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Pro and Con: Violent Video Games

To access extended pro and con arguments, sources, and discussion questions about whether violent video games contribute to youth violence, go to ProCon.org .

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.

The debate over violent video games can be traced back to the 1976 release of the game Death Race. The object of the game was to run over screaming “gremlins” with a car, at which point they would turn into tombstones. Controversy erupted because the “gremlins” resembled stick-figure humans, and it was reported that the working title of the game was Pedestrian. After protestors dragged Death Race machines out of arcades and burned them in parking lots, production of the game ceased.

In 1993, public outcry following the release of violent video games Mortal Kombat and Night Trap prompted Congress to hold hearings on regulating the sale of video games. During the hearings, California Attorney General Dan Lungren testified that violent video games have “a desensitizing impact on young, impressionable minds.” Threatened with the creation of a federal regulatory commission, the video game industry voluntarily established the  Entertainment Software Rating Board  (ESRB) on Sep. 1, 1994 to create a ratings system. Based on the video game’s content, the ESRB assigns one of the following ratings: “Early Childhood,” “Everyone,” “Everyone 10+,” “Teen,” “Mature,” “Adults Only,” or “Rating Pending” (only for use in advertising for games not yet rated). In a Pew Research Center 2008 survey, 50% of boys and 14% of girls aged 12-17 listed a game with a “Mature” or “Adults Only” rating in their current top three favorite games.

An Aug. 2015 report from the American Psychological Association determined that playing violent video games is linked to increased aggression, but it did not find sufficient evidence of a link between the games and increased violence. The organization reaffirmed this position in 2020: “There is insufficient scientific evidence to support a causal link between violent video games and violent behavior… [T]he new task force report 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.” 

• Playing violent video games causes more aggression, bullying, and fighting.
• Simulating violence such as shooting guns and hand-to-hand combat in video games can cause real-life violent behavior.
• Many perpetrators of mass shootings played violent video games.
• Violent video games desensitize players to real-life violence.
• 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.
• Exposure to violent video games is linked to lower empathy and decreased kindness.
• Video games that portray violence against women lead to more harmful attitudes and sexually violent actions towards women.
• 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.
• The US military uses violent video games to train soldiers to kill.
• Studies have shown violent video games may cause aggression, not violence. Further, any competitive video game or activity may cause aggression.
• Violent video games are a convenient scapegoat for those who would rather not deal with the actual causes of violence in the US.
• Simple statistics do not support the claim that violent video games cause mass shootings or other violence.
• As sales of violent video games have significantly increased, violent juvenile crime rates have significantly decreased.
• Studies have shown that violent video games can have a positive effect on kindness, civic engagement, and prosocial behaviors.
• Many risk factors are associated with youth violence, but video games are not among them.
• Violent video game players know the difference between virtual violence in the context of a game and appropriate behavior in the real world.
• 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.
• Studies claiming a causal link between video game violence and real life violence are flawed.

This article was published on June 8, 2021, at Britannica’s ProCon.org , a nonpartisan issue-information source.

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.

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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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Do violent video games cause aggression? by Emily Russell 100065831.

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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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Kühn, S., Kugler, D., Schmalen, K. et al. Does playing violent video games cause aggression? A longitudinal intervention study. Mol Psychiatry 24 , 1220–1234 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-018-0031-7

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Do Video Games Influence Violent Behavior?

By:  Roanna Cooper, MA and Marc Zimmerman, PhD, MI-YVPC Director

An op-ed article appeared recently in the The New York Times  discussing the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down California’s law barring the sale or rental of violent video games to people under 18.  The author, Dr. Cheryl Olson,   describes how the proposed law was based on the erroneous assumption that such games influence violent behavior in real life.

Dr. Olson suggests that the deliberately outrageous nature of violent games, though disturbing, makes them easily discernible from real life and suggests that the interactivity could potentially make such games less harmful.

She raises the question of how these two behaviors can be linked if youth violence has declined over the last several years while violent video game playing has increased significantly during the same period.

This analysis ignores the fact that such variation may be explained by factors other than the link between the two. A spurious variable–a third variable that explains the relationship between two other variables—may explain the negative correlation of video game playing and violent behavior. As one example, socioeconomic status may explain both a decline in violent behavior and an increase in video game playing. More affluent youth have the means and time to buy and play video games, which keeps them safely inside while avoiding potentially violent interactions on the street.  Dr. Olsen also cites several studies that have failed to show a connection between violent video game playing and violent behavior among youth.

This conclusion, however, may not be as clear cut as it appears.

Youth violence remains a significant public health issue

The decline of youth violence notwithstanding, it remains a significant public health issue that requires attention.Youth homicide remains the number one cause of death for African-American youth between 14 and 24 years old, and the number two cause for all children in this age group. Furthermore, the proportion of youth admitting to having committed various violent acts within the previous 12 months has remained steady or even increased somewhat in recent years ( http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/108/5/1222.full.pdf+html ).  Although the Columbine tragedy and others like it make the headlines, youth are killed everyday by the hands of another.  A more critical analysis of the link between video game playing and violence is necessary for fully understanding a complex problem like youth violent behavior that has many causes and correlates.

Studies support a link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

Researchers have reported experimental evidence linking violent video games to more aggressive behavior, particularly as it relates to children who are at more sensitive stages in their socialization.  These effects have been found to be particularly profound in the case of child-initiated virtual violence.

• In one study, 161 9- to 12-year olds and 354 college students were randomly assigned to play either a violent or nonviolent video game.  The participants subsequently played another computer game in which they set punishment levels to be delivered to another person participating in the study (they were not actually administered).  Information was also gathered on each participant’s recent history of violent behavior; habitual video game, television, and move habits, and several other control variables.  The authors reported three main findings: 1) participants who played one of violent video games would choose to punish their opponents with significantly more high-noise blasts than those who played the nonviolent games; 2) habitual exposure to violent media was associated with higher levels of recent violent behavior; and 3) interactive forms of media violence were more strongly related to violent behavior than exposure to non-interactive media violence.
• The second study was a cross-sectional correlational study of media habits, aggression-related individual difference variables, and aggressive behaviors of an adolescent population.  High school students (N=189) completed surveys about their violent TV, movie, and video game exposure, attitudes towards violence, and perceived norms about violent behavior and personality traits.  After statistically controlling for sex, total screen time and aggressive beliefs and attitudes, the authors found that playing violent video games predicted heightened physically aggressive behavior and violent behavior in the real world in a long-term context.
• In a third study, Anderson et al. conducted a longitudinal study of elementary school students to examine if violent video game exposure resulted in increases in aggressive behavior over time.  Surveys were given to 430 third, fourth, and fifth graders, their peers, and their teachers at two times during a school year.  The survey assessed both media habits and their attitudes about violence.  Results indicated that children who played more violent video games early in a school year changed to see the world in a more aggressive way and also changed to become more verbally and physically aggressive later in the school year.  Changes in attitude were noticed by both peers and teachers.
• Bushman and Huesmann, in a 2006 Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine article , examined effect size estimates using meta-analysis to look at the short- and long-term effects of violent media on aggression in children and adults.  They reported a positive relationship between exposure to media violence and subsequent aggressive behavior, aggressive ideas, arousal, and anger across the studies they examined.  Consistent with the theory that long-term effects require the learning of beliefs and that young minds can easier encode new scripts via observational learning, they found that the long-term effects were greater for children.
• In a more recent review, Anderson et al. (2010) also analyzed 136 studies representing 130,296 participants from several countries.  These included experimental laboratory work, cross-sectional surveys and longitudinal studies.  Overall, they found consistent associations between playing violent video games and many measures of aggression, including self, teacher and parent reports of aggressive behavior.  Although the correlations were not high (r=0.17-0.20), they are typical for psychological studies in general and comparable with other risk factors for youth violence suggested in the 2001 Surgeon General’s Report on youth violence .

Violent video games may increase precursors to violent behavior, such as bullying

Although playing violent video games may not necessarily determine violent or aggressive behavior, it may increase precursors to violent behavior.  In fact, Dr. Olson points out that violent video games may be related to bullying, which researchers have found to be a risk factor for more serious violent behavior. Therefore, video game playing may have an indirect effect on violent behavior by increasing risk factors for it.  Doug Gentile notes that the only way for violent video games to affect serious criminal violence statistics is if they were the primary predictor of crime, which they may not be.  Rather, they represent one risk factor among many for aggression ( http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/12/virtual-violence.aspx ).

Should video games be regulated?

L. Rowell Huesmann (2010) points out that violent video game playing may be similar to other public health threats such as exposure to cigarette smoke and led based paint .  Despite not being guaranteed, the probability of lung cancer from smoking or intelligence deficits from lead exposure is increased.  Nevertheless, we have laws controlling cigarette sales to minors and the use of lead-based paint (and other lead-based products such as gasoline) because it is a risk factor for negative health outcomes.  Huesmann argues the same analysis could be applied to video game exposure.  Although exposure to violent video games is not the sole factor contributing to aggression and violence among children and adolescents, it is a contributing risk factor that is modifiable.

Violent behavior is determined by many factors

Finally, most researchers would agree that violent behavior is determined by many factors which may combine in different ways for different youth. These factors involve neighborhoods, families, peers, and individual traits and behaviors. Researchers, for example, have found that living in a violent neighborhood and experiencing violence as a victim or witness is associated with an increased risk for violent behavior among youth. Yet, this factor alone may not cause one to be violent and most people living in such a neighborhood do not become violent perpetrators. Similarly, researchers have found consistently that exposure to family violence (e.g., spousal and child abuse, fighting and conflict) increases the risk for youth violent behavior, but does not necessarily result in violent children. Likewise, researchers have found that first person killing video game playing is associated with increased risk for violent behavior, but not all the time. Yet, constant exposure to violence from multiple sources, including first person violent video games, in the absence of positive factors that help to buffer these negative exposures is likely to increase the probability that youth will engage in violent behavior.

Despite disagreements on the exact nature of the relationship between violent video game playing and violent or aggressive behavior, significant evidence exists linking video game playing with violent behavior and its correlates.  Although we are somewhat agnostic about the role of social controls like laws banning the sale of violent video games to minors, an argument against such social controls based on the conclusion  that the video games have no effect seems to oversimplify the issue. A more in-depth and critical analysis of the issue from multiple perspectives may both help more completely understand the causes and correlates of youth violence, and provide us with some direction for creative solutions to this persistent social problem.

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Violence in Video Games - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Violence in Video Games

Today, violent video games are incredibly realistic, ... games include gears of war, the resident evil series, and grand theft auto (all of which i love) ... – powerpoint ppt presentation.

• Do violent video games really cause aggressive behavior?
• Violent video games have been around since the early 1990s.
• These so called graphic games included Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Wolfenstein 3D.
• While today these games seem unrealistic, back then they created quite a controversy.
• Today, violent video games are incredibly realistic, depicting realistic violence, blood, gore, as well as mature sexual themes to name a few.
• Theses games include Gears of War, the Resident Evil series, and Grand Theft Auto (all of which I love).
• Many studies have been done to determine if violent games increase aggressiveness.
• A study was done by Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Buschman of Iowa State University.
• These two wanted to show what triggers aggression and specifically how video games cause aggression in people.
• They created a simple aggression model called GAM (General Aggression Model) and related it to the violence in games.
• Their model basically stated that there has to be repeated exposure to a certain violent game. The player is reinforced with the ideas and content of the game and has now learned how the virtual killings are achieved. After much play time, these ideas are reinforced in the players mind making him/her desensitized to them. This then leads the person to think that violence, like that in the game, is now okay.
• William G. Kronenberger of the Indiana University School of Medicine conducted an experiment.
• His experiment was to test teenagers and young kids with or without an aggressive disorder.
• His results showed that those kids with an aggressive disorder who played less violent video games had just as much of an increase in aggression as the kids without an aggressive disorder who played more violent games.
• Parental discretion plays a major part in this aggressive behavior.
• ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) created to rate games based on content.
• Kids in grades 8-12 reported that about 90 of their parents did not even check the ratings before they or their kids purchased them.
• Parents need to take control and watch what their kids play.
• Are there positive effects of playing a regular amount of games.YOU BET!
• A study done by MSNBC showed that people who play a regular amount of video game, violent or otherwise, have increased problem solving skills that are applicable to daily life.
• These gamers are also more careful risk takers.
• So Mom and Dad.games are not all bad!
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vd5euCbi4SGM

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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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Violent video games and young people

Experts are divided about the potential harm, but agree on some steps parents can take to protect children..

Blood and gore. Intense violence. Strong sexual content. Use of drugs. These are just a few of the phrases that the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) uses to describe the content of several games in the Grand Theft Auto series, one of the most popular video game series among teenagers. The Pew Research Center reported in 2008 that 97% of youths ages 12 to 17 played some type of video game, and that two-thirds of them played action and adventure games that tend to contain violent content. (Other research suggests that boys are more likely to use violent video games, and play them more frequently, than girls.) A separate analysis found that more than half of all video games rated by the ESRB contained violence, including more than 90% of those rated as appropriate for children 10 years or older.

Given how common these games are, it is small wonder that mental health clinicians often find themselves fielding questions from parents who are worried about the impact of violent video games on their children.

The view endorsed by organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is that exposure to violent media (including video games) can contribute to real-life violent behavior and harm children in other ways. But other researchers have questioned the validity or applicability of much of the research supporting this view. They argue that most youths are not affected by violent video games. What both sides of this debate agree on is that it is possible for parents to take steps that limit the possible negative effects of video games.

In its most recent policy statement on media violence, which includes discussion of video games as well as television, movies, and music, the AAP cites studies that link exposure to violence in the media with aggression and violent behavior in youths. The AAP policy describes violent video games as one of many influences on behavior, noting that many children's television shows and movies also contain violent scenes. But the authors believe that video games are particularly harmful because they are interactive and encourage role-playing. As such, the authors fear that these games may serve as virtual rehearsals for actual violence.

Both the AAP and AACAP reason that children learn by observing, mimicking, and adopting behaviors — a basic principle of social learning theory. These organizations express concern that exposure to aggressive behavior or violence in video games and other media may, over time, desensitize youths by numbing them emotionally, cause nightmares and sleep problems, impair school performance, and lead to aggressive behavior and bullying.

A 2001 report of the U.S. Surgeon General on the topic of youth violence made a similar judgment. Some meta-analyses of the literature — reviewing psychological research studies and large observational studies — have found an association between violent video games and increased aggressive thinking and behavior in youths. And some casual observers go further, assuming that tragic school shootings prove a link between such games and real-world aggression.

A more nuanced view

In recent years, however, other researchers have challenged the popular view that violent video games are harmful. Several of them contributed papers to a special issue of the Review of General Psychology , published in June 2010 by the American Psychological Association.

In one paper, Dr. Christopher Ferguson, a psychology professor at Texas A&M International University, argued that many studies on the issue of media violence rely on measures to assess aggression that don't correlate with real-world violence — and even more important, many are observational approaches that don't prove cause and effect. He also cited data from federal criminal justice agencies showing that serious violent crimes among youths have decreased since 1996, even as video game sales have soared.

Other researchers have challenged the association between violent video game use and school shootings, noting that most of the young perpetrators had personality traits, such as anger, psychosis, and aggression, that were apparent before the shootings and predisposed them to violence. These factors make it more difficult to accept the playing of violent games as an independent risk factor. A comprehensive report of targeted school violence commissioned by the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Education concluded that more than half of attackers demonstrated interest in violent media, including books, movies, or video games. However, the report cautioned that no particular behavior, including interest in violence, could be used to produce a "profile" of a likely shooter.

The U.S. Department of Justice has funded research at the Center for Mental Health and Media at Massachusetts General Hospital to better determine what impact video games have on young people. Although it is still in the preliminary stages, this research and several other studies suggest that a subset of youths may become more aggressive after playing violent video games. However, in the vast majority of cases, use of violent video games may be part of normal development, especially in boys — and a legitimate source of fun too. Given the likelihood of individual variability, it may be useful to consider the impact of video games within three broad domains: personality, situation, and motivation.

Personality. Two psychologists, Dr. Patrick Markey of Villanova University and Dr. Charlotte Markey of Rutgers University, have presented evidence that some children may become more aggressive as a result of watching and playing violent video games, but that most are not affected. After reviewing the research, they concluded that the combination of three personality traits might be most likely to make an individual act and think aggressively after playing a violent video game. The three traits they identified were high neuroticism (prone to anger and depression, highly emotional, and easily upset), disagreeableness (cold, indifferent to other people), and low levels of conscientiousness (prone to acting without thinking, failing to deliver on promises, breaking rules).

Situation. Dr. Cheryl Olson, cofounder of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Mental Health and Media, led a study of 1,254 students in public schools (most were ages 12 to 14) in South Carolina and Pennsylvania. The researchers found that certain situations increased exposure to violent video games — such as locating game consoles and computers in children's bedrooms, and allowing older siblings to share games with younger ones. In this study, children who played video games often with older siblings were twice as likely as other children to play mature-rated games (considered suitable for ages 17 and older).

Motivation. In a three-year study, a team led by Dr. Mizuko Ito, a cultural anthropologist at the University of California, Irvine, both interviewed and observed the online behavior of 800 youths. The researchers concluded that video game play and other online activities have become so ubiquitous among young people that they have altered how young people socialize and learn.

Although adults tend to view video games as isolating and antisocial, other studies found that most young respondents described the games as fun, exciting, something to counter boredom, and something to do with friends. For many youths, violent content is not the main draw. Boys in particular are motivated to play video games in order to compete and win. Seen in this context, use of violent video games may be similar to the type of rough-housing play that boys engage in as part of normal development. Video games offer one more outlet for the competition for status or to establish a pecking order.

What parents can do

Parents can protect their children from potential harm from video games by following a few commonsense strategies — particularly if they are concerned that their children might be vulnerable to the effects of violent content. These simple precautions may help:

Check the ESRB rating to better understand what type of content a video game has.

Play video games with children to better understand the content, and how children react.

Place video consoles and computers in common areas of the home, rather than in children's bedrooms.

Set limits on the amount of time youths can play these games. The AAP recommends two hours or less of total screen time per day, including television, computers, and video games.

Encourage participation in sports or school activities in which youths can interact with peers in person rather than online.

Video games share much in common with other pursuits that are enjoyable and rewarding, but may become hazardous in certain contexts. Parents can best protect their children by remaining engaged with them and providing limits and guidance as necessary.

American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Children and Video Games: Playing with Violence (Facts for Families, updated Aug. 2006).

American Academy of Pediatrics. "Policy Statement — Media Violence," Pediatrics (Nov. 2009): Vol. 124, No. 5, pp. 1495–503.

Anderson CA, et al. "Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review," Psychological Bulletin (March 2010): Vol. 136, No. 2, pp. 151–73.

Ferguson CJ. "Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can Violent Video Games Be a Force for Good?" Review of General Psychology (June 2010): Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 68–81.

Ito M, et al. Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project (The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 2008).

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Olson CK, et al. "Factors Correlated with Violent Video Game Use by Adolescent Boys and Girls," Journal of Adolescent Health (July 2007): Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 77–83.

For more references, please see /mentalextra .

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Violent Video Games and Aggression: The Connection Is Dubious, at Best

• Childhood Development
• Perspectives on Psychological Science
• Video Games

Summary: If you are worried about violent video games triggering aggressive behavior in children, new research may help to alleviate your concerns.

The coronavirus pandemic put a damper on many traditional summertime activities for kids, like trips to the pool and youth camps. This gave more opportunity for children to socialize with friends virtually through online gaming. But many hours of extra screen time may have worried parents, especially in light of a highly publicized 2015 report by the American Psychological Association (APA) linking violent video games with aggressive behavior in children.

However, a recent reanalysis of these findings published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science came to a very different conclusion, finding no clear link between video game violence and aggression in children. Both the 2015 and the 2020 studies were meta-analyses, statistical methods of finding significant patterns in a large group of independent studies.

“Our new meta-analysis found that the evidence base was not sufficient to make the conclusions outlined in the 2015 report,” said Christopher J. Ferguson, lead author on the new paper and a professor of psychology at Stetson University. “We found that violent video games do not appear to be linked to aggression.”

When Ferguson and his colleagues reexamined the data used in the earlier meta-analysis, they found that it did not include most of the existing studies of video games and violence and failed to take quality issues into consideration.

“Studies that are well designed, such as those using standardized and well-validated aggression measures, almost never find evidence for negative, violent effects,” said Ferguson. “Our new meta-analysis also illustrates the need to focus on well-designed studies when researching the impact of violent media.”

“Games are now more important than ever for socialization, feeling autonomy and control during an uncertain time, and just de-stressing,” said Ferguson.

Additional research on the potential connection between video games and violent behavior is featured in the APS Research Topic Video Games and Violence .

Reference : Ferguson, C. J., Coperhaver, A., & Marley, P. (2020). Reexamining the Findings of the American Psychological Association’s 2015 Task Force on Violent Media: A meta-analysis. Perspectives on Psychological Science . Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620927666

Perspectives on Psychological Science  is a bimonthly journal publishing an eclectic mix of provocative reports and articles, including broad integrative reviews, overviews of research programs, meta-analyses, theoretical statements, and articles on topics such as the philosophy of science, opinion pieces about major issues in the field, autobiographical reflections of senior members of the field, and even occasional humorous essays and sketches.

APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines .

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Vaccinating Against Bunk: Curbing Viral Misinformation

Online games and nudges aim to curb viral misinformation around vaccines and more.

Technology in Context: The Surprising Social Upsides of Constant Connectivity

The very same technologies that make social distancing bearable in the age of COVID-19 have also been cited among leading causes of social isolation and mental health issues. Psychological research suggests a more nuanced reality.

Games Can Be Good – When You Play for the Right Reasons

The effects of playing video games on well-being seem to depend largely on why and how an individual chooses to partake.

Privacy Overview

Violent Video Games and Aggression

A discussion based on the main theoretical frameworks

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 23 November 2022
• Cite this living reference work entry

• H. Andaç Demirtaş-Madran 4  

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Whether or not exposure to violent media is a risk factor for aggressive behavior has been the subject of numerous studies over many years. Research, which was mostly focused on the effects of television during the first decades, started to shift its focus in the 1980s to video games. The interactive and rewarding nature of video gaming and the active role it imposes on players not only facilitates the comprehension of educational content, but also accelerates the modeling and reinforcement of negative orientations. Studies have generally shown that violent video games can trigger harmful effects in physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral terms. This chapter presents an overview of current findings from experiments, longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, meta-analyses, and conclusions based on the main theoretical frameworks. Initially, a comparison of the effects of violent video games and violent television is presented. Then, research findings concerning the effects of violent video game and theoretical explanations of the underlying processes are reviewed in detail. This is followed by a summary of research findings concerning the effect of violent video games on aggressive tendencies in accordance with the main theoretical frameworks and ongoing academic conflicts based on disagreements in method, tool, sampling, and statistical dimensions. Finally, a comprehensive discussion is presented along with various recommendations.

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Violent Video Games Do Contribute to Aggression

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

Abbreviations.

Violent video games

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Demirtaş-Madran, H.A. (2022). Violent Video Games and Aggression. In: Martin, C., Preedy, V.R., Patel, V.B. (eds) Handbook of Anger, Aggression, and Violence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98711-4_21-1

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APA Reaffirms Position on Violent Video Games and Violent Behavior

• Physical Abuse and Violence
• Video Games

Cautions against oversimplification of complex issue

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.

Kim I. Mills

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DO VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES

Apr 04, 2019

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DO VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES. AFFECT KIDS. BEHAVIOR AND GRADES?. By: Braden Bush. History.

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DO VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES AFFECT KIDS BEHAVIOR AND GRADES? By: Braden Bush

History • Video games have been around for the last 30 years. There have been several changes made to video games over those last 30 years as well as to the type of game systems they are played on. Video games and their systems are now high calibre with 3D graphics and are very interactive with the players. They are a way to allow the player to become part of the game. They also require more attention of the player then watching a movie does.

Negative Affects of Video Games • Games that include graphic violence, sexual themes, consumption of illegal drugs and profanity can cause addiction and violent behaviors. • Teaches kids weapon related skills • Causes kids to be less caring and helpful to others and their peers. • Causes kids to become more hostile • Causes kids to argue and fight more • Health problems such as obesity and posture. • Increase depression levels and levels of anxiety along with impulsive behaviors and attention problems.

Negative Affects of Video Games • Violent video games have more of a negative affect then TV violence because of the repeated acts of violence. • Intensifies the learning of bad behaviors • Makes teens more aggressive and causes them to get into confrontations with their teachers, engage in more fights and have a decline in school work. • Teach kids the wrong values such as violent behaviors. • Confuse kids on what is reality and what is fantasy. • Lead to aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

Berkeley University Research Information on Violent Video Games BAD GRADES Bad Behaviors Boys with lower academic levels tend to prefer more violent games then boys with higher or medium level of academics do. The boys with lower level academics also had a higher perception of the games being “real” and identified more with the characters of the game. These boys were also more likely to seek out thrills and bad behaviors. They also believe that aggression is an effective way of solving conflicts and getting what they want in life.

My thoughts on Video Games I play many types of video games, mostly violent ones and I feel that aggressive kids tend to choose violent video games more then the video games making the kids aggressive. However that is not always the case as I play video games to have fun and to talk to my friends online. I think of it as an escape from day to day activities. I also feel like video games have positive affects on kids that parents don’t always think of.

Positive Affects of Video Games • Improves dexterity. • Teaches computer literacy. • Build muscle through the powerful combination of concentration. • Teach multitasking by shifting variables and managing multiple objects. • Teach quick thinking and ability to make fast decisions.

Positive Affects of Video Games • Battle games can train players for real life situations. • Provide opportunities for achievement. • Allows players to have freedom and connect to other players. • Teaches Accuracy, Strategy, Situational awareness, Memory, Concentration, Reasoned judgments, Teamwork and how to respond to challenges and frustrations.

Teenagers Opinion on Video games and their parents. Teens state that their parents do not monitor the amount of time they spend playing video games and that most of their parents are unaware of the content of the games their kids play.

My Parents opinion on Video Games My mother feels that violent video games make kids more aggressive and that they lead to bad behavior and cause me to get bad grades in school. She says that I spend to much time playing them and is always telling me I need to take a break from them when I get to involved in a game.

Tips for Parents • Discuss the games with their children and explain how the violence in the game is portrayed different then how it occurs in the real world. • Monitor and control the effects that violent video games have on your kids. • Know the ratings of the games your kids play. • Do not allow game systems in bedrooms. • Set limits on how long the games are allowed to be played. • Supervise kids online game play. • Discuss with your kids how they feel about the things that occurred in the game.

Video Game Ratings

SOURCES http://ndri.com/article/cause_and_impact_of_video_games_addiction_-211.html This is a reliable source from Dr. Anderson and his colleagues. http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/do_bad_grades_violent_video_games_violent_kids This is a reliable source from researches from Ohio State University and the University of Amsterdam. http://www.pamf.org/preteen/parents/videogames.html This site is reliable as it is posted on a Medical foundation website. http://www.raisesmartkid.com/3-to-6-years-old/4-articles/34-the-good-and-bad-effects-of-video-games An education site and references material from different University’s Psychology departments along with eferencesfrom some Psychotherapis.

PHOTO IMAGE SOURCES http://www.joystickdivision.com/2011/01/video_game_consoles_get_really.php http://www.ign.com/articles/2009/02/23/race-pro-review http://gamesdbase.com/game/sega-genesis/road-blasters.aspx http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/12309/article/black-ops-2-revolution-dlc-gameplay-footage-shoots-out/ http://mp1st.com/2013/01/09/far-cry-3-multiplayer-review/ http://news.discovery.com/human/life/this-is-your-brain-on-video-games-infographic.htm

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