in violent crime, hinting that the releases may cause the drop-off.

The role of professional groups

With so little evidence, why are people like Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin still trying to blame violent video games for mass shootings by young men? Can groups like the National Rifle Association seriously blame imaginary guns for gun violence?

A key element of that problem is the willingness of professional guild organizations such as the APA to promote false beliefs about violent video games. (I’m a fellow of the APA.) These groups mainly exist to promote a profession among news media, the public and policymakers, influencing licensing and insurance laws . They also make it easier to get grants and newspaper headlines. Psychologists and psychology researchers like myself pay them yearly dues to increase the public profile of psychology. But there is a risk the general public may mistake promotional positions for objective science.

In 2005 the APA released its first policy statement linking violent video games to aggression. However, my recent analysis of internal APA documents with criminologist Allen Copenhaver found that the APA ignored inconsistencies and methodological problems in the research data.

The APA updated its statement in 2015, but that sparked controversy immediately: More than 230 scholars wrote to the group asking it to stop releasing policy statements altogether. I and others objected to perceived conflicts of interest and lack of transparency tainting the process.

It’s bad enough that these statements misrepresent the actual scholarly research and misinform the public. But it’s worse when those falsehoods give advocacy groups like the NRA cover to shift blame for violence onto non-issues like video games. The resulting misunderstanding hinders efforts to address mental illness and other issues, such as the need for gun control, that are actually related to gun violence.

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article . This story was updated from an earlier version to reflect the events surrounding the El Paso and Dayton shootings.

Christopher J. Ferguson is a professor of psychology at Stetson University. He's coauthor of " Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games is Wrong ."

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El Paso shooting is domestic terrorism, investigators say

Nation Aug 04

Is Playing Violent Video Games Related to Teens' Mental Health?

New research indicates that video games are not as bad as we once feared..

Posted February 25, 2021 | Reviewed by Matt Huston

Key Points:

• Two recent studies provide insight into whether playing violent video games is related to mental health or aggression .
• Teens who had consistently played violent games for years also reported higher aggression compared to those with gaming patterns that changed over time.
• Researchers found no links between violent video game play and anxiety , depression , somatic symptoms, or ADHD after two years.

With so many kids still home this year, and an apparent increase in the number of teens and adults playing video games, it seems appropriate to re-examine the evidence on whether aggression in video games is associated with problems for adolescents or society. A special issue of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking published in January did just that. As a parent of three—aware of how video games can suck kids in—and a psychologist working at a social innovation lab that has been a leader in the games for health movement, I’m eager to look at studies that examine teens’ violent video game play and any effects later on in life. I asked, in the ongoing conversation about whether playing games like Fortnite makes teens more aggressive, depressed, or anxious, what do we now know?

After a few decades of research in this area, the answer is not definitive . There was a slew of studies in the early 2000s showing a link between violent video game play and aggressive behavior, and a subsequent onslaught of studies showing that the aggression was very slight and likely due to competition rather than the violent nature of the games themselves. For example, studies showed that people got just as aggressive when they lost at games like Mario Kart as when they lost a much more violent game such as Fortnite . It was likely the frustration of losing rather than the violence that caused people to act aggressively.

Looking at Mental Health and Gaming Over Time

Two studies in the January special issue add to the evidence showing that violent video games may not be as dangerous as they have been made out to be. These studies are unique because they looked at large samples of youth over long periods of time. This line of research helps us to consider whether extensive play in a real-world environment (i.e., living rooms, not labs) is associated with mental health functioning later on in the teen and young adult years.

The first study revisited the long-standing debate over whether violent video game play is associated with aggression and mental health symptoms in young adulthood. The study reported on 322 American teens, ages 10 to 13 at the outset, who were interviewed every year for 10 years. The study looked at patterns of violent video game play, and found three such patterns over time: high initial violence (those who played violent games when they were young and then reduced their play over time); moderates (those whose exposure to violent games was moderate but consistent throughout adolescence ); and low-increasers (those who started with low exposure to violent games, and then increased slightly over time). Most kids were low-increasers, and kids who started out with high depression scores were more likely to be in the high initial violence group. Only the kids in the moderates group were more likely to show aggressive behavior than the other two groups.

The researchers concluded that it was sustained violent game play over many years that was predictive of aggressive behavior, not the intensity of the violence alone or the degree of exposure for shorter periods. Importantly, none of the three exposure groups predicted either depression or anxiety, nor did any predict differences in prosocial behavior such as helping others.

The second study was even larger, following 3,000 adolescents from Singapore, and looking at whether playing violent video games was associated with mental health problems two years later. Results showed that neither violent video game play, nor video game time overall, predicted anxiety, depression, somatic symptoms, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder after two years. Consistent with many previous studies, mental health symptoms at the beginning of the study were predictive of symptoms two years later. In short, no connection was found between video games and the mental health functioning of youth.

Taken together, these studies suggest that predispositions to mental health problems like depression and anxiety are more important to pay attention to than video game exposure, violent or not. There is also an implication that any potential effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior would tend to show up when use is prolonged—though the research did not show that gaming itself necessarily causes the aggressive behavior.

So, Should Parents Be Concerned?

These findings are helpful during a year when many kids have no doubt had unprecedented exposure to video games, some of them violent. The most current evidence is telling us that these games are not likely to make our kids more anxious, depressed, aggressive, or violent.

Do parents still need to watch our children’s screen time ? Yes, as too much video game play takes kids away from other valuable activities for their social, emotional, and creative development, such as using their imagination and making things that have not been given to them by programmers (stories, art, structures, fantasy play). Do parents need to be freaking out that our kids trying to find the "imposter" in a game will make them more likely to hit their friends when they are back together in person? Probably not.

We still need to pay attention to mental health symptoms; teens appear to be feeling the effects of the pandemic more than adults, and levels of depression and anxiety have reached unprecedented heights.

So let’s say the quiet part out loud: if they’re using video games to cope right now, it’s not the end of the world, and if they’re struggling psychologically, we should not be blaming the games. Normal elements of daily life have been reduced for teenagers during what should be their most expansive years, for what has become an increasingly large percentage of their lives. It is untenable, and even still, teens are showing us what they always do—that they are adaptive and resilient , and natural harm reduction experts.

As parents, let’s stay plugged in to what they’re going through, and think more about how games can be supportive of well-being. It’s needed now more than ever.

LinkedIn and Facebook image: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

Coyne, S. M., & Stockdale, L. (2020). Growing Up with Grand Theft Auto: A 10-Year Study of Longitudinal Growth of Violent Video Game Play in Adolescents. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 24(1), 11–16. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.0049

Ferguson, C. J., & Wang, C. K. J. (2020). Aggressive Video Games Are Not a Risk Factor for Mental Health Problems in Youth: A Longitudinal Study. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 24(1), 70–73. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.0027

Kato, P. M., Cole, S. W., Bradlyn, A. S., & Pollock, B. H. (2008). A Video Game Improves Behavioral Outcomes in Adolescents and Young Adults With Cancer: A Randomized Trial. Pediatrics, 122(2), e305–e317. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2007-3134

Przybylski, A. K., & Weinstein, N. (n.d.). Violent video game engagement is not associated with adolescents’ aggressive behaviour: Evidence from a registered report. Royal Society Open Science, 6(2), 171474. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171474

Danielle Ramo, Ph.D. , is a clinical psychologist, researcher in digital mental health and substance use, and Chief Clinical Officer at BeMe Health, a mobile mental health platform designed to improve teen wellbeing.

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APA Reaffirms Position on Violent Video Games and Violent Behavior

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WASHINGTON — There is insufficient scientific evidence to support a causal link between violent video games and violent behavior, according to an updated resolution (PDF, 60KB) adopted by the American Psychological Association. 

APA’s governing Council of Representatives seated a task force to review its August 2015 resolution in light of many occasions in which members of the media or policymakers have cited that resolution as evidence that violent video games are the cause of violent behavior, including mass shootings.

“Violence is a complex social problem that likely stems from many factors that warrant attention from researchers, policymakers and the public,” said APA President Sandra L. Shullman, PhD. “Attributing violence to video gaming is not scientifically sound and draws attention away from other factors, such as a history of violence, which we know from the research is a major predictor of future violence.”

The 2015 resolution was updated by the Council of Representatives on March 1 with this caution. Based on a review of the current literature, the new task force report (PDF, 285KB) reaffirms that there is a small, reliable association between violent video game use and aggressive outcomes, such as yelling and pushing. However, these research findings are difficult to extend to more violent outcomes. These findings mirror those of an APA literature review (PDF, 413KB) conducted in 2015. 

APA has worked for years to study the effects of video games and other media on children while encouraging the industry to design video games with adequate parental controls. It has also pushed to refine the video game rating system to reflect the levels and characteristics of violence in these games.

APA will continue to work closely with school officials and community leaders to raise awareness about the issue, the resolution said.

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The Video Games Your Child Plays Has an Effect on Their Behavior

More and more research is emerging with evidence of the negative effects violent video games have on children. The most popular video games are also some of the most violent, and pediatrician Dr. Cindy Gellner speaks about the numerous effects they have on kids. If you notice behavioral problems and other issues with your child, video games with violence and other adult themes may be to blame. Listen to learn about the research and more.

Episode Transcript

With in-person activities for kids on hold a lot during the past year, video games have taken the place of ways for kids to connect while being socially distanced. Is this a good thing? Well, that depends.

Video gaming has become a popular activity for people of all ages since the 1980s. Many kids spend large amounts of time playing them, although the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends kids have more than two hours total of screen time a day. Video gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry, and video games have become very sophisticated and realistic. There are multi-player games, which allow kids to play with their friends across different platforms. However, there's always the possibility that kids can connect with not-so-friendly people out there, too.

While some games have educational content, many of the most popular games emphasize negative themes. They promote the killings in war-like scenarios, sometimes criminal behavior, disrespect for the law and other authority figures, sexual exploitation or violence towards women, racial, sexual and gender stereotypes, and foul language and obscene gestures. Examples of video games not acceptable for children because they have these themes include Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, and Mortal Kombat.

There is growing research on the effects of video games on children. Studies of children exposed to violence have shown that they can become immune or numb to violence, imitate the violence they see and show more aggressive behavior with greater exposure to violence. Studies have also shown that the more realistic and repeated the exposure to violence, the greater the impact on children. Kids can become overly involved and even obsessed with video games, which I've been seeing a lot lately, especially in kids who are doing only online learning.

I have parents often asking me how to get their kids off of video games and back onto their classwork. Unfortunately, I don't have any special tricks. But the best thing is to have them do their classwork where you can see them and know what they are doing. Also, check their grades frequently. And if you see a lot of missing assignments, then it's time to limit the video games until school is caught up. Too much video game can lead to poor social skills, time away from family, school work and other hobbies, lower grades, reading less, exercising less, becoming overweight, and having aggressive thoughts and behaviors. I can say that I have definitely seen and heard from parents that decrease grades and increase weight have been directly correlated to kids staying inside and playing video games over the past year.

So how can you, as a parent, protect your child against these types of video games? First, you can check the Entertainment Software Rating Board ratings to learn about the game's content. Every video game will actually have a label on the front to tell you what type of game it is. If it says M for mature, it's not for your child. Our kids have their system set up so they can't purchase a game, even if it's free, without me getting a notification. They're usually pretty good about saying, "Hey Mom, can I get this game so I can play with my friends?" And if it's not one I approve of, they know it's a hard no. We also have it set up in the living room so I know exactly how much time they're playing, what they're playing, and who they're playing with if it's on a group chat.

You can also play the video games with your child to experience the game's content and know exactly what your child is playing. Set clear rules about the game's content for both playing time in and outside of your home. Like if they go to a friend's house. Strongly warn your children about the potential serious dangers of Internet contacts and relationships while playing online. It's sad, but there are a lot of online predators that will look for children specifically playing video games and can lead them into them meeting in real life. Finally, remember that you are a role model for your child. Make sure the video games you play as an adult are ones you would be okay with your child playing.

If you are concerned as a parent that your child is spending too much time playing video games or your child starts becoming obsessed with aggressive or violent video games, make sure you set some limits. Expect some push back because you're going to get it. But kids actually need and want boundaries, and if you set them, eventually they'll surprise you and they'll appreciate that you do monitor them and that you do set limits. I was floored when both of my boys told me that at different times over the past year, that they approved the limits and the monitoring because they know that it's because of what we prioritize in our house and what our family expectations are.

By being aware of what games are out there, who your child is playing with, and what they care playing, and how long they are playing, you can help your child make appropriate decisions about gaming. Video games are a great outlet for some kids, and it helps them connect with their friends when they can't always play in person or when they're older and play dates aren't cool anymore. Most important thing as a parent is to be aware of what your child is doing while gaming and help reinforce positive behaviors and socialization without giving in to excessive gaming time and inappropriate content.

updated: August 9, 2021 originally published: April 6, 2016

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Do Violent Video Games Cause Behavior Problems? Research Paper

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Prevalence of Video Games in the United States

Why video games increase aggression and violence, gaam: input variables and internal states, long-term effects of video game violence, unique dangers of violent video games, works cited.

One’s mode of living can be affected by entertainment media. Most behaviors that kids and adults deem suitable come, partially, from the lessons they obtain from movies and television. There exist solid theoretical rationales to suppose that violent video games will include analogous, and perhaps additional, impacts on aggression.

Nevertheless, there exist few writings on the impact of exposure to video game violence since it is a new area of concern in the present U.S. culture. Hence, some people argue that video games do not cause as much aggression as that caused by watching violent TV and movies. This paper proofs that video games have severe, long term and short term behavior effects, which are worse than those of TV and movies.

Media violence is vastly consumed by the U.S. residents. Children and youths with years between 8 and 18 use over 40 hours every week on media excluding time spent on homework and school assignments (Ballard and Jefferson 717). Although television is the most common form of media used, electronic, video games have speedily gained popularity.

A number of children between the ages 2 to 18, approximately 10%, spend over one hour each day playing computer video games (Fling 39). Amongst boys aged between 8 to 13 years, the average number of hours spent on these games is over 7.5 hour each week (Harris and Williams 306). Learners in higher institutions of learning as well play video games frequently. By 1998, 13.3% of men joining universities spent at least 6 hr per week on video games (Irwin 337).

A year later, the number had augmented to 14.8%. Besides, 2% of the men accounted playing video games over 20 hour each week in 1998. A year later, the number enlarged to 2.5%. While the initial video games surfaced in the late 1970s, violent video games became popular in 1990s, with the homicide games Street Fighter, Wolfenstein 3D and Mortal Kombat (Ballard and Jefferson 717). All these three games involve murdering or hurting enemies.

The graphics, for instance, blood and echoes of these games were radical at the phase of their establishment. Before the last part of the 20th century, further graphically violent games grew to be accessible to all players, regardless of age (Gerbner 10). Although a number of enlightening, nonviolent, games subsist, the most profoundly advertised and utilized games are those that are violent.

Girls and boys in the fourth grade, 59% and 73% respectively, report that most of their preferred games are those that contain acts of violence (Dietz 425). A key area of concern is the lack of parental supervision. Most youths in grades 8 up to 12 details that merely 1% of their parents ever disallowed a purchase due to its rating, and 90% of their parents never verified the ratings of the games ahead of their purchase (Kirsh 180).

A number of reasons for predicting exposure to violent video games to augment aggressive conduct in both the long term (constant exposure over a phase of years) and short term (in about 20 minutes of the game) exist.

Founded on some former models of human aggression, the General Aggression Model is a valuable framework for appreciating the impacts of violent media. The act of aggression is mainly founded on the learning, stimulating, and use of aggression-associated knowledge constructions amassed in the memory, such as schemas and scripts.

Conditional input variables, such as latest exposure to violent media games, pressure aggressive behavior via their effect on the individual’s current internal state, symbolized by affective, cognitive and stimulation variables.

Violent media augment aggression through teaching spectators how to be hostile, through priming violent cognitions, counting, formerly, learned aggressive perceptual schemata and aggressive scripts, by mounting arousal, or by forming an aggressive affective condition (Anderson and Deuser 166). Long-term impacts, as well, engross learning procedures. From childhood, humans discover how to perceive, understand, critic, and react to actions in the social and physical surroundings (Geen and Mathew 15).

A variety of knowledge constructions for these actions builds up ultimately. They are normally founded on daily interpretations and relations with other persons. Every violent-media incident becomes a new learning experience. As the cognitions constructions are repeated, they grow to be highly differentiated, composite and hard to modify.

Another model of academic and social impacts of exposure to media violence has been created by Huesmann (Huesmann 37). This model demonstrates that as a child grows to be aggressive regularly, the qualities and social relations that she/he practices also vary. All told the amalgamations of long-term and short-term procedures create the positive relation linking aggressive-violent behavior and exposure to media violence.

Both situational and personal variables can alter an individual’s character through affective, arousal and cognitive variables. For instance, individuals who score high on tests of aggressive traits have highly available information structures for aggression-associated knowledge. They assume aggressive views more regularly than do those persons who attain less on aggressive personality tests, and have social acuity schemas that result to aggressive perception, belief, and provenance prejudices.

The present accessibility of aggression-associated cognitive structures can as well be influenced by situational input variables. Being affronted may lead an individual to consider of how to revenge the insult in a destructive manner.

Playing a violent video game, as well, can augment the availability of violent cognitions by semantic priming procedures. Just seeing an image of a gun or other arm can augment the availability of aggressive feelings. Both input variables control an individual’s existing affective condition, for instance, aggression-associated feelings of aggression or rage.

Several individuals feel irritated nearly at all times. A number of circumstances can make someone irritated. Nevertheless, we do anticipate that playing violent video games will habitually boost thoughts of rage, weighed against playing a peaceful game. Certainly, playing an annoying game is apt to amplify rage (Bandura 91). Nevertheless violent material, in the lack of another aggravation, is liable to have small direct effect on affect.

Impacts of long-term media violence on aggression emerge from over-learning, growth and reinforcement of aggression-linked cognition systems. Every occasion persons play violent video games they practice aggressive scripts that edify and strengthen violent acts against others, positive thinking about the use of violence, caution for opponents, anticipations that others will act in violent ways and viewpoints that aggressive solutions are efficient and suitable.

Moreover, frequent exposure to graphic acts of violence is apt to be desensitizing. The formation of these aggression-linked cognitive structures and the desensitization outcomes transform the individual’s character.

Players involved in video game for long can emerge more aggressive in attitudes, perceptual prejudices, attitudes, values, and actions than they were prior to the frequent exposure or would have befallen with no such exposure. Hypothetically, these long-term transformations in aggressive behavior function in the instant situation via both input variables explained in GAAM; situation and person variables.

The relation to person variables is clear–the individual is now violent in attitude and tendency. However, the way long-term impacts of frequent contact to violent video games can alter situational variables is less apparent. Nevertheless, Huesmann has constructed a lucid model of the academic and social impacts of experience to violence on television (Huesmann 37).

When an individual grows to be aggressive, the social surroundings react. Persons who are ready to interrelate with them, the nature of exchanges that are made, and the circumstances made accessible to the individual all transform. Relations with parents, teachers, and nonviolent peers are apt to deteriorate, whereas exchanges with other aggressive peers might augment. Hence, we anticipate getting a positive relationship between an individual’s height of experience to violent video games and his/her aggressive actions.

Current information indicates that concern regarding the potentially harmful effects of playing violent video games is not mislaid. Additional reflection on some key traits of violent video games denotes that their risks may well be larger than the risks of violent movies or violent television. Three motives can elucidate this. The first is the desire to identify with the aggressive person (Leyens 375). The player presumes the characteristics of the champion, and at times, selects a trait whose qualities the player then adopts.

The player directs the act of this character and frequently visualizes the video game globe via that character’s sight. Hence, the chief character is identical with the game player, latently intensifying the effect of the game. The second cause of concern is the active contribution pertaining video games. Study on the catharsis hypothesis discloses that aggressive behavior typically augments later aggressive mannerisms (Bushman 955).

The dynamic task of the video game player entails opting to aggress and behaving g in an aggressive way. This preference and action constituent of video games might lead to the building of a more whole aggressive script, than would happen in the inert role adopted in watching violent TV shows and movies.

The final reason to suppose video games to include a larger effect than movies or TV engrosses their addictive character. The strengthening distinctiveness of violent video games can also boost the training and presentation of violent scripts.

Video games obsession can stem, partially, from the penalties and rewards, which the game accords the player (Griffiths and Newton 473), similar to the reward construction of slot apparatus. Logically, violent video games present an absolute learning atmosphere for aggression, with concurrent exposure to reinforcement, modeling and practice of behaviors. This amalgamation of learning approach has been revealed to be more potent than any other technique employed (Klein, 395).

In conclusion, video games, which are violent, give a forum for discovering and practicing aggressive resolutions to conflict circumstances. The outcome of violent video games seems to be cognitive in trait. In the short term, playing violent video games influences aggression through priming violent thoughts.

Long term impacts are apt to stay for long, as the player discovers and practices novel aggression-linked scripts that grow to be progressively available for utilization when real-life conflict circumstances occur. If frequent, exposure to violent video games can lead to the formation and heightened availability of a range of aggressive cognitive constructions, hence, varying the individual’s basic persona structure.

The resultant changes in daily social relations might also lead to steady augments in the aggressive change. The lively nature of the learning atmosphere of the video game puts forward that this medium is more risky than the more profoundly explored movie and TV media. With the latest drift toward vast realism and graphic aggression in video games, in addition to, the growing recognition of these games, users of violent video games, as well as parents of users, are supposed to be aware of these latent hazards.

Topical proceedings in the news, for instance, the relation between youth killers in Colorado and violent video game play, have flickered civic debate regarding the impacts of video game violence. While the debate goes on, video games are growing to be increasingly violent, explicit and rampant. Scientists must add new research to the presently small and lacking text on video game violence impacts and elucidate for society what these dangers involve precisely.

The General Affective Aggression Model has been demonstrated as helpful in organizing a broad array of research results on human aggression and in creating testable schemes, including the current exploration on video game violence. Further short-term investigation on the impacts of violent video games is required in order to identify the natures of game players and games that decrease and deepen the aggression-linked impacts.

Anderson, Karl and Deuser Anderson. “The Interactive Relations between Trait Hostility, Pain, and Aggressive Thoughts.” Aggressive Behavior 24 (1998): 161-171.

Ballard, Michael and Jefferson Weist. “Mortal Kombat: The Effects of Violent Video Game Play on Males’ Hostility and Cardiovascular Responding.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 26 (1996): 717-730.

Bandura, Alois. Aggression: A social Learning Analysis . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973

Bushman, Beckham. “Moderating Role of Trait Aggressiveness in the Effects of Violent Media on Aggression.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69 (1995): 950-960.

Dietz, Tyre. “An Examination of Violence and Gender Role Portrayals in Video Games: Implications for Gender Socialization and Aggressive Behavior.” Sex Roles 38(1998): 425-442.

Fling, Smith. “Videogames, Aggression, and Self-Esteem: A Survey.” Social Behavior and Personality 20 (1992): 39-46.

Geen, Robert and Mathew Quanty. “The Catharsis of Aggression: An Evaluation of a Hypothesis.” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 10 (1977): 1-37

Gerbner, Gilbert. “The Mainstreaming of America: Violence Profile No. II.” Journal of Communication 30 (1980):10-29.

Griffiths, Michael and Newton Hunt. “Dependence on Computer Games by Adolescents.” Psychological Reports 82(1990): 475-480.

Harris, Morris and Williams, Reagan. “Video Games and School Performance.” Education 105 (1980): 306-309.

Huesmann, Lois. Aggressive Behavior: Current Perspectives . New York: Plenum Press, 1994

Irwin, Gross. “Cognitive Tempo, Violent Video Games, and Aggressive Behavior in Young Boys.” Journal of Family Violence 10 (1995): 337-350.

Kirsh, Smith. “Seeing the World through Mortal Kombat-Colored Glasses: Violent Video Games and the Development of a Short-Term Hostile Attribution Bias.” Childhood 5(1998): 177-184.

Klein, Morris. “The Bite of Pac-Man.” The Journal of Psychohistory 11(1984): 395-401.

Leyens, Picus. “Identification with the Winner of a Fight and Name Mediation: Their Differential Effects upon Subsequent Aggressive Behavior.” British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 12(1973): 374-377.

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Video Games — The Impact of Video Games on Violence

The Impact of Video Games on Violence

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• Regulating Violent Video Games Words: 830
• Video Games’ Impact on Adolescent Violence Words: 924
• Video Games Are Harmful to Children and Adolescents Words: 619
• Violence in Games: TV and Computer Games Violence Words: 2738
• Behavioral Problems Caused by Video Games Words: 1955
• Influence of Video Games the Attitude of Aggressiveness Among Children Words: 2639

Do Video Games Cause Violence: Essay Sample

Do video games cause violence: essay introduction, violence in video games essay: problem analysis, positive effect of violent video games: essay body paragraph, effects of violent video games: essay conclusion, works cited.

Video games are electronic devices that require the interaction of a user. This enables the generation of visual feedback. Video games vary from handheld devices to mainframe computers.

Video games started as early as the mid-20th century, and today their popularity has grown tremendously. The entertainment industry that produces them has grown in leaps and bounds.

Video games have both positive and negative effects on the consumers. This paper will focus on how exposure to violent video games can have major negative effects on children’s behavior in terms of education, aggressiveness, and creativity.

In recent times, the debates about aggressiveness in children due to exposure to video games have been on the rise. There is much violence in video games, and it is estimated that “over 85% of the games contain some violence and approximately half of the video games include serious violent actions” (Carnagey, Anderson and Bushman 489).

Most video games are rated E, meaning they can be sold to children of all ages starting from six years old. However, a close examination of these games shows that the parents consider them violent. This is detrimental to the youths because exposure to violence in video games has worse effects than those caused by abusive parents, coming from a broken home, or associating with antisocial peers.

Children who play violent video games have increased aggressive cognitions, aggressive behavior, psychological arousal as well as antisocial behavior. Furthermore, exposure to violence in the games leads to desensitization- “a reduction in emotion-related physiological reactivity to real violence” (Carnagey et al 490).

This means that when children are exposed to violence, they become used to it and may grow up thinking violence is the norm. For example, when children are shown a violent clip for the first time, they react with a lot of anxiety, but a second clip with similar content does not have the same effect because they have become immune to violence. This is dangerous because it lowers the children’s responsiveness to real violence.

In video games, children are exposed to violence in a positive manner, with exciting music and sounds and beautiful visual effects, which are used as rewards for violent actions in the game. This leads to reduced physiological arousal, for example, the heart rate. Eventually, desensitization occurs, and such children are less likely to notice violent acts or events or sympathize with victims of violence.

They also have a less negative attitude towards violence and generally believe the world is unsafe, which leads to the need for violence to protect oneself. Such children are less likely to seek for help in cases of violence because they have a decreased perception of injury. In addition, such children have increased aggression and are more likely to unleash violence toward other children at school.

Some children spend a considerable amount of time playing video games which impacts their school performance negatively. This is because they devote a lot of time to playing video games at the expense of schoolwork. This is especially true for children who have already had a problem with schoolwork

. They prefer to play video games instead of doing homework, especially if they keep failing. To enjoy a bit of success, they turn to video games where they can achieve victory. For example, for killing the villain in the game, they get rewarded with points, music, or sounds.

The negative effect on education is more evident among children who begin playing video games at a very young age.

These children become addicted to video games and thus ignore schoolwork. Video games also impact children’s education. Most of the time, they will be talking about their video game heroes instead of discussing useful things that might help them to improve their academics.

Some children can remember all the aspects of video games but can find it difficult to remember simple mathematical or science concepts taught in class. Some children will play video games for long periods and may fail to get enough sleep. This may lead to a lack of concentration in class the following day. Thus, they fail to grasp the content taught by teachers and jeopardize their educational growth.

The evidence is in lower grades in school exams and tests.

Still, some scholars argue that video games are good for children as they help to improve their cognitive and motor skills. This is because the “skills learned during game playing may be applied in instructional setting” (Vorderer and Bryant 336).

Video games have killed creativity in children. This is because children spend most of their time sitting in front of computers playing games. They engage in shooting, killing, and kidnapping instead of doing creative things that might help improve their cognitive skills.

They do not have an opportunity to engage with the environment or even play with their peers (Lakhanpal 1). This kind of environment allows the children to develop social skills, become inquisitive by asking questions regarding their surroundings, and learn about daily activities. On the contrary, “being glued to the video games all the time hinders this”(Lankhanpal 1).

At the same time, video games provide children with virtual worlds where they can practice skills such as leadership. These are the same skills necessary in real life. The children get a chance to learn the skills through taking roles. For instance, a child may take the part of a police officer in the game and learn a thing or two about being a police officer. This is because the games “mimic social structure” (Kiefabar 1).

Finally, it is the responsibility of parents to control how their children play video games. Too much exposure to the games has more negative effects than positive ones. Parents should therefore protect their children from the adverse effects of the games. Just as they would not allow their children to watch X-rated movies, they should also stop them from playing violent video games.

Carnage, Nicholas, Craig Anderson and Brad Bushman. “The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43 (2007): 489-496.

Kiefabar, Matt. Video Games. 2009. Web.

Lakhanpal, Bhardwaj Priyanka. Is addiction to video games killing creativity . 2010.

Vorderer, Peter and Bryant Jennings. Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences. New York: Routledge, 2006.

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