research regarding video game violence suggests that

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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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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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Violent video games: content, attitudes, and norms

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• Published: 16 October 2023
• Volume 25 , article number  52 , ( 2023 )

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• Alexander Andersson   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4911-3853 1 &
• Per-Erik Milam 1  

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Violent video games (VVGs) are a source of serious and continuing controversy. They are not unique in this respect, though. Other entertainment products have been criticized on moral grounds, from pornography to heavy metal, horror films, and Harry Potter books. Some of these controversies have fizzled out over time and have come to be viewed as cases of moral panic. Others, including moral objections to VVGs, have persisted. The aim of this paper is to determine which, if any, of the concerns raised about VVGs are legitimate. We argue that common moral objections to VVGs are unsuccessful, but that a plausible critique can be developed that captures the insights of these objections while avoiding their pitfalls. Our view suggests that the moral badness of a game depends on how well its internal logic expresses or encourages the players’ objectionable attitudes. This allows us to recognize that some games are morally worse than others—and that it can be morally wrong to design and play some VVGs—but that the moral badness of these games is not necessarily dependent on how violent they are.

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Introduction

Violent video games (VVGs) are a source of serious and continuing controversy. They are not unique in this respect, though. Other entertainment products have been criticized on moral grounds, from pornography to heavy metal, horror films, and Harry Potter books. Some of these controversies have fizzled out over time and have come to be viewed as cases of moral panic. Footnote 1  Others, including moral objections to VVGs, have persisted. The aim of this paper is to determine which, if any, of the concerns raised about VVGs are legitimate.

Moral objections to VVGs have three main components, which can be understood as answers to the following three questions:

Moral Question: Why are VVGs morally bad or wrong?

Comparison Question: Why are they worse than other forms of violent entertainment?

Regulation Question: What should be done about them?

For example, one might argue that VVGs desensitize players to violence thereby making them more likely to act violently themselves, that VVGs do this more effectively than violent films or books, and that VVGs should therefore be prohibited or strongly regulated.

In this paper, we evaluate the most common answers to the moral and comparison questions, but set aside the regulation question. Not only does regulation raise a number of other ethical considerations—including free speech, paternalism, and policy design and enforcement—it also requires that we first understand the comparative badness of VVGs.

The paper is structured as follows. Section “ Background and preliminaries ” gives a brief overview of the controversies surrounding VVGs and explains how we will structure and focus our evaluation. Section “ The causation argument ” considers the claim that it is wrong to design and play VVGs in virtue of their bad consequences and concludes that the empirical evidence that playing VVGs causes bad outcomes is inconclusive, and that even if we grant that they have bad effects, VVGs are not distinctively bad in this respect. Section “ The violence argument ” considers the claim that VVGs are bad in virtue of features like realism that are independent of their consequences, but we conclude that existing accounts of these features fail to adequately explain why some VVGs should be considered morally objectionable. Having rejected these accounts of the comparative badness of VVGs, Sect. “ The internal logic of violent video games ” offers an alternative explanation.

Background and preliminaries

There is a history of blaming VVGs for violent acts such as school shootings, mass shootings, and murder in the United States. Footnote 2 Games such as Mortal Kombat, Doom , and Manhunt have all caused controversy in the past. They depict gory, brutal, and gratuitous violence as entertainment. For the uninitiated it may be inexplicable why anyone would enjoy what is happening on screen. Hence, the popular sentiment seems to be that there must be something morally bad about these games.

Since VVGs have been picked out as especially bad, we want to investigate whether it is justified to single them out for criticism. We will argue that most, but not all, common criticisms of VVGs are unjustified. Moreover, any justified criticism will also apply to other forms of entertainment. Thus, for any particular VVG, we must conclude either that it is morally permissible to design and play it or that it is morally wrong to create and consume other relevantly similar entertainment products. Which conclusion is warranted will depend on the details of the case.

However, there are multiple ongoing debates about the comparative badness of VVGs, so, before making any substantive claims, let us first explain how we will structure and focus our investigation.

Targets . While concerns about VVGs appear to be about the video games themselves, games are not natural evils like an earthquake or a volcanic eruption. They are designed and played—not to mentioned commissioned and distributed—by moral agents. We therefore focus on the two most plausible targets of these criticisms: players and developers. Insofar as a game is criticized on moral grounds, we take this to be a criticism either of those who created its content or those who created the particular instances of violence by playing the game. Some may object that critics should direct their objections and blame at the companies that commission the games and the governments that fail to regulate them properly. Maybe so. But such criticisms presuppose that there is something objectionable about the games themselves or about playing them.

Topics . Even limiting our attention to developers and players leaves many issues to consider. Multiplayer online gaming has given rise to concerns about toxic environments and interactions, which may be influenced by the violent content of many of these games. This is a serious problem and one where reforms are possible and can make a real difference to the well-being and experience of gamers, but we will not address it here. Nor will we consider the moral status of violent assault on another player’s avatar—e.g. robbing them for items, killing them out of spite, or ‘griefing’ them. These kinds of behaviors also deserve attention, but they introduce potentially confounding variables into an analysis because they involve moral agents who can be harmed through the treatment of their avatars. We therefore limit our focus to single-player VVGs Footnote 3 —i.e., video games that include violence or violent themes—including those singled out in debates about the ethics of VVGs, like Doom, Grand Theft Auto V, Last of Us II.

It should also be noted that while we use the term “VVG” to denote a specific category of games, what we are essentially interested in is moral agency in games in general. However, since most discussions relating to this topic focuses on violence and VVGs, that is where our main focus will be as well. Having restricted our task in these ways, let us now consider why it might be morally wrong to develop or play VVGs.

The causation argument

Probably the most common objection to VVGs is that they have (or risk) bad effects. According to the Causation Argument, video game violence is morally bad because it causes players to be more aggressive and violent, which is bad both for the players themselves and for those who are therefore more likely to be victims of their aggression and violence (e.g. classmates, family members, coworkers). This claim—that VVGs influence players’ behavior outside of the game—is sometimes called the ‘contamination thesis’ (Goerger, 2017 : p. 97). Peter Singer puts the point succinctly: “The risks are great and outweigh whatever benefits violent video games may have. The evidence may not be conclusive, but it is too strong to be ignored any longer” (Singer, 2007 ).

Because this moral argument relies on empirical premises, it is important to spell out what would constitute a strong empirical case against VVGs. We identify four criteria:

The violent content of VVGs must cause the bad effects.

The bad effects must be worse than other tolerable forms of violent entertainment.

The bad effects must counterbalance whatever good effects these games have.

There must be sufficient consensus among researchers about (i), (ii), and (iii). Footnote 4

Let us be clear about these requirements. One need not show that VVGs are entirely, or even overall, bad in order to condemn them on moral grounds. Societies rightly criticize and regulate many products that are overall bad even while acknowledging that they are good in some respects (e.g. cigarettes). Societies sometimes even criticize products that are good overall on the grounds that they should be better (e.g. unsafe cars or energy inefficient appliances). Insofar as the Causation Argument is concerned with the effects of VVGs, our suggestion is simply that we think like consequentialists when assessing them. We should be concerned with all the effects and with everyone who is affected; we should be concerned with the magnitudes of the effects, their likelihood , and our confidence in the empirical evidence of their risks and consequences; and we should assess these effects relative to all available alternatives .

We can start with the empirical case against VVGs. The large empirical literature suggests four ways that players might be affected. First, players may become more aggressive after playing VVGs (Anderson et al., 2010 ; Lin, 2013 ; Kepes et al., 2017 ; Farrar et al., 2017 ; Shao & Wang, 2019 ). Measures of aggression range from self-reports of engaging in aggressive behavior to indictors like “how long a participant blows an air horn at an opponent after playing a violent game” (Goerger, 2017 : p. 98). Second, VVGs may desensitize players to violence (Deselms & Altman, 2003 ; Funk et al., 2004 ; Carnagey et al., 2007 ; Bushman & Anderson, 2009 ; Engelhardt et al., 2011 ). Desensitization is also measured in different ways, including how long it takes for participants to help others in (simulated) need or how lenient a sentence they give an imagined criminal. Third, it has been suggested that VVGs train players how to kill (Grossman & DeGaetano, 1999 ; Leonard, 2007 ; Bushman, 2018 ). For instance, Bushman showed that players firing a real gun at a human-shaped mannequin were more likely to aim at the mannequin’s head after having played a violent first-person shooter (FPS) game. Footnote 5 Fourth, Wonderly and others suggest that playing VVGs, especially given their increasingly realistic depictions of violence, may diminish one’s capacity for empathy (Wonderly, 2008 ; Funk et al., 2004 ; Bartholow et al., 2005 ). If any of these four causal hypotheses is correct, then condition (i) would seem to be satisfied.

However, there is significant disagreement about these findings and their significance. First, none of the existing research claims that playing VVGs has directly caused anyone to commit actual acts of violence in the real world. This is not surprising, but it is a notable point of contrast with other products and behaviors that we might wish to regulate or ban (e.g. dangerous toys or incitements to violence). Second, there is disagreement about how to interpret the results of the studies cited above. Some have questioned the practical significance of increased aggressive behavior measured in a lab environment (Ferguson and Kilburn 2010 ; Goerger, 2017 ; Hall et al., 2011 ). Others have argued that the field suffers from a publication bias that favors finding an effect of VVGs on aggression (Ferguson, 2007 ; Ferguson & Kilburn, 2009 ; Hilgard et al., 2017 ). Footnote 6 Third, and perhaps most interesting, some have argued that it is the form of a game, rather than its content, that causes aggression. One study suggests that playing games that thwart a player’s fundamental need for competence led to increased aggression (Przybylski et al., 2014 ). Another showed that competition rather than violence causes aggression (Dowsett & Jackson, 2019 ). These studies suggest that features other than violence are of equal or greater concern. Thus, while there is provocative evidence about the bad effects of playing VVGs, there is insufficient scientific consensus. Footnote 7

Suppose that empirical studies had decisively demonstrated that VVGs cause increased aggression and violence. Do we have reason to believe that the bad effects of VVGs are worse than the bad effects of other violent entertainment that we presently tolerate? Some research suggests that VVGs cause more aggressive behavior than watching violent movies or violent gameplay because they are interactive (Lin, 2013 ). However, Lin points out that, “very little prior research has directly addressed the issue of media interactivity with regard to violent effects” ( 2013 : p. 535). Thus, while there is some support for condition (ii), there is far too little evidence to reasonably conclude that VVGs have worse effects than other violent entertainment (e.g. movies, television, books, or board games).

Even if the evidence supporting the Causation Argument satisfied conditions (i) and (ii), we could not yet condemn VVGs. We must also consider the benefits of playing these games. Studies suggest that some non-violent games enhance prosocial behavior among gamers (Sestir & Bartholow, 2010 ), that cooperative games decrease aggression (Gentile et al., 2009 ; Schmierbach, 2010 ), and that video games strengthen our ability to engage in ethical decision making (Madigan, 2016 ). We should be as critical of these studies as we are of those that condemn VVGs, but our point is simply that potential harms should be weighed against potential benefits. One compelling point in favor of VVGs is their incredible popularity. While it is difficult to find concrete and specific information, the following data give a rough picture of gamers’ revealed preferences: as of 2019 more than 2.5 billion people play video games, the average gamer plays more than 6 h per week, roughly half of that play is on consoles and computers (the rest is on tablets or phones), 9% of games are rated M for Mature (the category that contains most controversial VVGs), but those games are among the most popular in terms of sales. For example, Grand Theft Auto V is the third highest selling video game, and the highest grossing entertainment product, of all time (Narula, 2019 ; Limelight, 2020 ). Another compelling point is the suggestion that VVGs, like all games, are experiments in agency. For designers they are an art form whose medium is the agency of the player. And for players they are an opportunity to experiment with the alternative forms of agency created by designers (Nguyen, 2019 : p. 423).

The strength of the Causation Argument depends on various empirical claims. We have shown that none of the relevant claims has been established to a sufficient level of confidence. Furthermore, even if they had been, an outcome-focused argument must assess VVGs in the same light as other risky phenomena and it is not obvious why we should view VVGs as overall worse than many products and activities we accept (or tolerate). Nonetheless, if VVGs are harmful to the players, even relatively weak empirical evidence might be sufficient to ground a moral imperative to develop and play non-violent games rather than VVGs.

The violence argument

Perhaps it is not the effects of VVGs that make them morally objectionable but rather some feature of the games themselves. A second kind of argument, call it the Violence Argument, pursues this line of thought, arguing that VVGs are bad because they represent violence for the purpose of entertainment and that it is therefore (at least pro tanto ) wrong to develop and play such games. Footnote 8

Of course, many types of media represent violence, whether for educational purposes (e.g. non-fiction and journalism) or for entertainment (e.g. poetry, novels, comics, film, and television). Thus, if we are justified in appreciating or tolerating violence in these genres, then the Violence Argument must show that the ways VVGs represent violence are distinctively bad. The most common suggestions are that they are distinctively bad because they are much more realistic, interactive, and immersive.

The depiction of violence in video games has become more realistic as technology has improved. While Mortal Kombat and Doom’s 16-bit violence provoked American parents in the 1990s, they could scarcely have imagined the high-fidelity violence of games such as The Last of Us II. Nothing is left to the imagination as headshots leave a spray of blood and brains, heads are smashed to pieces with baseball bats, all while the victims plead for mercy or shriek in agony. These kinds of advances led Waddington to worry that, as video game violence becomes more realistic, it will be increasingly difficult to differentiate real from simulated transgressions ( 2007 : p. 127).

However, in order to support the Violence Argument, it must be the case that VVGs represent violence in a way that is more realistic than other media and that more realistic representations of violence are morally worse than less realistic representations.

On the first point, video game violence does not seem more realistic than violence in other media. Consider two related forms of realism: content realism and context realism. Footnote 9 A representation is content realistic to the degree that it depicts what would happen in real life. For example, a game might accurately depict how bones break or what happens when a bullet strikes a torso. In this respect, VVGs can be surprisingly realistic, but less so than many films (e.g., Saving Private Ryan ) and much less so than many real videos that people watch for amusement (e.g., the watermelon catapult). Moreover, their content realism is mostly limited to the visual modality. A written representation of violence might have similar content realism, but no visual component (outside of imagination). A representation is context realistic to the degree that it represents a situation that could plausibly occur. This is somewhat relative. A war setting is surely more realistic than, say, battling demons on another planet, but is World War II a realistic context for a millennial gamer? Here too, most VVGs seem less realistic than other media, which often depict disturbing forms of violence for dramatic purposes (e.g., intimate partner violence or police brutality).

On the second point, representing violence may sometimes be worse if it is more realistic—even ignoring any harmful effects on the player like stress or nightmares. Some realistic contexts seem obviously morally worse than others. Public reactions to games seem to match this intuition, as when many objected to The Slaying of Sandy Hook , whose setting was the location of a tragic school shooting. However, this worry does not necessarily transfer to those VVGs that are common targets of criticism, like the Grand Theft Auto series.

The game (GTA) not only depicts drug and gang related violence, but it presents that violence in a largely consequence free environment. Further, this crime is ‘real’ in the sense that similar crimes and criminal enterprises currently control broad swaths of metropolitan areas like Los Angeles … Players are, essentially, being entertained by the misery of others and are thus disrespecting the object of value (Goerger, 2017 : p. 102).

While there is plenty to criticize about GTA , Georger’s comments are mistaken. First, he seriously misrepresents (or misunderstands) the degree to which GTA accurately depicts the level of crime in metropolitan areas like Los Angeles. There are no “broad swaths” of American cities that are controlled by criminal enterprises. Second, while such games do make light of real violence, these representations are neither more realistic nor more violent than many films and television series. Thus, even if we accept that representing violence can be morally bad, it is not the case that most VVGs, including common targets of criticism, are worse in this respect than other tolerated forms of media.

Interaction

Another salient feature of VVGs is that they are interactive in a way that some other media are not. While a movie audience may hope that Woody Harrelson decides to stop at a supermarket and kill some zombies in order to get a Twinkie, a player of Redneck Rampage can make that happen. The player’s experience is interactive insofar as their actions, “make a significant difference to what happens in the environment” (Chalmers, 2017 : p. 312). Some therefore press a version of the Violence Argument according to which being a passive consumer of violent films or books is less bad than “performing” violent acts in a video game (Tillson, 2018 ). Footnote 10

Our view is that violent interaction itself, ignoring the realism and immersive experience of the interaction, is not morally bad. Moreover, even if it were, it would not be worse than other forms of entertainment. A writer interacts with her fictional characters with a similar degree of agency as a gamer does with the non-playable characters (NPCs) she encounters. The writer’s interaction is unrealistically one-sided, but she can nonetheless choose to kill them off and to do so in a brutal fashion [e.g., (redacted to avoid spoilers)]. This does not seem bad at all. Or consider games of make-believe. Kids playing war with toy guns is just as interactive as video gaming. In order for there to be a war, the kids must perform some actions, just as a player must control her avatar in order for there to be in-game violence. Traditional roleplaying games and board games—whose content can be just as violent as VVGs—requires a similar degree of interaction. In order to claim that VVGs are worse than other violent entertainment, one would have to show that video game interactions are different in kind from the forms of make-believe involved in writing fiction, roleplaying, and other violent entertainment. If anything, the fact that enemies are programmed and that experience is mediated by controllers and other devices would seem to make video games less interactive than your average game of Cops and Robbers or Dungeons and Dragons. We therefore conclude that VVGs are not worse than other violent entertainment in virtue of being interactive.

Finally, VVGs might seem morally bad, and worse than other media, because players can more easily become immersed in the violence of the game. This is bad because, regardless of whether a game is visually realistic, it is bad to experience that violence as real. If part of the value of games is that they allow us to inhabit a ‘temporary practical agency’ (Nguyen, 2019 : p. 438) within which we can “occupy alter-ego points of view and practice new strategies by accessing possible spaces of action and affective responses” (Schellenberg, 2013 : p. 509), then the value of such experiments presumably depends on the design of those practical agencies and the contexts in which players inhabit them, including whether they are suffused with violence that is experienced by the player as real.

Immersion occurs when a player experiences the game as if it is real or as if she herself were experiencing the events of the game in the shoes of her character. One dimension of immersion is ‘presence,’ or “the sense of being present at that perspective” (Chalmers, 2017 : p. 312). The immersiveness of a game depends, in part, on its realism. Content and context realism can make immersion more likely, but perspectival fidelity is also important (Ramirez, 2019 ). A representation has perspectival fidelity to the degree that the structure of the experience is realistic. For example, a video game has lower perspectival fidelity if the player uses a controller rather than a VR set up, if the representation includes non-diegetic sound (e.g., music) or a heads-up display (e.g., location, health, remaining ammo), and if the point of view is third- rather than first-person. Importantly, VVGs are unlikely to have greater perspectival fidelity than other media, except insofar as they are more likely to have a first-person perspective. Footnote 11 However, even in this respect the experience they provide has lower fidelity than, say, children playing war, teens playing paintball, or adults performing historical recreations of famous battles.

A more general problem with the argument that VVGs are bad because players are more likely to have an immersive experience of violence is that it is simply not clear whether being immersed in a VVG is worse than being immersed in another violent or disturbing source of entertainment. For example, films and novels are generally praised when they effectively draw in a viewer. Such praise may reflect their aesthetic value, which is compatible with being morally bad, but the same could be said about VVGs. Footnote 12

An objection

At this point, defenders of the Violence Argument might object that, by addressing these factors in isolation, we have made a strawman of their position. Movies can be realistic but not interactive; novels can be immersive but not interactive; tabletop roleplaying games can be immersive but are not usually realistic; and kids playing war can be interactive but lacks a certain kind of realism. The problem with VVGs—and what makes them distinctive among violent forms of entertainment—is precisely that they are realistic, interactive, and immersive.

If the problem is the combination, then VVGs might be distinctively morally bad even if possessing just one of these features is tolerable. Just as a gun is composed of innocuous pieces which, once assembled, constitute a dangerous weapon, so the combination of realism, interactivity, and immersiveness may render video game violence morally objectionable.

However, the problem with this line of argument can be seen by reflecting further on the analogy. The problem with an assembled gun is not that all of its components are in one place. The problem is that a functioning handgun affords certain actions that its unassembled pieces do not. Footnote 13 This is not true of VVGs—or, at least, the evidence for this claim remains inconclusive. In order for the combination of realism, interactivity, and immersion to render video game violence distinctively bad, opponents of VVGs must show either that developing such games makes them dangerous (the Causation Argument) or that this combination is itself distinctively bad (the Violence Argument).

This latter point seems to be what Ali ( 2023 ) alludes to in relation to virtual reality experiences: “VR pushes the virtual closer to the nonvirtual, making, e.g., VR experiences as valuable (in reproductions), or closer in value (as simulations), to their nonvirtual counterparts” (Ali, 2023 : p. 241). It seems plausible that realism, interactivity, and immersion can enhance one’s experience of some piece of entertainment—as actors in films and plays can attest. However, Ali’s ( 2023 , 2015 ) account falls short when it comes to explaining what makes a VVG morally objectionable. According to his view, badness varies with realism. This may be true for reproductions and simulations, which, by definition, vary with realism. Yet, it is not obviously true for video games, where the badness appears to be dependent on other factors. Ali ( 2015 ) highlights one aspect that appears to be the decisive factor for why this is the case. VR simulations, unlike VVGs, lack context and story. Footnote 14 Thus, in order to make the case that virtual violence can be morally bad even in games where the violence is situated within a narrative and performed in pursuit of a goal (i.e., VVGs), we must look for explanations elsewhere. In the next section, we consider alternative critiques of video games and offer an account of our own.

The internal logic of violent video games

We have argued that the level of concern about the outcomes of developing and playing VVGs and about the fact that VVGs are realistic, interactive, and immersive is unjustified. However, there may nonetheless be something morally objectionable about developing or playing VVGs. In this final section, we try to capture the kernel of truth at the heart of the widespread and persistent objections to video game violence by identifying what we take to be a reasonable concern. Our account steers a middle course between moral panic and facile defenses of VVGs by embracing the similarities and continuities between violent and non-violent video games, as well as between video games and other forms of entertainment. In doing so, we build on other recent arguments that have illuminated legitimate ethical concerns about video games, while suggesting that these arguments indict video game violence in ways that they fail to recognize.

We suggest that the most plausible moral objection to VVGs is that some of them generate or perpetuate morally objectionable norms of appropriate violence—i.e., norms of when violence is an appropriate response to a situation. This objection suggests that violence is indeed problematic, but also that it is one dimension of a more general moral concern.

One way to assess VVGs is to imagine uncontroversially immoral games and isolate their objectionable features. It would be reasonable to condemn both the developers and the players of racist or misogynistic games in which the aim is to, say, exterminate Jews or sexually assault women. For many, such concerns depend neither on the kind of effects identified by the Causation Argument nor on their realism, interactivity, or immersion (Patridge, 2011 ). A natural explanation of what precisely makes such games objectionable is that it is wrong to be or act in racist or misogynistic ways and the developers and players of such games are (usually) acting in these ways simply by developing or playing the game. For example, we might say that a misogynistic game either subordinates women or depicts their subordination, and that players participate in that subordination—or at least demonstrates a failure of sensitivity to and sympathy for women (Patridge, 2011 : p. 310)—by playing the games, even if the women depicted are not real.

If one accepts this kind of explanation, one might further argue that non-racist and non-misogynistic VVGs could have content that is similar in morally relevant ways. Footnote 15 If a misogynistic game can subordinate women, then a game where the player aims to kill enemies can subordinate whichever group is depicted as the enemy. Just as misogynistic games depict female characters as fitting targets of assault or abuse, violent games depict certain characters as fitting targets of physical violence. And if sexual violence is bad, in part, because it is violence, then removing the sexual dimension cannot render the game morally innocuous—though it would certainly make it less bad. Call this the Analogy Argument .

This argument has a certain plausibility, but does not succeed as stated. To see why, consider two ways in which the defender of VVGs might reply. First, they could reply that what is morally objectionable is not the content of a game, but how one plays it. One who revels in killing innocent bystanders is acting wrongly in a way that a person who plays the same game in order to complete it as quickly and bloodlessly as possible is not. Call this the Sadism Reply . On this way of thinking, it is the mental state of the player, not the content of the game that explains its badness.

The inadequacy of the Sadism Reply is fairly obvious. Sadism—understood as taking pleasure in the wrongful treatment of others (i.e., in moral evil)—is not the only attitude we find morally objectionable. Schadenfreude—understood as taking pleasure in the non-moral suffering of others (i.e., natural evil)—is another, and there are more, from racism and sexism to simple indifference to others’ well-being. If sadism in VVGs is problematic, then so are these others attitudes. Moreover, non-violent games can be played in sadistic ways—e.g., choosing, in The Sims , to drown your neighbors in your swimming pool—and are therefore open to the same critiques, which seems implausible. Finally, it is unclear how we can condemn a player’s sadistic pleasure in doing virtual violence when we cannot condemn virtual violence itself. The wrongness of taking sadistic pleasure in another’s suffering arguably presumes the wrongness of causing that suffering, but the Sadism Reply attempts to deny the latter while shifting criticism to the former.

Second, the defender of VVGs could point out that misogyny is morally objectionable because its targets—women—are an oppressed group in society. Call this the Power Reply . On this way of thinking, an otherwise identical gender-reversed game, where women victimize men, would not be objectionable in the same way. And, they might say, what we find in most VVGs is precisely that, violence that is admittedly gratuitous but nonetheless morally acceptable—or at least tolerable—because it is not gendered. (Similar points could be made about other dimensions of oppression.) Patridge argues that the content of some video games has “incorrigible social meaning” that targets women and marginalized groups ( 2011 : p. 308). For example, the meaning of a black character eating watermelon is explained by particular social realities (e.g., the persistence of demeaning racial stereotypes) and is incorrigible in the sense that it is difficult to interpret in any other way because of those realities (i.e., there is no plausible interpretation of that image that does not reference those stereotypes). However, Patridge suggests that violent content often either lacks social meaning or has social meaning that is reasonably interpretable in a way that does not implicate some reprehensible feature of our shared moral reality, like racism, misogyny, or homophobia ( 2011 : p. 310).

Even if Patridge is right that most video game violence itself is unlikely to have the incorrigible social meaning of games like Custer’s Revenge , it does not follow that it does not implicate reprehensible features of our shared moral reality. Whether it does is an open question. Content with incorrigible social meaning implicates our shared moral reality by forcing us to recognize that some words, images, or ideas are inextricably linked to hateful and prejudicial ideologies. If video game violence can itself implicate other reprehensible features, what might those features be and how would they be implicated? Our answer is that power norms—i.e. norms of domination and subordination—are just one type of objectionable norm that can be built into the ‘logic’ of a game. Footnote 16 Another type is norms of appropriate violence, which, while often bound up with power norms, are separable. We would rightly criticize a society whose logic of appropriate physical violence included, say, occasions when one is frustrated with a coworker—and this is true independently of the coworkers’ respective social status. But if this is right, then why is a game whose logic of appropriate violence includes anyone who gets in the way of your mission not objectionable on similar grounds? Thus, while both replies warrant revisions and qualifications of the Analogy Argument, we can begin to see how a revised version of the argument might be successful.

Call this revision of the Analogy Argument the Internal Logic Argument (ILA). The ‘logic’ of a video game is the structure, incentives, and constraints that guide player behavior. It is a matter of what the player can do and what they are encouraged to do in the game. In other words, it is the set of ideas (mission/quest, combat, survival) and practices (enacting those ideas via the means provided and avoiding obstacles to doing so) that allow the player to have a successful playthrough—e.g., to progress in the game, to be enjoyable, and be an opportunity to engage in the ‘art of agency’ (Nguyen, 2019 ). Footnote 17 Understood in this way, the logic of a game includes what Nguyen calls its “value clarity,” in that it stipulates a clear structure and conditions for success ( 2020 : 20). However, whereas Nguyen is most concerned about players applying the simplified logic of a video game to contexts where values are more opaque and complex, we are concerned with the content of a game’s internal logic. Our suggestion is that the logic of a game can express, encourage, and legitimate objectionable attitudes and norms of appropriate violence.

As noted above, games such as Custer’s Revenge can express attitudes of hatred and prejudice by targeting specific groups in its gameplay. When it comes to VVGs, Postal 2 , whose tongue-in-cheek comments are prompted when excessive and degrading violence is exerted on innocent bystanders, expresses a lax attitude towards violent behavior. The logic of the game, manifested in minor rewards, treats civilians as fair game when the player’s character is on his way to pick up milk from the store.

A game’s logic and gameplay mechanics can also encourage problematic player behavior. The internal logic of some games is straightforward and explicit. A game may have an obvious theme that directly guides gameplay (e.g., Duck Hunt or Super Columbine Massacre ), or it may incentivize particular ways of playing by awarding points, experience, and trophies for particular results. But a game’s explicit themes, rewards, and punishments do not exhaust its logic. Just like real life, games are full of subtle incentives and nudges that shape how one behaves. Examples include whether a particular NPC can be killed, how players’ treatment of NPCs affects their success, and how the design of a level or quest privileges particular strategies for completing it. Footnote 18 A game embodies norms of appropriate violence based on how violence is afforded by the structure of the game (whether enemies can be avoided, how they can be dealt with, what kinds of items one can acquire and how frequently, etc.). Christopher Bartel gives a relevant example from Grand Theft Auto IV , in which the player is forced to shoot their way out of a bank robbery scenario by attacking the police ( 2015 : p. 290). It is not possible to try to evade the police or succeed in the scenario in any other way.

Miguel Sicart has argued that developers set the ethical boundaries of a game through the formal structure of the game (e.g., game rules) and the actions afforded to the player (e.g., game mechanics). As a result, games are “always ethically relevant systems, since they constrain the agency of an ethical being” (Sicart, 2009 : p. 6). We extend this idea, holding that if a game can constrain players’ behavior, then it can also funnel their behavior in particular directions—though the influence the game exerts may not reflect any intention on the part of the designer. For example, in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City the player can have sex with a prostitute in order to temporarily increase their maximum health. This is not a necessary feature, since the success of a playthrough in Vice City is not dependent on the player’s ability to buy sex. However, it represents a decision by the game designers which codes this act as ‘good’ by increasing the player’s max health.

If a game can express and encourage certain morally problematic attitudes and behaviors, it can also legitimate those attitudes and behaviors. Just as “games threaten us with a fantasy of moral clarity” (Nguyen, 2020 : p. 21), some ways of playing VVGs and the attitudes expressed by doing so may extend beyond the game. In one of the main missions of GTA V , titled “By the book”, the player is forced to torture an NPC in order to progress in the main story. The player can only achieve a “gold rank” on the mission if they waterboard, electrocute, and pull out the teeth of the NPC without killing him. Not only does the logic of this specific mission express and encourage certain attitudes towards torture. It may also legitimate the practice by presenting it as a viable means to an end or a “necessary evil”.

One might share our concern about how the internal logic of video games may legitimate certain attitudes and norms, but deny that violent content is a serious problem. Nguyen agrees that games can exert a subtle and malign influence on our values, but claims to be “more worried about games breeding Wall Street profiteers than…about their breeding serial killers” ( 2020 : p. 190). Footnote 19 He gives two reasons for this. First, he finds plausible Young’s suggestion that fictional game events tend not to be exported to players’ real lives. This would presumably include a game’s norms of appropriate violence. Second, he is more concerned that some games—especially those that result from gamifying activities like exercise, academic performance, etc.—will seduce players with a misleading but attractive “value clarity” ( 2020 : Chap. 9). In brief, Nguyen argues that part of the attraction of games is their clear and simple values—complete the quest, get the high score, kill your enemies—but that, unlike fictional game events, this simplicity can infiltrate players’ real world thinking in a problematic way. In particular, it can cause them (a) to view the real world through the lens of simplified values, (b) to be drawn to simplified values over the more complex values that are needed to navigate our messy moral lives, and (c) to “lose facility and readiness with … subtler value concepts” ( 2020 : p. 214). On this view, it’s unlikely that we’ll come to value violence of the sort we experience in games, and more likely that we’ll embrace simplified and gamified versions of our ordinary values, whether moral or non-moral.

However, we think Nguyen, like Patridge, fails to recognize how his reasoning might ground a legitimate worry about video game violence. The ILA suggests that violent content might be problematic precisely in the ways he thinks values might be undermined. Admittedly, lots of video game violence is unlikely to influence our values or norms simply because it is easily set aside when one stops playing. There is little chance that my in-game goal of winning a martial arts tournament while brutalizing and humiliating my opponents will influence my actual behavior or even instrumentalize my attitudes toward martial arts competition. However, the ILA is concerned precisely about in-game norms that appear innocuous and are accepted without reflection. There is no reason to think that violence norms are not subject to the same seductions of clarity as other values. Moreover, even if some violence norms are unlikely to be applied in the real world, an internal logic that expresses or legitimates those norms is still morally objectionable (e.g., Postal 2 or “By the Book” in GTA V ).

Let us address some potential worries about the ILA. First, one might reply that the logic of a VVG need only fit its content. If one is playing a war game and one’s avatar is a soldier, it makes sense that most of the NPCs one encounters are fitting targets of violence. This would undermine the criticisms of games such as Sniper Elite or Wolfenstein . Moreover, protecting oneself from enemy combatants is plausibly a matter of self-defense, which can permit lethal violence. This would render games like Doom or Fallout 4 unobjectionable. Similar points could be made about other genres of VVGs. Thus, it may be that the violence norms of many VVGs are roughly consistent with common sense morality. The ILA can accommodate this intuition, while still allowing that some VVGs are morally objectionable and, in those cases, explaining why.

Second, one might think that, while developers ought to design games whose logics meet some moral criteria, those criteria do not include eliminating or even minimizing violence. Some would claim, for example, that developers aren’t required to create a morally optimific logic that encourages players to, say, maximize the total well-being of other characters. Indeed, many would insist that the logic of a VVG can permissibly be much worse than the actual logic of our society, just as action films implicitly permit much more destruction of public and private property for the sake of catching criminals than is permitted by actual societies (see, e.g., Bad Boys or any movie in the Marvel Comics Universe). Footnote 20 This isn’t obviously right, though, and we would suggest that a game’s logic of appropriate violence should not be excessively cruel or indifferent to human suffering and that, sometimes, it should even improve on the logic of appropriate violence prevalent in our actual society. Footnote 21

One might object that the ILA does not pick out VVGs as distinctively bad or worse than other innocuous or tolerable video games or other media. This, however, is only partially true. It’s true that the ILA does not distinguish between games that have similar logics. As such, it would not necessarily be better to play Chex Quest than Doom , since zorching flemoids and shooting demons is motivated by a concern for one’s own survival in both cases. This also helps explain why games like Postal 2 and GTA are more appropriate targets of criticism than, say, Last of Us II (Goerger, 2017 : p. 101). While Last of Us II is much more graphic and gorier in its violent depictions, that violence is fitting in a way that the violence of Postal 2 is not. Footnote 22 Nor would it be worse to play violent video games than to watch action movies in which innocent bystanders are viewed as acceptable collateral damage. The ILA identifies a property found in some VVGs (and some movies, board games, etc.) and explains why it is inappropriate.

For all of these reasons, we think the ILA provides a plausible framework for critiquing VVGs. What emerges from the above discussion is a substantive and unified account of video game ethics. It explains how violent games can be open to similar criticisms as racist and misogynistic games. At the same time, it acknowledges that one might worry, not just about the violent content of such games, but about how gamers play them—i.e., the attitudes they manifest in doing so. The ILA unifies these concerns into a single critique that captures the kernel of truth running through traditional objections to VVGs, avoids the problems we raised for the Violence Argument, and extends the insights of two other illuminating critiques of video games, namely, those developed by Patridge ( 2011 ) and Nguyen ( 2020 ).

The core of our critique consists of four claims. First, a game’s content can be morally objectionable and violence is one, but not the only, kind of objectionable content. This is the lesson we learned from assessing real and imagined games with racist or misogynistic content and extending the reasoning underlying critiques of such games to a critique of violence. Second, the attitudes that a gamer expresses or enacts in playing a game can be morally objectionable. Sadism is one, but not the only, such attitude. Just as misogyny is not limited to the explicit, endorsed hatred of women as a group (Manne,  2017 ), sadism does not exhaust the objectionable attitudes one can have toward violence and the suffering of others. However, condemning such attitudes toward violence presupposes an objection to the violence itself. Third, while objectionable attitudes can arise on their own, games can express or encourage morally objectionable attitudes and gameplay in the same way that they shape other aspects of play. This does not mean that all players of VVGs will manifest the attitudes and behaviors encouraged by a game’s norms of appropriate violence, but it is a reasonable worry in light of the influence that the logic of a game exerts. Footnote 23 This is the lesson of the ILA. The most obvious examples of this are games in which the plot of the game requires actions that express or encourage objectionable attitudes (e.g. Custer’s Revenge or Battle Raper ). However, other games may encourage or shape players’ attitudes in more subtle ways—e.g. by normalizing violence, exploitation, and racism. Fourth, if these three points are correct, then our critique is not limited to VVGs, or even to video games. Gamers can manifest their sadistic, misogynistic, racist, and other attitudes in non-violent video games (e.g., The Sims or Civilization ), board games (e.g., Puerto Rico or Andean Abyss ) and tabletop RPGs (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons ), or any other kind of game. Moreover, any entertainment medium can, through its internal logic, express or encourage such attitudes. This means that our critique can embrace its generalizability in a way that was unavailable to the Violence Argument. On our account, the source of concern is neither violence per se nor its potential realism, interactivity, or immersiveness, but rather the logic of the game. Non-violent games and games that are minimally realistic, interactive, and immersive can have objectionable internal logics—e.g., by legitimating or glorifying imperialism, exploitation, or indifference toward the suffering of others. Moreover, the ILA explains why a game might warrant moral praise. For example, we might praise a game which logic expresses acceptance of a wrongly vilified group, encourages reflection on the complexity of a moral dilemma, or simply requires that one work through a problem real people might face. Footnote 24

Together these claims constitute a unified but limited critique of VVGs that avoids the implausible implications of some existing objections (e.g., that VVGs are distinctively bad) while explaining, substantiating, and extending the plausible claims of other critics. Our view suggests that how bad a game is depends on the attitudes, behaviors, and norms that its internal logic expresses, encourages, and legitimates. A game developer can be criticized for the internal logic of their game and a gamer can be criticized both for the attitude they bring to a game and for their acceptance, whether implicit or explicit, of a game’s internal logic. This account also plausibly implies that some games are morally worse than others and that their badness does not necessarily correlate with how violent they are or how realistic that violence is.

Before concluding, let us emphasize that its internal logic is one, but not the only, aspect of a game open to evaluation and criticism. Games are also, and perhaps foremost, aesthetic objects that can be beautiful, compelling, funny, disgusting, overwhelming, or just boring. The internal logic is that part of a game that tells the player how to progress and succeed within the game world. Indeed, this is what makes this kind of art object a game rather than a passive aesthetic experience (perhaps the “walking simulator” genre falls somewhere in between these categories). But it does not determine, by itself, a game’s value.

We have argued that common moral objections to VVGs are unsuccessful, but that a plausible critique can be developed that captures the insights of these objections while avoiding their pitfalls. The upshot of our account is that it can be morally wrong to design and play some VVGs, but that violence per se—no matter how realistic or immersive—is less likely to be problematic than the internal logic of a game and the attitudes it expresses and encourages.

In making our argument, we have not said which are the worst offenders, how bad they are, or what kind of response to their moral failings is warranted. These are tasks for another paper, but also for gamers, activists, regulators, and policy makers who want to know which games to play, which to educate the public about, and which to restrict access to. Some philosophers have developed frameworks that may provide guidance in answering these questions (Liberman, 2019 ), but there is much more to be said.

The most zealous campaigns against VVGs have been in the United States. We will not try to explain why that is the case, but we note that the industry’s implementation of a rating system following US Congressional hearings about video game violence 1993 may have forestalled similar controversies elsewhere as similar ratings systems were applied outside the US.

For an overview of the history of VVGs and their alleged relation to acts of violence see Campbell ( 2018 ).

Our arguments also apply to multiplayer games that can be played in single player mode, such as Mortal Kombat or Unreal Tournament .

What level of consensus is sufficient will depend on the magnitude of the risk/harm.

None of the studies critical of VVGs claim that they directly cause real world violence, though commentators sometimes make or imply such claims. Young emphasizes that “any attempt to posit a direct causal link between video game content and violent (real-world) behaviour should be regarded as overly simplistic, largely uncorroborated, and ultimately contentious” ( 2015 : p. 315).

See Anderson et al. ( 2010 ) for a reply to this objection.

There is room for improving the experimental design of VVGs, including eliminating confounds by studying the same games and controlling for variables like difficulty, competitiveness, and level of violence. Moreover, studies that find evidence that VVGs cause increased aggression should measure and compare the magnitude of that effect to other phenomena known to increase aggression—e.g., being insulted.

While some argue that realistic, interactive, and immersive violence are bad in themselves, others claim that it is these features of contemporary VVGs that cause violence or aggression in players. However, the latter is just a version of the Causation Argument, so we focus on those who take violence to be significant independently of its consequences.

Some might consider ‘perspectival fidelity’ to be a form of realism, but we consider this variable more relevant to a game’s immersiveness than to its realism (Ramirez, 2019 ).

Notice that, if video game violence is bad because it is interactive, designers are, at worst, guilty of facilitating violent interactions. The player is the primary wrongdoer. This asymmetry is reversed for those who worry about realism. Designers create realistic violence (e.g. fatalities in Mortal Kombat ), while players simply activate it.

Even this claim ignores the actors who do actually simulate the violence that the audience sees. They have a first-person point of view on the violence in a play or film. Of course, they know that they are not actually hurting their costars, but VVG gamers know this, too.

It is also worth noting that for many, the concern about immersion is a concern about the player’s experience and the effects of having such an experience (Waddington, 2007 : p. 127). However, this is ultimately a causation question and one that can be answered either by asking gamers about their immersive experiences or by measuring the effects of those experiences.

This is why gun control advocates often emphasize that the presence of a gun allows an altercation that might have resulted in a painful fist fight to instead result in a fatal shooting.

As is evident from the following passage: “[S] imulation games do not provide their own narrative, they simply allow the gamer’s context to define the in-game context. So, when a gamer enacts murder or pedophilia in these games, the act is one of virtual murder or virtual pedophilia because the gamer defines it in this way.” (Ali, 2015 : p. 273).

Some criticisms of games like Super Columbine Massacre , The Slaying of Sandy Hook , or Active Shooter/Standoff seem to make precisely this point.

This is not at all to imply that the sets of norms that sustain hateful and prejudicial attitudes and behavior toward members of oppressed groups are not especially important or deserving of particular attention and opposition.

Hence, the logic is in most cases intentional, meaning that certain player behavior is incentivized and rewarded in the game. But it could also be unintentional, such as when players find and exploit bugs that incentivize them to play in a way the developer did not intend nor expect.

Game designers have long recognized this and some have chosen, seemingly for moral reasons as well as aesthetic ones, to make the logic of a game virtuous. Richard Garriott has said this about his design choices for Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar .

Nguyen’s topic is games in general, but his claims are meant to apply as much to video games as other types.

At the same time, some criticisms of the criminal justice ‘logic’ of action films seems both reasonable and overdue. Hollywood’s cavalier depiction of police brutality is receiving more scrutiny as protests against actual police violence received widespread attention and support. Depictions of rape in film have received similar critiques, with critics arguing that these scenes are often gratuitous or voyeuristic (Wilson, 2017 ).

Notice that the ILA does not merely imply that the most gratuitous violence is the most objectionable. The gratuitousness of a violent act may diverge from how strongly the act supports an objectionable norm. For example, a film in which casual physical violence is normalized can seem much more insidious than a gory slasher flick. A parallel point on objectionable comedy will help further elucidate this idea. Comedy should not indulge in facile jokes about sexual violence in prisons any more than it should indulge in facile jokes about rape generally. Many prison rape jokes legitimate the idea—seemingly widely held—that prisoners deserve whatever might happen to them in prison.

Last of Us II also depicts its violence in very ambiguous ways. It is not obviously portrayed as morally justified, just as humanly intelligible.

Jennifer Saul makes a similar point about the attitudes of those who watch pornography ( 2006 : p. 58).

A good example of this is This War of Mine where the player controls a group of civilians that are trapped in a war-torn country. The player is constantly prompted to make choices between the survival of the group and helping other civilians in need, forcing the player to reflect on the effects and ethics of war.

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Why We Need to Return to the Question of the Effects of Violent Video Games

June 28, 2024

Troubling social phenomena—such as a spike in mass shootings —stem from a multitude of interrelated factors. Reality is complicated; humans are complicated. But in an effort to condense findings for a general audience, make headlines, or both, the scientific community sometimes issues authoritative-sounding statements that muddle, rather than clarify, public understanding. This is the case with potential links between video games and violence.

In 2020, the American Psychological Association (APA) released a statement declaring, “There is insufficient scientific evidence to support a causal link between violent video games and violent behavior.” The statement is reasonable when read carefully, with particular attention to the phrase “insufficient scientific evidence.” But mainstream news outlets and even some researchers and medical professionals have interpreted the statement as saying that there is no causal relationship between video games and violence. This is an incorrect interpretation because it adds certainty to the statement that is not actually there. Instead, the takeaway should be that it is unclear based on experimental research whether, or to what extent, violent games facilitate offline violence. As then-APA President Sandra L. Shullman highlighted in 2020, “Violence is a complex social problem that likely stems from many factors that warrant attention from researchers, policymakers and the public.” Still, one of these many factors could be participation in violent-themed video games, especially those in which racist and other hate-based rhetoric is endemic.

Research on multiplayer online games indicates that extremist statements and hate-based harassment are prevalent in many gaming communities. In a representative survey commissioned by our Center, 51% of multiplayer gamers reported that they had come across extremist narratives—statements like, “violence against women is justified” and “a particular ethnicity should be eliminated”—while playing multiplayer games during the previous year. Other researchers have suggested that the sustained prevalence of extremism in games has led to its normalization . Moreover, a pattern of real-world incidents involving mass shootings by young men who were also devoted gamers—and who used gaming aesthetics in their “ gamified ” acts of violence—suggests that, in some cases, participation in gaming communities contributes to radicalization. These findings and real-world observations ought to figure in the conversation about video games and violence.

The point is not to revive a moral panic around video games. The vast majority of the billions of people worldwide who play online games do not engage in mass violence. Moreover, given how widespread gaming is among young people—around 70% of US children under 18 play video games regularly—there is a high probability that the few young people committing violence would also be gamers.

The problem is also not with the medium itself. Video games come in many varieties, and some are designed to increase empathy and positive social behavior. The issue is that certain popular video games—and the communities surrounding them—have helped to normalize racist, misogynist, and other hate-based ideologies among gamers. Participation in such toxic online environments, when combined with preexisting vulnerabilities and access to firearms, can lead to offline violence. It is not a simple causal story but one that deserves careful examination and nuanced reporting.

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REVIEW article

The paradox of interactive media: the potential for video games and virtual reality as tools for violence prevention.

• 1 College of Media and Communication, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, United States
• 2 Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States
• 3 Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, United States

Interactive media such as video games and virtual reality (VR) provide users with lived experiences that may be dangerous or even impossible in daily life. By providing interactive experiences in highly authentic, detail-rich contexts, these technologies have demonstrated measurable success in impacting how people think, feel, and behave in the physical world. At the same time, violent interactive media content has been historically connected with a range of antisocial effects in both popular press and academic research. Extant literature has established a small-but-statistically significant effect of interactive media violence on aggressive thoughts and behaviors, which could serve as a risk factor for interpersonal violence. However, left unexplored is the seemingly paradoxical claim that under some conditions, interactive media experiences might protect against interpersonal violence. Drawing on advances in media theory and research and the evolution of interactive media content and production practices, the current manuscript suggests ways in which interactive media violence may be leveraged to lower the likelihood of real-world violence experiences. For example, research on both violent and non-violent games has found that players can (a) express guilt after committing violent acts, (b) report reflective and introspective emotional reactions during gameplay, and (c) debate the morality of their actions with others. Regarding VR, studies have demonstrated that (a) witnessing physical violence in immersive spaces led participants to take the perspective of victims and better understand their emotional state and (b) controlled exposure to traumatic or violent events can be used for treatment. Broadly, studies into video games and VR demonstrate that the impact of actions in virtual worlds transfer into the physical worlds to influence (later) attitudes and behaviors. Thus, how these experiences may be potentially harnessed for social change is a compelling and open consideration, as are side-effects of such interventions on vulnerable groups. The current manuscript summarizes emerging research perspectives (as well as their limitations) to offer insight into the potential for interactive media violence to protect against real-world violence victimization and perpetration.

Introduction

Violence, such as interpersonal violence, is preventable, has lasting impacts on physical and mental health, and is among the leading global causes of death and injury ( World Health Organization, 2002 , 2014 ). Although not directly connected to public health models, media psychologists often study violence as portrayed in mass media as a potential cause or correlate of violence. Meta-analyses report statistically significant but overall small effects for both passively viewed violence (such as that featured in films and on television; Anderson et al., 2017 ) and interactive violence (where media users perpetrate violent acts, such as in video games; Calvert et al., 2017 ) in mediated content on some forms of aggression, such as aggressive thoughts and feelings and some retributive behavior.

In our essay, we acknowledge the extant empirical record associating media violence with some forms of aggression and seek to explore future and emerging research paths based on recent advances in media psychology ( Oliver and Raney, 2011 ; Oliver et al., 2015 ; Hemenover and Bowman, 2018 ; Tamborini et al., 2018 ). These advancements support the seemingly paradoxical claim that exposure to mediated violence, especially through environments in which one has to both perpetrate violence and witness their actions and aftermath in rich contextual details, may potentially influence perceptions and behaviors that serve as protective factors for reducing interpersonal violence by influencing how players perceive, understand, and respond to violence.

We explore this potential by first defining violence broadly and within the context of media (including the notion of interactive media violence), and then exploring past work associating mediated violence with aggression and related constructs. From this, we present emerging theory and data from two interactive media forms that suggest interactive media violence could be a key leverage point for violence prevention: video games and virtual reality (VR). The paper concludes with suggestions for future research by expanding the scope of violence prevention programs to consider the use of interactive media violence that can be safely simulated in gaming and VR applications.

Violence and Violence Prevention

Violence is defined as the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation ( Krug et al., 2002 ). Interpersonal violence (including child abuse and neglect, youth violence, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and elder abuse) is a leading cause of death and injury in the United States ( Sumner et al., 2015 ) and globally ( World Health Organization, 2002 , 2014 ). Violence has lasting impacts on health, spanning injury, disease outcomes, risk behaviors, maternal and child health, and mental health problems.

Violence is preventable using a public health approach. This approach follows a common four-step process (see Figure 1 ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020a ). Briefly summarized from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020a) , the first step of the public health approach is to define and monitor a given type of violence, which usually involves defining and explicating violence and then assessing descriptive data about said violence. The second step includes a focus on identifying risk and protective factors, understood respectively as characteristics that increase or decrease the odds of violence—critically here, public health approaches are less focused on identifying specific “causes” of violence but rather, understanding the characteristics of a given scenario that influence the likelihood that one experiences violence. There is also recognition that risk and protective factors for one form of violence impact other forms of violence ( Wilkins et al., 2014 ). At the third step, prevention strategies are developed and rigorously tested to determine their efficacy for violence prevention—such strategies might be aimed at either reducing risk factors or encouraging protective factors, and often involve a combination of both. Finally, at the fourth step, strategies shown to be effective in step three are disseminated and implemented broadly. While steps may occur sequentially, the process is cyclical, and steps may be revisited at any point. Overall, this public health approach offers a framework for asking and answering questions to build successful violence prevention efforts. Although violence prevention includes primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, CDC's violence prevention efforts are focused on primary prevention , or stopping violence before it starts. These prevention efforts are often, although not exclusively, guided by the social-ecological model ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020b ; Figure 2 ), which presumes that any health interventions (such as violence prevention initiatives) must be understood within individual (e.g., attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors), interpersonal (e.g., social support), community (e.g., school or work environment), and broader social contexts (e.g., social and cultural norms, public policy; see “risk and protective factors” on CDC/Division of Violence Prevention's website: www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention ). The model also helps organize and identify a range of factors that may increase or decrease risk of experiencing violence.

Figure 1 . A public health approach to violence prevention, adapted from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Note: Violence prevention strategies start with defining and understanding the problem. At each step of the model, previous work is consulted as part of formative assessment practices.

Figure 2 . Social-ecological model of violence prevention (from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020b ).

Successful and empirically validated strategies of the best available evidence for violence prevention are laid out in the CDC's Division of Violence Prevention's five technical packages ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018 ), focused on child abuse and neglect, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, suicide, and youth violence. Each technical package includes three main components: strategies (overview of actions required to prevent a given form of violence), approaches (specific programs, policies, or practices to advance the strategy), and evidence (empirical support for the suggested approaches). Additionally, there is an Adverse Childhood Experiences resource document that compiles information from all technical packages and literature ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019 ). While available evidence provides the use of media and technology as delivery methods and media campaigns as a community-level approach to violence prevention, little is known how interactive media may serve as a violence prevention approach or influence protective factors.

Media Violence and Interactive Media

We can understand interactive media violence through the broad lens of media effects research. There is no universal definition of media effects, but we can generally understand the research perspective as having a discrete focus on how mediated communication—anything from printed books and television shows to video games and VR—impacts the end user's thoughts, feelings, and actions. Rutledge (2013) offers a similar definition of the emerging field of media psychology, focused on the “complex relationship between humans and the evolving [technological] environment” (p. 43). Similar logic was proposed decades earlier by Klapper (1960) , who suggested that media effects occur “among and through a nexus of mediating factors and influences” ( Klapper, 1960 , p. 8). Oliver et al. (2018) assert that media effects research tends to focus on the deleterious effects of media, and Lowery and DeFleur (1994) overview a history of media effects research based on a “hypodermic needle” model by which content was presumed to have a direct, powerful, and universal influence on audiences ( Neuman and Guggenheim, 2011 ). Contemporary approaches to media effects research encourage a more functional approach ( Bowman, 2019a ) that unpacks (1) media's broad uses, (2) media effects, and (3) dynamic interactions between users and media (also discussed in Neuman and Guggenheim, 2011 ).

Given the volume of studies focused on media violence, meta-analysis techniques are commonly used to quantify effects. For example, Anderson and Bushman (2002) found statistically significant summary main effects of non-interactive violent media content on aggressive behavior, ranging from about r ~ 0.15 to r ~ 0.25 depending on the type of study being conducted (i.e., longitudinal studies showing weakest and laboratory studies showing strongest effects). When correcting for alleged publication biases in extant literature, Ferguson and Kilburn (2009) report a smaller-yet-still-significant summary effect of media violence on aggression depending on the medium (e.g., their sub-analysis of non-interactive media reported effect sizes of r = 0.04 for television content and r = 0.10 for films). Their study also found variance in effects depending on whether or not effects were found using ad hoc reports of aggression ( r = 0.25) compared to observed aggressive behavior ( r = 0.08). Other studies have assessed violence using a variety of laboratory-based methods for assessing aggressive thoughts, feelings, and implied or explicit harmful behaviors ( McCarthy and Elson, 2018 ). Savage and Yancey (2008) challenged whether or not media violence impacts criminal violence—actions of violence that would violate criminal codes—as their analysis yielded a non-significant summary effect, r = 0.057 (95% CI −0.006 to 0.119); Ferguson and Kilburn (2009) found a similar non-significant effect ( r = 0.02, −0.12 to 0.16) between media violence exposure and violent criminal behavior.

Similar meta-analytic results have been observed for interactive media violence, usually focused on video games. The qualifier interactive here refers to the user's ability to alter the form or content of the mediated experience ( Steuer, 1992 ), which was thought to be particularly relevant to violent content. Instead of the user passively and innocently witnessing on-screen violence, interactive media has the user play a direct role in perpetrating those acts. In the face of intense debates regarding video game violence ( de Vrieze, 2018 ), the American Psychological Association convened a task force to summarize this literature ( Calvert et al., 2017 ). That group found that although violent video games were not a risk factor in criminal or delinquent behavior (as reported above, with non-interactive media), small-but-significant associations were found between gaming and feelings of aggression, increased arousal, and violent ideation [although recent work from Ferguson et al. (2020) , was unable to reproduce the effect size magnitudes from that task force report]. Recent meta-analytic work by Prescott et al. (2018) that focused only on longitudinal studies involving violent games and acts of “overt, physical aggression” (p. 9,982) again reported small-but-significant overall effects ranging from β = 0.078 to β = 0.113. Most importantly for the current manuscript is the work of Mathur and VanderWeele (2019) , who found evidence of convergence between different meta-analyses (including the above-mentioned Prescott analysis and studies examined by Calvert et al. (2017) supporting the twin claims that (a) interactive media violence can cause aggression in users, and (b) these effects are overall quite small (with nearly no studies reporting effect sizes larger than 4% of explained variance in aggression). Finally, a paucity of work on VR-based interactive violence on aggression find results similar to those reported here—somewhat unsurprising, as these earlier studies tended to focus on VR video games (see Persky and Blascovich, 2006 , 2007 ).

While not challenging the extant literature on violent content and aggressive outcomes, we respectfully suggest that much of this work has myopically focused on presumed negative effects of content without a deeper elaboration of how that content is actively consumed and understood by users. As was suggested by Klapper (1960) , media audiences actively engage with and make-sense of on-screen content and thus, a narrow focus on the content alone is insufficient to understand media effects. Applied to interactive media, Wellenreiter (2015) argues that on-screen content is inherently dynamic and co-authored as both the user and the system combined to create, interpret, and engage the system in ways that are somewhat unique to each user. Schmierbach (2009) suggests that this co-authorship poses a challenge for researchers attempting to quantify (for example) video game violence, as the amounts of and meaning behind violent acts will change depending on how the player engages the game. As will be argued for the balance of this manuscript, some of the same violent content shown to encourage aggression in users has also been shown to encourage unprompted moral debate ( Malazita and Jenkins, 2017 ) and moral reappraisal ( Tamborini et al., 2018 ), feelings of guilt ( Grizzard et al., 2014 ), perspective-taking ( Seinfeld et al., 2018 ; de Borst et al., 2020 ), as well as a broader feeling of eudaimonia and meaningfulness from a variety of video games (including games with overt as well as mild forms of violence; Oliver et al., 2015 ; Rogers et al., 2016 ). From this perspective, the following sections propose emerging theory and logic for how at least two interactive technologies—video games and VR—have the potential to positively influence how users perceive, understand, and respond to violence, both in the digital and the physical world.

Video Games and Violence

Perhaps the “original exemplar” of interactive media violence, video games have been historically connected to aggressive and combative themes. One of the earliest video games, Spacewar! , invoked military themes reminiscent of the Cold War between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the middle 20th century ( Graetz, 1981 )—a game locking two players piloting different ships (the “needle” or the “wedge”) in mortal combat while being pulled into the gravitational well of a central star. Later games such as Pong and Space Invaders likewise featured competition—the former pitting players against each other, the latter again simulating war-like themes. Indeed, even contemporary research into video games suggests challenge and competition to be among the most prevalent motivations for playing games in the first place ( Sherry et al., 2006 ; Yee, 2006 ).

Importantly, these early games were mostly non-violent in nature—at least, they did not feature elements of unjustified, graphic, or realistic violence that signal violence perpetration ( Tamborini et al., 2013 ). Kocurek (2012) argues that the 1976 release of Death Race marked a watershed moment in the public perception of video games, as it was the first game that received widespread attention specifically for being violent. The game, which was loosely inspired by the 1975 science fiction film Death Race 2000 (which featured elaborated and gory vehicular manslaughter as a central plot device), tasked players with piloting their own race car around a blank field, chasing “gremlins” around the screen that were roughly anthropomorphic stick figures. Just as in the movie, players are awarded points for running down and eliminating the on-screen “gremlins” —each elimination converts the “gremlin” to a tombstone, which impedes future driving paths. The game's controls were also designed to mimic a physical car, including a realistic steering wheel, gear shifter, and gas and brake pedals (referred to as natural mapping by technology scholars, see Skalski et al., 2011 ). In an interview with The New York Times , a behavioral psychologist with the National Safety Council stated that:

“Nearly 9,000 pedestrians were killed last year [by vehicles], and that's no joke…On TV, violence is passive. In this game a player takes the first step in to creating violence … I shudder to think what will come next if this is encouraged. It'll be pretty gory.” (Driessen, as cited by Blumenthal, 1976 ).

The debate around Death Race “forged a strong tie between video gaming and violence in the public imagination” ( Kocurek, 2012 ; para. 1), which catalyzed moral panics associated with interactive media violence ( Bowman, 2016 ). Similar markers in the violent video game timeline include the so-called “Mortal Monday” (September 13, 1993) release of Mortal Kombat for home gaming consoles—a game featuring hand-to-hand combat in which victorious players were given the chance to execute their opponents with over-the-top “fatalities” (such as one player ripping the still-beating heart out of the others). Mortal Kombat was a lightning rod for controversy, resulting in numerous US Congressional hearings and, eventually, the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board system for rating the content of video games ( Andrews, 1993 ). The 1990s also saw controversy over “first-person shooter” video games in which the player's primary objective was to use weapons to search and kill other characters, with critics labeling these games “murder simulators” ( Silverman, 2007 ). In the 2000s, the Grand Theft Auto series were heavily scrutinized for permitting and even encouraging physical, weapon-based, and vehicular violence—even more so, folding this violence in with misogynistic, racist, and other socially deleterious themes ( Bowman, 2014a , b ). Games in the Grand Theft Auto series commonly faced restriction on their sales (often by being rated M for mature audiences), although the series' latest game Grand Theft Auto V sold a record 110 million copies as of May 2019 ( Kain, 2019 ).

Bringing Context in the Discussion of Violence in Contemporary Video Games

Of course, not all video games are violent ones and perhaps most critically for the current discussion, not all violent video games celebrate violence. Benedetti (2010) wrote that were “growing up” along with their audience—by 2018, the average age of a video gamer in the United States was 34, and over 70% were over the age of 18 ( Entertainment Software Association, 2018 ). Along with this, she observed that video games were beginning to “peer into the dark reaches of the very real human heart to deliver stories that are thrilling, chilling and utterly absorbing” (para. 6). Designers such as Schell (2013) explained that “[just as] film wasn't taken seriously as a medium until it learned to talk, games are waiting to learn to listen.” Going further, he talked about video games as having evolved to focus on “ above-the-neck ” verbs (such as talking, asking, and pleading; notions associated with emotional and social concerns) alongside their already strong focus on “below-the-neck” verbs (action orientations such as running, jumping, and fighting).

Both Stober (2004) and Bowman (2019b) suggest that this evolution of video games toward having more serious, pensive, and reflective content follows a more generalized pattern seen in past forms of media entertainment—as communication technologies evolve, their content moves from more basic technological demonstration toward more innovative and unique ways of storytelling. Williams (2013) explained the rationale behind his design of Spec Ops: The Line . As a military themed game, there is a heavy emphasis on warfare and weapons-based combat, common to many third- and first-person shooter games. What made Spec Ops: The Line unique was the way the game contextualized the on-screen violence. For example, in a pivotal scene in which the game's main character Walker is facing heavy fire, he elects to release a white phosphorus canister (a chemical weapon) on opposing forces, and despite the pleas of his fellow soldiers. As the player navigates the remnants of the battlefield, they are forced to confront the atrocities of chemical war. Indeed, the closing scene of two corpses—a mother clutching her daughter while both are burned nearly beyond recognition—was criticized by gaming journalists for its gruesome portrayals as well as the fact that the game “forced” players to commit war crimes as part of gameplay ( Roberts, 2014 ). In response, Williams (2013) explained that the game was designed to contextualize rather than glorify war, as the narrative that unfolds from this scene follows Walker's slow mental decline in the face of having to reconcile a series of seemingly impossible moral quandaries involving gruesome acts of war. Another example can be found in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in which players found themselves inserted into a terrorist cell bent on massacring civilians in an airport. The terrorists unleash waves of gunfire on an innocent population, and the player has only two options: shoot civilians or watch helplessly as the other terrorists do the same. Facing critique for this level design, the game's writers explained that their purpose was to “make the player feel anything at all” ( Totilo, 2012 ). Notably, when directly comparing the two games, Call of Duty 's scenario was critiqued for being superfluous and unnecessarily gratuitous—even during play-testing, many objected to the levels' content and some refused to play it at all ( Evans-Thirlwell, 2016 ). By comparison, Spec Ops: The Line was widely praised for its organic use of moral conflict, with some critics ranking the game among the top video games in the history of the medium precisely due to its morally complex storytelling ( Nix, 2020 ). To this end, Wells (2016) suggests that advances in the narrative design of video games might shift toward experiences in which “violence in games may begin to be recognized as art, rather than considered elements of controversy and concern” (para. 15). Notably, others have demonstrated that heavy engagement with video games featuring gun violence can result in scenario responses (e.g., reactions to images of a gun threat) similar to individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome ( Santos et al., 2019 ). Thus, it is important to assess ones' prior exposure to violence broadly, as well as other media violence exposures (see Gerbner, 1980 ).

Video Games as Reflective Spaces

In these example games above, game developers are drawing from more established media forms to reconsider the range of reactions they can evoke in players. For example, war films commonly use highly realistic and even graphic violence as part of more serious and somber anti-war messaging ( Gates, 2005 ). Oliver and Raney (2011) explain that films (and entertainment media, broadly) can be understood through two distinct-yet-correlated processes: enjoyment, rooted in more hedonic reactions to media content (such as arousal, fun, and pleasure); and appreciation, rooted in more eudaimonic reactions (such as introspection, self-reflection, and poignancy). Oliver et al. (2018) further developed the notion of self-transcendence as a more specific type of media appreciation tied to an emotional and personal growth concerned with contemplation and moral beauty. Broadly speaking, this dual process model of media entertainment has enjoyed a good deal of academic attention in that it helps understand a wider set of audience reactions to media content—including violent media content—that move beyond enjoyment and titillation. Video games in particular are deeply emotional experiences in which players likely experience a circumplex of emotions in direct response to their actions and witnessing the consequences of those actions, as well as pondering those actions in the “real world” ( Hemenover and Bowman, 2018 ).

This expansion of scholarship has included the seemingly paradoxical claim that interactive violence in video games could encourage prosocial reactions in players ( Limperos et al., 2013 ). In an online survey of adults with extensive video gaming experience, Oliver et al. (2015) reported that while nearly all respondents could recall enjoyable responses to gaming content, nearly three in four respondents (72%) were able to discuss appreciation responses; follow-up analysis by Rogers et al. (2016) found that gamers discussing enjoyable or meaningful reactions to video games often mentioned the same video game titles, or games from the same gaming genres—including unexpected sources of appreciation from violent first- and third-person shooters (including Spec Ops: The Line and Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare mentioned earlier). Holl et al. (2020) reported similar moral deliberations among a set of experienced gamers who often felt that games can commonly include feelings beyond “just having fun” (p. 3)— unexpected when we consider gaming is often assumed to be more light-hearted and less serious ( Bowman et al., 2018 ). One interpretation of these is that adults who play video games on a regular basis can understand more nuanced portrayals of violence on more contemplative, serious, and humanistic terms. Notably, these studies mostly include convenience samples of adult populations who are experienced gamers and have not yet considered specific personological variables such as emotional intelligence or empathy. Future research into more specific populations—including as populations at high risk of enacting or experiencing interpersonal violence—is warranted.

Experimental data focused on feelings of guilt have shown that when players are forced to commit acts of unjustified violence, post-gameplay guilt reactions are increased ( Hartmann et al., 2010 ; Grizzard et al., 2014 ). Gollwitzer and Melzer (2012) found that when players performed in-game violence, they engaged in moral cleansing practices such as using hand sanitizer after gameplay. Research into player's moral decision making generally shows that player's chronic and established moral sensitivities (e.g., those moral intuitions which guide decision making in everyday life; Haidt and Joseph, 2004 ) influence player's in-game choices ( Joeckel et al., 2012 ; Weaver and Lewis, 2012 ; Boyan et al., 2015 ). More promising for the study of violence prevention, Tamborini et al. (2018) found decisions to protect in-game others and treat in-game characters fairly were predicted by both chronic and temporary morality—the latter being driven by specific narrative cues. Using modifications to the role-playing video game Neverwinter Nights 2 , players were asked to run errands for an elderly character and assist villagers with numerous tasks, with each task involving a potential moral violation (such as getting into a physical fight with a tavern owner or stealing money from laborers). After gameplay, players (mostly college-aged students) reported an increased salience toward care and fairness. Recent analyses of players' unsolicited discussion about video games finds that when acts are explicitly framed as moral dilemmas (such as the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 scenario discussed earlier), players turned to public spheres such as discussion boards on gaming review pages to debate the morality of their in-game actions ( Malazita and Jenkins, 2017 ). With exception of Malazita and Jenkins (2017) , these studies mostly examine college-aged students unlikely to represent a broader spectrum of developmental stages and thus, there is a broad need for replication and extension of this work to consider more diverse populations—even more relevant given claims that gaming experiences are increasingly ubiquitous ( Bogost, 2011 ). To give a rather specific example of emerging research into specific gaming populations, there is a growing body of research on combat veterans using video games as a coping mechanism for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; see Banks and Cole, 2016 ; Colder Carras et al., 2018 ), including violent and military-themed first-person shooters ( Elliott et al., 2015 ; Etter et al., 2017 ). This work is comparatively nascent in the broader literature on violent video games, early results suggest that rather than serving as triggers of PTSD, these games served both short-term (mood management and stress reduction) and long-term (well-being and socialization) psychological outcomes, although veterans also expressed concerns about maladaptive coping (such as playing excessively; Colder Carras et al., 2018 ).

Finally, players could also reflect on violent acts depending on their relationship to the many characters within a given game, including their own in-game avatar or character. As suggested by Banks (2015) , these player-avatar relationships can be understood on a continuum from asocial (in which the player sees the avatar as a mere object for gameplay, void of any emotional attachment) to fully social experiences (in which the player sees the avatar as distinct and authentic social other). Although yet to be tested empirically, these different types of relationships could influence how players respond to interactive media violence, both in terms of how players feel about perpetrating this violence and how they feel about their avatar being the victim of the violence. For example, players with an asocial orientation toward their avatars might not process violent content as anything more than an amoral and distal consequence of gameplay and thus, are unlikely to critically evaluate violent content; at least one study found that players who feel detached from their game characters are more likely to engage in antisocial gameplay patterns (such as challenging or harassing other players; Bowman et al., 2012 ). By contrast, players adopting a more social orientation are likely to empathize with an avatar that is being victimized by violence (even intervening on the avatar's behalf), or they might critique an avatar that is perpetrating violence (such as acting to prevent the perpetration; Bowman and Banks, 2021 ). As a comparatively new area of research, left unresolved are details as to the player-side and game-side variables that encourage these relationships to form. For example, although we might expect different video game genres to encourage some player-avatar relationships over others (e.g., role-playing games to encourage more social relations), Bowman et al. (2016) found no evidence that relationships varied as a function of game type. Related to this, research has yet to understand if and when player-avatar relationships might change over time, or how developmental stages might influence both (a) the types of relationships that people form with their avatars and (b) the impact of those relationships beyond gameplay. Banks (2015) did find that individuals dealing with trauma (such as domestic abuse and issues of gender identity conflict) tended to engage their avatars in a symbiotic capacity—playing themselves in the shoes of the avatar, but crafting an avatar with aspirational or coping elements (such as weapons for strength or banners for identity). Such findings might suggest a capacity for player-avatar relationships to serve both as coping mechanisms for interpersonal violence as well as indicators than an individual is experiencing the same.

To this point, we have intentionally not discussed serious games and simulation gaming, which can be defined by their purpose-driven design (e.g., video games designed with the specific purpose of encouraging prosocial behaviors; see Susi et al., 2007 ; Ritterfeld et al., 2009 )—for example, video games with more prosocial themes can encourage prosocial outcomes ( Gentile et al., 2009 ; Greitemeyer and Mügge, 2014 ), but those games are usually marked by an absence of violent content (considered anathema to prosocial outcomes). Likewise, we have not discussed the impact of video gaming broadly on cognitive and emotional abilities likely associated with reducing interpersonal violence (for cognitive effects see Bediou et al., 2018 ; for emotional effects see Hemenover and Bowman, 2018 ). Both are critical areas of concern that likely help us understand video gaming's impact on interpersonal violence, deserving of their own discussions. Our claim here is more basic: that we consider more seriously the seemingly paradoxical claim that violent game content might “encourage critical engagement with real world issues and problems, including forms of violence” ( Parks, 2009 , p. 90).

Virtual Reality and Violence

Immersive virtual environments, popularly known as virtual reality (VR), are mediated environments created with digital devices that present rich layers of sensory information so that users may see, hear, and feel as if they are in the physical world ( Sutherland, 1965 ). In addition to richer arrays of sensory information, VR extends the user's ability to interact with the mediated environment through high fidelity, full-body tracking—every movement that the user makes is tracked and rendered rapidly so that the human sensory channels perceive the refreshed and re-rendered virtual worlds as real-time updates. To the end user, virtual experiences in VR feel as authentic as experiences in the physical world.

This experience of users feeling as if they have visited the mediated world—the illusion of the experience feeling so authentic that the user perceives it to be a non-mediated event—is referred to as presence ( Slater and Usoh, 1993 ; Biocca, 1997 ; Lombard and Ditton, 1997 ). Presence is perceived when stimuli from the virtual world progressively occupy users' sensory channels to a level sufficient to evoke the perception that the mediated stimuli are genuine ( Biocca, 1997 ). VR experiences tend to elicit a higher level of presence perception than media experiences through more traditional platforms ( Sallnäs, 2005 ; Persky and Blascovich, 2007 ; Ahn et al., 2016 ; Cummings and Bailenson, 2016 ). These findings suggest that experiences in VR better mimic firsthand experiences in the physical world than any other existing platform.

To date, very little work in VR has looked directly at violence or violence prevention, and some of this work is conflated with a focus on VR video games ( Calvert and Tan, 1994 ; Persky and Blascovich, 2007 ). This is likely due to a broad inaccessibility of VR systems and a general lack of violent content relative to widely available video games. However, this is changing rapidly with the introduction and adoption of accessible and affordable consumer grade VR devices and an accompanied growth of content, some of which can depict violence with rich layers of sensory information and contextual details ( Gonzalez-Liencres et al., 2020 ). For instance, newer virtual experiences allow users to experience firsthand the gruesome reality of surviving in a warzone (e.g., The Fight for Falluja ) or living life as a refugee (e.g., Clouds Over Sidra ). However, these VR experiences differ from video games (including games of similar content, such as the aforementioned Spec Ops: The Line ) in that they often lack a specific goal as well as common video game mechanisms, such as points, badges, or leaderboards. Unlike video games, VR presents experiences that are meant to be lived rather than played.

Therefore, extending the limited early work on violence in VR and how it relates to user experiences both in and outside of the virtual world is a critical and timely question to address. The growing body of relevant research in VR, albeit not directly investigating violence, may also provide insights for inferences to be made. These insights may not offer immediate and definitive answers to how VR should be used to prevent violence in the physical world but may motivate future research by highlighting the connections between extant scholarship in VR and violence prevention research. The non-violent VR experiences may also be applied to primary prevention efforts to improve general user skills that could help prevent violence in the future.

Virtual Experiences Impact Physical Behaviors

People learn from both direct and indirect experiences. Bandura (1986) details how humans generally rely on their cognitive abilities to symbolize external environments and the events that take place within. Bandura argues that this ability to create cognitive models of the world based on symbolization and abstraction allows people to understand and process indirect, vicarious experiences. Accordingly, decades of mass media research have demonstrated that the impact of mass media message consumption leads to real world outcomes, ranging from health behavior changes ( Wakefield et al., 2010 ), shifts in attitudes toward social issues ( McLeod and Detenber, 1999 ), and learning ( Papa et al., 2000 ). VR contributes another layer of complexity in the user-media relationship by providing users with a highly interactive environment in which users become the agent of their own media experiences. Users have high agency in VR, controlling the field of view, manipulating objects, and locomoting through the mediated space at will, blurring the boundaries between content producer and consumer. Thus, virtual experiences are better able to mimic direct, firsthand experiences than traditional media ( Blascovich and Bailenson, 2011 ). Individuals place greater weight on direct, rather than indirect, experiences when making decisions, and consequently, direct experiences tend to have stronger and longer lasting impact on attitude changes than indirect experiences ( Fazio and Zanna, 1981 ).

Perhaps one of the most critical opportunities that VR provides for the primary prevention of violence is the fact that the impact of experiences in VR does not end when the user “unplugs” and leaves the virtual world; rather, the effects transfer into the physical world to shift the user's attitudes and behaviors, such as adopting recommended health attitudes and behaviors in the domains of eating ( Ahn, 2015 ), vaccination ( Nowak et al., 2020 ), exercising ( Fox and Bailenson, 2009 ), adopting pro-environmental behaviors ( Ahn et al., 2014 ), and helping others ( Ahn et al., 2013 ; Rosenberg et al., 2013 ) in the physical world. A growing number of studies demonstrate that users temporarily shift the attitudes and behaviors of their physical selves to match those of their virtual selves ( Yee and Bailenson, 2007 ; Ratan et al., 2018 ). Compared to traditional platforms, the magnitude of these changes is stronger and lasts longer over time ( Ahn, 2015 ; Ahn et al., 2015 ; Herrera et al., 2018 ). Counter to what intuition might suggest, virtual experiences are not transient and virtual interactions are not intangible.

VR systems have become dramatically more affordable and user-friendly. For example, Facebook's Oculus Quest system has eliminated the need for separate tracking cameras, wires, controllers, or even computers to immerse users in virtual worlds. These self-contained or “stand-alone” systems are usually less expensive (the Quest 2 will retail at $299). These advancements have brought forth a renewed interest in social VR, where large numbers of users can simultaneously meet and interact in VR ( Schroeder, 2010 ). Although formal scientific studies have yet to rigorously test the impact of social VR on interactions in the physical world, anecdotal stories abound of people attempting to resolve problems within virtual relationships in the physical world (e.g., adultery online leading to confrontations and even divorces offline; Craft, 2012 )—stories not so unique from the earliest history of social networking technologies such as bulletin board systems and text-based chat rooms (see Malloy, 2016 ).

The impact of virtual experiences on physical world attitudes and behaviors pose an interesting complexity to using VR as a tool for violence prevention. Based on the aforementioned findings that effects of virtual experiences transfer into the physical world to impact attitudes and behaviors, one aspect to consider is that violence experienced in the virtual world is likely to affect ensuing experiences in the physical world. Therefore, when integrating elements of violence exposure as a part of the intervention, individuals should also be trained to be cognizant that the impact of being exposed to virtual violence (both as a perpetrator and a victim) may not dissipate immediately upon leaving the virtual world. Consideration should also be put forth regarding potential psychophysiological duress that individuals may experience when being exposed to virtual violence. Earlier research has demonstrated that when asked to apply electric shocks to an avatar, participants displayed psychophysiological responses as if they were applying shocks to a real person, even when they were well aware that neither the avatar nor the electric shocks were real ( Gonzalez-Franco et al., 2018 ). These earlier findings are notable particularly when considering that these virtual experiences are not designed to entertain but rather are crafted as simulations, and unlike many video games, may be perceived as an authentic firsthand experience rather than entertainment. The experience of violence either as entertainment or non-entertainment may be an important point of distinction, particularly in terms of their impact on physical attitudes and behaviors. A growing body of literature notes that audience views on violence in entertainment media are complicated, involving entertainment elements such as the likeability of the villain, feelings of justice restored, and elation at watching survivors, which has been shown to increase audiences' enjoyment of violent content ( Oliver and Sanders, 2004 ). When stripped of these entertaining elements, scholars have posited that the seriousness and gravity of violent content may be highlighted ( Rovira et al., 2009 ). Violent experiences perceived as valid and plausible events are likely to have stronger and more persistent impacts that transfer into the physical world than violence experienced as mere entertainment.

Reducing Emotional Trauma Through Virtual Experiences

Because events in virtual worlds are perceived as authentic, firsthand experiences that continue to affect users after they have left the virtual world, violence prevention research in the context of VR must consider prevention efforts for both within and outside of the virtual world. The rich layers of sensory information may render violence in VR to feel comparable to violence experienced in the physical world in terms of its emotional intensity, and its negative consequences may possibly transfer over into the physical world to interfere with the victim's life after the virtual experience has ended. This is a critical takeaway because it underscores the importance of coupling knowledge from traditional violence prevention interventions with knowledge about these emerging technologies. Because the virtual and physical worlds are closely intertwined—experiences in one world impacting experiences in the other—leveraging core strategies to prevent violence in the physical world and augmenting them through novel features of VR would serve as comprehensive and creative solutions for violence prevention.

However, when designed carefully by experts and integrated with existing treatment protocols, there is strong evidence that controlled exposure to negative or traumatic events can help address psychosocial disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD; Foa et al., 2007 ), phobias ( Craske et al., 2008 ), and body image related disorders ( Rosen et al., 1995 ). For example, in exposure therapy for PTSD, desensitization to traumatic memories by reliving parts of the experience is critical to facilitate emotional process. These findings have yet to be tested with diverse populations so generalizations should be made tentatively, but earlier results demonstrate the promise that VR platforms hold in allowing therapists to recreate experiences that may be difficult, impossible, or fatal in the physical world. With full control over all aspects of the virtual experience, therapists can work with patients to tolerate the exposure to the feared or traumatic element and gradually habituate and desensitize emotional responses toward the stimuli ( Ready et al., 2006 ). Furthermore, using VR in therapy is anticipated to increase face validity of the treatment, and when combined with traditional treatment (such as cognitive behavioral therapy or medication), patients' overall treatment time is reduced, which is anticipated to help increase compliance with treatment protocols ( Difede et al., 2019 ).

The success in incorporating VR for exposure therapy might have meaningful implications for violence prevention efforts. Given that perpetrators of violence are sometimes themselves victims of violence, particularly in early childhood ( Hughes et al., 2017 ), safe, stable, nurturing relationships, and environments are critically important for violence prevention ( Merrick et al., 2013 ). Because researchers and clinicians have full control over the virtual experience and the content that users are exposed to, VR, with the supervision of a trained clinician, provides a relatively safe and controlled environment for individuals who have been exposed to violence, and therefore have an increased likelihood to become violent to others, to confront their trauma at their own pace. The effect of the training that takes place in the virtual world is then anticipated to carry over into the physical world to assist individuals in diffusing situations that they may have reacted violently to without the intervention.

Embodying Experiences of Victims, Perpetrators, and Bystanders

Taking the perspective of others has been proven to facilitate social interaction and communication by establishing common grounds between interactants so that they may infer shared knowledge and beliefs ( Krauss and Fussell, 1991 ). Sharing the same basis of feelings and thoughts with another person encourages mutual understanding and helping behaviors ( Batson, 1991 ; de Waal, 2008 ). For this reason, perspective-taking and role playing have played central roles in violence prevention efforts—including programs such as the “Green Dot” ( Coker et al., 2017 ) and “Bringing in the Bystander” ( Banyard et al., 2007 ; Edwards et al., 2019 ). However, perspective-taking is a controlled, effortful process that requires substantial cognitive resources and can be challenging for individuals who may be mentally fatigued or lack the motivation to invest the effort ( Klein and Hodges, 2001 ; Gehlbach et al., 2012 ). Furthermore, engaging in role-playing without contextual details of the violent event (e.g., where the event took place, the ambient sounds, who was there) may be insufficient in delivering the urgency or gravity of the situation and individuals are likely to perceive the role-playing exercise as a mere formality ( Jouriles et al., 2009 , 2011 ).

In response, VR systems provide rich, multilayer perceptual information and create embodied experiences so that users are able to see, hear, and feel as if they have become another person. Individuals can be placed in the heat of the moment of the violent event as if it were happening to them and experience the same event as perpetrators, victims, or bystanders at the click of a button. For example, albeit in the context of a non-violence experience, using VR to take the perspective of another person with a disability in the virtual world increased feelings of psychological merging between interactants to reduce negative attitudes and biases against persons with disabilities ( Ahn et al., 2013 ). More importantly, the effects of sharing the “lived” experiences of persons in need, who are struggling with physical disabilities or circumstances such as social inequality, transferred into the physical world to increase helping behavior over time ( Ahn et al., 2013 ; Herrera et al., 2018 ).

More relevant to the context of violence prevention, Seinfeld et al. (2018) found preliminary evidence that males with a history of domestic violence had more trouble recognizing fear in female faces than males without a history of violence. When the males with a history of domestic violence embodied the experience of a female victim in VR, their ability to recognize fear in female faces improved and their tendency toward associating fearful female faces as happy was reduced. Similarly, de Borst et al. (2020) reported that men who experienced a domestic violence incident in VR in the first-person perspective activated neural networks associated with feelings of identification for a virtual victim, even when they had never experienced domestic violence in the physical world. VR's ability to construct the common ground of understanding victims' experiences from their perspective may assist efforts for violence prevention among a broader audience, including those who may not have prior exposure to violence and, as a result, fail to understand the critical elements of preventing and dealing with violence. Likewise, Jouriles et al. (2009 , 2011) validated and demonstrated that role-playing in VR is more effective than traditional role-playing methods often adopted in counseling and training for violent events, because of the realism of contextual details and the sense of presence that the virtual experience offers.

Earlier research in bystander interventions notes that bystanders often fail to recognize a bullying situation taking place in front of them, particularly when victims are being exposed to covert and tacit violence ( Killer et al., 2019 ). Moreover, cyberbullying perpetrators may not recognize the added pressure on the victims who are unable to get a reprieve from the bullying in a constantly connected world, which could hinder their ability to empathize with victims. This ability to view and live through the same experience from different perspectives is likely to allow all parties involved to understand the complexities involved in a violent event—violence may be perceived very differently when it is experienced as a victim, perpetrator, or bystander. VR ability to demonstrate this difference using the same violence event may facilitate conversations between patients and clinicians, and further research is necessary to provide empirical support. Finally, Sargent et al. (2020) also demonstrated that VR may be used to objectively and unobtrusively assess bystander behaviors by logging user behaviors during their engagement with the VR experience that simulated violent events such as physical dating violence, stalking, or coercive relationships. User responses in VR involving peer pressure resistance (ability to resist pressure from avatars controlled by actors) and bystander responses (effectiveness of user intervention in risky situations) were coded and validated to demonstrate that VR may also serve as a psychometrically sound addition to self-reports to assess responses to violent events.

Experiencing Future Benefits of Violence Prevention

Future orientation is an individual's tendency to think about the future and plan ahead before acting by anticipating future consequences ( Trommsdorff, 1983 ). Having a positive future orientation toward life motivates individuals to engage in less compromising behaviors and promotes behaviors that would help them move toward their vision of the future ( Arnett, 2000 ). However, maintaining an orientation toward the future is not always easy, particularly when presented with attractive options in the present. The temporal delay between present day choices and future consequences can render the causal relationship abstract and selecting present day behaviors for delayed gratifications in the future can be challenging for many.

Some research has demonstrated that encouraging future orientation in adolescents so that they can consider negative consequences of engaging in violent behavior and envision a future where they have successfully met their life goals is effective in reducing violence ( Stoddard et al., 2011 ). A growing collection of research demonstrates that VR can effectively demonstrate future negative consequences of present behaviors, thereby promoting favorable health behaviors ( Fox and Bailenson, 2009 ; Persky and McBride, 2009 ; Ahn, 2015 ), and similar approaches have been successful in promoting pro-environmental behaviors ( Zaalberg and Midden, 2013 ; Ahn et al., 2014 , 2016 ), where future oriented thinking has been shown to demonstrably increase risk perceptions ( Lee et al., 2020 ). These earlier findings suggest promising potentials for using VR to prevent violence by having individuals live through future negative consequences as if they were happening at the moment.

The idea of using future orientation to modify present behaviors is not new. Literature from multiple disciplines have documented how individuals struggle to make intertemporal choices, in which decisions must be made for benefits that occur now vs. benefits for the future ( Schelling, 1982 ; Laibson, 1997 ). Because people generally place greater priority to benefits in the present while caring less about benefits in the future (temporal discounting, see Chapman, 1996 ), scholars have had difficulty persuading them to change their present day behaviors for future benefits. The fundamental reason behind this struggle seems to be because people consider the future self as someone disconnected to the present self (seeing the future self as a stranger; Pronin and Ross, 2006 ), when the events that take place in the extremely distant future seem abstract and irrelevant to present events. In VR, users embody events set in the future so that the events feel as if they are happening at the moment. Studies have demonstrated that these embodied experiences lead to feelings of urgency and immediacy among users ( Ahn, 2015 ; Ahn et al., 2016 ) and an increased sense of connection between the present and future selves ( Hershfield et al., 2011 ).

Discussion and Future Research Directions

Given the ubiquity of video gaming, increased access to VR, and myriad forms of content in both technologies, interactive media violence likely exist at and operate in all levels of the social ecological model. At the individual level, experiences with video games and VR can foster both cognitive skills (such as information processing, Green, 2018 ) and emotional skills (such as emotional regulation, Hemenover and Bowman, 2018 ) that might serve as protective factors for violence prevention. One area of future research may consider the influence of adverse childhood experiences on how one processes and responds to interactive media violence. At the relational level, a core feature of video games and VR is their sociality (especially online games, see Steinkuehler and Williams, 2006 ) and potential for reciprocity among players ( Velez et al., 2016 ). Notably, social connectedness (e.g., peer relationships) is a violence protective factor, and future research may examine the role that interactive media violence plays within and between various peer groups, both online and in person. For example, relational-level efforts could use interactive media violence to organize and facilitate interactions and conversations among the many shareholders affected by interpersonal violence—for example, serving as robust and powerful experiences to communicate risks to potential perpetrators and share victims stories in authentic and meaningful ways. Video game technologies might provide comparatively safe fantasy spaces to better understand the dynamics of interpersonal violence, while VR technologies can quite literally allow for shared experiences of the violent event that can be seen, heard, and felt from both the perspective of the victim or the perpetrator. At the community and societal levels, future research exploring where and how interactive media violence is engaged with and discussed by institutions—from schools and community centers to larger media systems—could be critical in understanding whether or not such content is accepted as an alternative means for violence prevention (similar to how films such as “Schindler's List” or “Hotel Rwanda” might be screened), or relegated to moral panic status ( Bowman, 2016 ). At a macro level, violence in myriad forms (including interpersonal violence) is already part of video games and VR and as such, it is unrealistic to presume that all such content can be avoided or eliminated from these spaces. Discussions of and exposure to such content may be fostered under the guidance of peers, parents, teachers, trained clinicians, and others allowing for a more proactive and upstream (re: primary prevention) approach to preventing deleterious effects such as interpersonal violence ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020b ). Participatory design principles could also be considered as way mitigate harmful content, and likewise content in both spaces can be and is monitored through shared use and behavior policies to prevent interpersonal violence online (such as cyberbullying). Broadly, future work is needed to better understand the impacts of interactive media violence at all levels of the social ecology, as they can be informative to violence prevention public health approaches.

Understanding the influence of interactive media violence on aggressive and violent outcomes has been a critical concern of recent media effects research. Extant literature has consistently shown a small-yet-statistically significant association between violent media and aggressive outcomes, and these effects also include interactive media violence. Yet as video games and VR technologies become increasingly more complex and diverse—both in terms of technical proficiency and narrative complexity—there are numerous opportunities to examine the potential for these digital and interactive experiences to support violence prevention. Emerging evidence from media psychology and related fields suggests the possibility that for some users, experiences with on-screen (or in-headset) violence can influence how we think about, feel toward, and react to interpersonal violence. Given the limited scope of this research, the dynamic nature of interactive media development, and the known risks associated with violent content on aggression, research is needed to understand how interactive media may foster and influence protective factors or possibly interventions for preventing real-world violence.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

The findings and conclusions in this report do not necessarily represented the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: video games, virtual reality, violence prevention, intervention, media violence

Citation: Bowman ND, Ahn SJ and Mercer Kollar LM (2020) The Paradox of Interactive Media: The Potential for Video Games and Virtual Reality as Tools for Violence Prevention. Front. Commun. 5:580965. doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2020.580965

Received: 07 July 2020; Accepted: 28 October 2020; Published: 23 November 2020.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2020 Bowman, Ahn and Mercer Kollar. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Nicholas David Bowman, nick.bowman@ttu.edu

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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

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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.

What do you think? Leave a respectful comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A history of a moral panic

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reviewing all the scholarly literature

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

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

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

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

The role of professional groups

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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El Paso shooting is domestic terrorism, investigators say

Nation Aug 04

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

(202) 336-6048

Section Quiz

8.1 technology today.

Jerome is able to use the Internet to select reliable sources for his research paper, but Charlie just copies large pieces of web pages and pastes them into his paper. Jerome has _____________ while Charlie does not.

• a functional perspective
• the knowledge gap
• e-readiness
• a digital divide

The ________ can be directly attributed to the digital divide, because differential ability to access the internet leads directly to a differential ability to use the knowledge found on the Internet.

• digital divide
• knowledge gap
• feminist perspective

The fact that your cell phone is using outdated technology within a year or two of purchase is an example of ____________.

• the conflict perspective
• conspicuous consumption
• planned obsolescence

The history of technology began _________.

• in the early stages of human societies
• with the invention of the computer
• during the Renaissance
• during the nineteenth century

8.2 Media and Technology in Society

When it comes to technology, media, and society, which of the following is true?

• Media can influence technology, but not society.
• Technology created media, but society has nothing to do with these.
• Technology, media, and society are bound and cannot be separated.
• Society influences media but is not connected to technology.

If the U.S. Patent Office were to issue a patent for a new type of tomato that tastes like a jellybean, it would be issuing a _________ patent?

• utility patent
• plant patent
• design patent
• The U.S. Patent Office does not issue a patent for plants.

Which of the following is the primary component of the evolutionary model of technological change?

• Technology should not be subject to patenting.
• Technology and the media evolve together.
• Technology can be traced back to the early stages of human society.
• A breakthrough in one form of technology leads to a number of variations, and technological developments.

Which of the following is not a form of new media?

• The cable television program Yellowstone
• A cooking blog written by Rachael Ray

Research regarding video game violence suggests that _________.

• boys who play violent video games become more aggressive, but girls do not
• girls who play violent video games become more aggressive, but boys do not
• violent video games have no connection to aggressive behavior
• violent video games lead to an increase in aggressive thought and behavior

Comic books, Wikipedia, MTV, and a commercial for Coca-Cola are all examples of:

• symbolic interaction perspective
• the digital divide

8.3 Global Implications of Media and Technology

When Japanese scientists develop a new vaccine for swine flu and offer that technology to U.S. pharmaceutical companies, __________ has taken place.

• media globalization
• technological diffusion

In the mid-90s, the U.S. government grew concerned that Microsoft was a _______________, exercising disproportionate control over the available choices and prices of computers.

• conglomerate
• technological globalization

The movie Babel featured an international cast and was filmed on location in various nations. When it screened in theaters worldwide, it introduced a number of ideas and philosophies about cross-cultural connections. This might be an example of:

• conglomerating
• symbolic interaction

Which of the following is not a risk of media globalization?

• The creation of cultural and ideological biases
• The creation of local monopolies
• The risk of cultural imperialism
• The loss of local culture

The government of __________ blocks citizens’ access to popular new media sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

• Afghanistan

8.4 Theoretical Perspectives on Media and Technology

A parent secretly monitoring the babysitter through the use of GPS, site blocker, and nanny cam is a good example of:

• the social construction of reality
• technophilia
• a neo-Luddite
• panoptic surveillance

The use of Facebook to create an online persona by only posting images that match your ideal self exemplifies the_____________ that can occur in forms of new media.

• social construction of reality
• cyberfeminism
• market segmentation
• referencing

_________ tend to be more pro-technology, while _______ view technology as a symbol of the coldness of modern life.

• Luddites; technophiles
• technophiles; Luddites
• cyberfeminists; technophiles
• liberal feminists; conflict theorists

When it comes to media and technology, a functionalist would focus on:

• the symbols created and reproduced by the media
• the association of technology and technological skill with men
• the way that various forms of media socialize users
• the digital divide between the technological haves and have-nots

When all media sources report a simplified version of the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, with no effort to convey the hard science and complicated statistical data behind the story, ___________ is probably occurring.

• gatekeeping

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• Authors: Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Introduction to Sociology 3e
• Publication date: Jun 3, 2021
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/1-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/8-section-quiz

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