essay on violent video games and aggression

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.

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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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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

The relation of violent video games to adolescent aggression: an examination of moderated mediation effect.

• 1 Research Institute of Moral Education, College of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China
• 2 The Lab of Mental Health and Social Adaptation, Faculty of Psychology, Research Center for Mental Health Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China

To assess the moderated mediation effect of normative beliefs about aggression and family environment on exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression, the subjects self-reported their exposure to violent video games, family environment, normative beliefs about aggression, and aggressive behavior. The results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression; normative beliefs about aggression had a mediation effect on exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression, while family environment moderated the first part of the mediation process. For individuals with a good family environment, exposure to violent video games had only a direct effect on aggression; however, for those with poor family environment, it had both direct and indirect effects mediated by normative beliefs about aggression. This moderated mediation model includes some notions of General Aggression Model (GAM) and Catalyst Model (CM), which helps shed light on the complex mechanism of violent video games influencing adolescent aggression.

Introduction

Violent video games and aggression.

The relationship between violent video games and adolescent aggression has become a hot issue in psychological research ( Wiegman and Schie, 1998 ; Anderson and Bushman, 2001 ; Anderson et al., 2010 ; Ferguson et al., 2012 ; Greitemeyer, 2014 ; Yang et al., 2014 ; Boxer et al., 2015 ). Based on the General Aggression Model (GAM), Anderson et al. suggested that violent video games constitute an antecedent variable of aggressive behavior, i.e., the degree of exposure to violent video games directly leads to an increase of aggression ( Anderson and Bushman, 2001 ; Bushman and Anderson, 2002 ; Anderson, 2004 ; Anderson et al., 2004 ). Related longitudinal studies ( Anderson et al., 2008 ), meta-analyses ( Anderson et al., 2010 ; Greitemeyer and Mugge, 2014 ), event-related potential studies ( Bailey et al., 2011 ; Liu et al., 2015 ), and trials about juvenile delinquents ( DeLisi et al., 2013 ) showed that exposure to violent video games significantly predicts adolescent aggression.

Although Anderson et al. insisted on using the GAM to explain the effect of violent video games on aggression, other researchers have proposed alternative points of view. For example, a meta-analysis by Sherry (2001) suggested that violent video games have minor influence on adolescent aggression. Meanwhile, Ferguson (2007) proposed that publication bias (or file drawer effect) may have implications in the effect of violent video games on adolescent aggression. Publication bias means that compared with articles with negative results, those presenting positive results (such as statistical significance) are more likely to be published ( Rosenthal and Rosnow, 1991 ). A meta-analysis by Ferguson (2007) found that after publication bias adjustment, the related studies cannot support the hypothesis that violent video games are highly correlated with aggression. Then, Ferguson et al. proposed a Catalyst Model (CM), which is opposite to the GAM. According to this model, genetic predisposition can lead to an aggressive child temperament and aggressive adult personality. Individuals who have an aggressive temperament or an aggressive personality are more likely to produce violent behavior during times of environmental strain. Environmental factors act as catalysts for violent acts for an individual who have a violence-prone personality. This means that although the environment does not cause violent behavior, but it can moderate the causal influence of biology on violence. The CM model suggested that exposure to violent video games is not an antecedent variable of aggressive behavior, but only acts as a catalyst influencing its form ( Ferguson et al., 2008 ). Much of studies ( Ferguson et al., 2009 , 2012 ; Ferguson, 2013 , 2015 ; Furuya-Kanamori and Doi, 2016 ; Huesmann et al., 2017 ) found that adolescent aggression cannot be predicted by the exposure to violent video games, but it is closely related to antisocial personality traits, peer influence, and family violence.

Anderson and his collaborators ( Groves et al., 2014 ; Kepes et al., 2017 ) suggested there were major methodological shortcomings in the studies of Ferguson et al. and redeclared the validity of their own researches. Some researchers supported Anderson et al. and criticized Ferguson’s view ( Gentile, 2015 ; Rothstein and Bushman, 2015 ). However, Markey (2015) held a neutral position that extreme views should not be taken in the relationship between violent video games and aggression.

In fact, the relation of violent video games to aggression is complicated. Besides the controversy between the above two models about whether there is an influence, other studies explored the role of internal factors such as normative belief about aggression and external factors such as family environment in the relationship between violent video games and aggression.

Normative Beliefs About Aggression, Violence Video Games, and Aggression

Normative beliefs about aggression are one of the most important cognitive factors influencing adolescent aggression; they refer to an assessment of aggression acceptability by an individual ( Huesmann and Guerra, 1997 ). They can be divided into two types: general beliefs and retaliatory beliefs. The former means a general view about aggression, while the latter reflects aggressive beliefs in provocative situations. Normative beliefs about aggression reflect the degree acceptance of aggression, which affects the choice of aggressive behavior.

Studies found that normative beliefs about aggression are directly related to aggression. First, self-reported aggression is significantly correlated to normative beliefs about aggression ( Bailey and Ostrov, 2008 ; Li et al., 2015 ). General normative beliefs about aggression can predict young people’s physical, verbal, and indirect aggression ( Lim and Ang, 2009 ); retaliatory normative beliefs about aggression can anticipate adolescent retaliation behavior after 1 year ( Werner and Hill, 2010 ; Krahe and Busching, 2014 ). There is a longitudinal temporal association of normative beliefs about aggression with aggression ( Krahe and Busching, 2014 ). Normative beliefs about aggression are significantly positively related to online aggressive behavior ( Wright and Li, 2013 ), which is the most important determining factor of adolescent cyberbullying ( Kowalski et al., 2014 ). Teenagers with high normative beliefs about aggression are more likely to become bullies and victims of traditional bullying and cyberbullying ( Burton et al., 2013 ). Finally, normative beliefs about aggression can significantly predict the support and reinforcement of bystanders in offline bullying and cyberbullying ( Machackova and Pfetsch, 2016 ).

According to Bandura’s social cognitive theory ( Bandura, 1989 ), violent video games can initiate adolescents’ observational learning. In this situation, not only can they imitate the aggressive behavior of the model but also their understanding and acceptability about aggression may change. Therefore, normative beliefs about aggression can also be a mediator between violent video games and adolescent aggression ( Duan et al., 2014 ; Anderson et al., 2017 ; Huesmann et al., 2017 ). Studies have shown that the mediating role of normative beliefs about aggression is not influenced by factors such as gender, prior aggression, and parental monitoring ( Gentile et al., 2014 ).

Family Environment, Violence Video Games, and Aggression

Family violence, parenting style, and other family factors have major effects on adolescent aggression. On the one hand, family environment can influence directly on aggression by shaping adolescents’ cognition and setting up behavioral models. Many studies have found that family violence and other negative factors are positively related to adolescent aggression ( Ferguson et al., 2009 , 2012 ; Ferguson, 2013 ), while active family environment can reduce the aggressive behavior ( Batanova and Loukas, 2014 ).

On the other hand, family environment can act on adolescent aggression together with other factors, such as exposure to violent video games. Analysis of the interaction between family conflict and media violence (including violence on TV and in video games) to adolescent aggression showed that teenagers living in higher conflict families with more media violence exposure show more aggressive behavior ( Fikkers et al., 2013 ). Parental monitoring is significantly correlated with reduced media violence exposure and a reduction in aggressive behavior 6 months later ( Gentile et al., 2014 ). Parental mediation can moderate the relationship between media violence exposure and normative beliefs about aggression, i.e., for children with less parental mediation, predictability of violent media exposure on normative beliefs about aggression is stronger ( Linder and Werner, 2012 ). Parental mediation is closely linked to decreased aggression caused by violent media ( Nathanson, 1999 ; Rasmussen, 2014 ; Padilla-Walker et al., 2016 ). Further studies have shown that the autonomy-supportive restrictive mediation of parents is related to a reduction in current aggressive behavior by decreasing media violence exposure; conversely, inconsistent restrictive mediation is associated with an increase of current aggressive behavior by enhancing media violence exposure ( Fikkers et al., 2017 ).

The Current Study

Despite GAM and CM hold opposite views on the relationship between violent video games and aggression, both of the two models imply the same idea that aggression cannot be separated from internal and external factors. While emphasizing on negative effects of violent video games on adolescents’ behavior, the GAM uses internal factors to explain the influencing mechanism, including aggressive beliefs, aggressive behavior scripts, and aggressive personality ( Bushman and Anderson, 2002 ; Anderson and Carnagey, 2014 ). Although the CM considers that there is no significant relation between violent video games and aggression, it also acknowledges the role of external factors such as violent video games and family violence. Thus, these two models seem to be contradictory, but in fact, they reveal the mechanism of aggression from different points of view. It will be more helpful to explore the effect of violent video games on aggression from the perspective of combination of internal and external factors.

Although previous studies have investigated the roles of normative beliefs about aggression and family factors in the relationship between violent video games and adolescent aggression separately, the combined effect of these two factors remains unstudied. The purpose of this study was to analyze the combined effect of normative beliefs about aggression and family environment. This can not only confirm the effects of violent video games on adolescent aggression further but also can clarify the influencing mechanism from the integration of GAM and CM to a certain extent. Based on the above, the following three hypotheses were proposed:

Hypothesis 1: There is a significant positive correlation between exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression.

Hypothesis 2: Normative beliefs about aggression are the mediator of exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression.

Hypothesis 3: The family environment can moderate the mediation effects of normative beliefs about aggression in exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression; exposure to violent video games, family environment, normative beliefs about aggression, and aggression constitute a moderated mediation model.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

All subjects gave informed written consent for participation in this investigation, and their parents signed parental written informed consent. The study was reviewed and approved by the Professor Committee of School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, which is the committee responsible for providing ethics approvals. A total of 648 Chinese middle school students participated in this study, including 339 boys and 309 girls; 419 students were from cities and towns, and 229 from the countryside. There were 277 and 371 junior and high school students, respectively. Ages ranged from 12 to 19 years, averaging 14.73 ( SD  = 1.60).

Video Game Questionnaire (VGQ)

The Video Game Questionnaire ( Anderson and Dill, 2000) required participants to list their favorite five video games and assess their use frequencies, the degree of violent content, and the degree of violent images on a 7-point scale (1, participants seldom play video games, with no violent content or image; 7, participants often play video games with many violent contents and images). Methods for calculating the score of exposure to violent video games: (score of violent content in the game + score of violent images in the game) × use frequency/5. Chen et al. (2012) found that the Chinese version of this questionnaire had high internal consistency reliability and good content validity. The Chinese version was used in this study, and the Cronbach’s α coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.88.

Aggression Questionnaire (AQ)

There were 29 items in AQ ( Buss and Perry, 1992 ), including four dimensions: physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility. The scale used 5-point scoring criteria (1, very incongruent with my features; 5, very congruent with my features). Scores for each item were added to obtain the dimension score, and dimension scores were summed to obtain the total score. The Chinese version of AQ had good internal consistency reliability and construct validity ( Ying and Dai, 2008 ). In this study, the Chinese version was used and its Cronbach’s α coefficient was 0.83.

Family Environment Scale (FES)

The FES ( Moos, 1990 ) includes 90 true-false questions and is divided into 10 subscales, including cohesion, expressiveness, conflict, independence, achievement-orientation, intellectual-cultural orientation, active-recreational orientation, moral-religious emphasis, organization, and control. The Chinese version of FES was revised by Fei et al. (1991) and used in this study. Three subscales closely related to aggression were selected, including cohesion, conflict, and moral-religious emphasis, with 27 items in total. The family environment score was the sum of scores of these three subscales (the conflict subscale was first inverted). The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.75.

Normative Beliefs About Aggression Scale (NOBAGS)

There are 20 items in the NOBAGS ( Huesmann and Guerra, 1997 ), which includes retaliation (12 items) and general (8 items) aggression belief. A 4-point Likert scale is used (1, absolutely wrong; 4, absolutely right). The subjects were asked to assess the accuracy of the behavior described in each item. High score means high level of normative beliefs about aggression. The revised Chinese version of NOBAGS consists of two factors: retaliation (nine items) and general (six items) aggression belief. Its internal consistency coefficient and test-retest reliability are 0.81 and 0.79. Confirmative factor analysis showed that this version has good construct validity: χ 2  = 280.09, df  = 89, χ 2 / df  = 3.15, RMSEA = 0.07, SRMR = 0.04, NFI = 0.95, NNFI = 0.96, and CFI = 0.96 ( Shao and Wang, 2017 ). In this study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient of the Chinese version was 0.88.

Group testing was performed in randomly selected classes of six middle schools. All subjects completed the above four questionnaires.

Data Analysis

IBM SPSS Statistics 22 was used to analysis the correlations among study variables, the mediating effect of normative beliefs about aggression on the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression, and the moderating role of family environment in the relationship between exposure to violent video games and normative beliefs about aggression. In order to validate the moderated mediation model, Mplus 7 was also used.

Correlation Analysis Among Study Variables

In this study, self-reported questionnaires were used to collect data, and results might be influenced by common method bias. Therefore, the Harman’s single-factor test was used to assess common method bias before data analysis. The results showed that eigenvalues of 34 unrotated factors were greater than 1, and the amount of variation explained by the first factor was 10.01%, which is much less than 40% of the critical value. Accordingly, common method bias was not significant in this study.

As described in Table 1 , the degree of exposure to violent video games showed significant positive correlations to normative beliefs about aggression and aggression; family environment was negatively correlated to normative beliefs about aggression and aggression; normative beliefs about aggression were significantly and positively related to aggression. The gender difference of exposure to violent video games ( t  = 7.93, p  < 0.001) and normative beliefs about aggression ( t  = 2.74, p  < 0.01) were significant, which boys scored significantly higher than girls.

Table 1 . Means, standard deviations, and Pearson correlations among study variables.

Mediating Effect Analysis

To examine the mediation effect of normative beliefs about aggression on the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression, gender factor was controlled firstly. Stepwise regression analysis showed that the regression of aggression to violent video games ( c  = 0.28, t  = 6.96, p  < 0.001), the regression of normative beliefs about aggression to violent video games ( a  = 0.19, t  = 4.69, p  < 0.001), and the regression of aggression to violent video games ( c ′ = 0.22, t  = 5.69, p  < 0.001) and normative beliefs about aggression ( b  = 0.31, t  = 8.25, p  < 0.001) were all significant. Thus, normative beliefs about aggression played a partial mediating role in exposure to violent video games and aggression. The mediation effect value was 0.06, accounting for 21.43% (0.06/0.28) of the total effect.

Moderated Mediation Effect Analysis

After standardizing scores of exposure to violent videogames, normative beliefs about aggression, family environment, and aggression, two interaction terms were calculated, including family environment × exposure to violent video games and family environment × normative beliefs about aggression. Regression analysis was carried out after controlling gender factor ( Table 2 ).

Table 2 . Moderated mediation effect analysis of the relationship between violent video exposure and aggression.

In the first step, a simple moderated model (Model 1) between exposure to violent video games and aggression was established. The result showed that exposure to violent video games had a significant effect on aggression ( c 1  = 0.24, t  = 6.13, p  < 0.001), while the effect of family environment × exposure to violent video games on aggression was not significant ( c 3  = 0.05, t  = −1.31, p  = 0.19), indicating that the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression was not moderated by family environment.

Next, a moderated model (Model 2) between exposure to violent video games and normative beliefs about aggression was established. The results showed that exposure to violent video games had a significant effect on normative beliefs about aggression ( a 1  = 0.13, t  = 3.42, p  < 0.001), and the effect of family environment × exposure to violent video games on normative beliefs about aggression was significant ( a 3  = −0.13, t  = −3.63, p  < 0.01).

In the third step, a moderated mediation model (Model 3) between exposure to violent video games and aggression was established. As shown in Table 2 , the effect of normative beliefs about aggression on aggression was significant ( b 1  = 0.24, t  = 6.15, p  < 0.001), and the effect of family environment × exposure to violent video games on normative beliefs about aggression was not significant ( b 2  = 0.02, t  = 0.40, p  = 0.69). Because both a 3 and b 1 were significant, exposure to violent video games, family environment, normative beliefs about aggression, and aggression constituted a moderated mediation model. Normative beliefs about aggression played a mediating role between exposure to violent video games and aggression, while family environment was a moderator between exposure to violent video games and normative beliefs about aggression. Mplus analysis proved that the moderated mediation model had good model fitting (χ 2 / df  = 1.54, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.03, and SRMR = 0.01).

To further analyze the moderating effect of the family environment and exposure to violent video games on normative beliefs about aggression, the family environment was divided into the high and low groups, according to the principle of standard deviation, and a simple slope test was performed ( Figure 1 ). The results found that for individuals with high score of family environment, prediction of exposure to violent video games to normative beliefs about aggression was not significant ( b  = 0.08, SE  = 0.08, p  = 0.37). For individuals with low score of family environment, exposure to violent video games could significantly predict normative beliefs about aggression ( b  = 0.34, SE  = 0.09, p  < 0.001). Based on the overall findings, individuals with high scores of family environment showed a nonsignificant mediating effect of normative beliefs about aggression on the relation of exposure to violent video games and aggression; however, for individuals with low scores of family environment, normative beliefs about aggression played a partial mediating role in the effect of exposure to violent video games on aggression.

Figure 1 . The moderating effect of the family environment on the relationship between violent video game exposure and normative beliefs about aggression.

Main Findings and Implications

This study found a significantly positive correlation between exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression, corroborating existing studies ( Anderson, 2004 ; Anderson et al., 2010 ; DeLisi et al., 2013 ; Greitemeyer and Mugge, 2014 ). Anderson et al. (2017) assessed teenagers in Australia, China, Germany, the United States, and other three countries and found that exposure to violent media, including television, movies, and video games, is positively related to adolescent aggression, demonstrating cross-cultural consistency; 8% of variance in aggression could be independently explained by exposure to violent media. In this study, after controlling for gender and family environment, R 2 for exposure to violent video games in predicting adolescent aggression was 0.05, indicating that 5% of variation in adolescent aggression could be explained by exposure to violent media. These consistent findings confirm the effect of exposure to violent video games on adolescent aggression and can be explained by the GAM. According to the GAM ( Bushman and Anderson, 2002 ; Anderson and Carnagey, 2014 ), violent video games can make teenagers acquire, repeat, and reinforce aggression-related knowledge structures, including aggressive beliefs and attitude, aggressive perceptual schemata, aggressive expectation schemata, aggressive behavior scripts, and aggression desensitization. Therefore, aggressive personality is promoted, increasing the possibility of aggressive behavior. The Hypothesis 1 of this study was validated and provided evidence for the GAM.

As shown above, normative beliefs about aggression had a partial mediation effect on the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression. Exposure to violent video games, on the one hand, can predict adolescent aggression directly; on the other hand, it had an indirect effect on adolescent aggression via normative beliefs about aggression. According to the above results, when exposure to violent video games changes by 1 standard deviation, adolescent aggression varies by 0.28 standard deviation, with 0.22 standard deviation being a direct effect of exposure to violent video games on adolescent aggression and 0.06 standard deviation representing the effect through normative beliefs about aggression. Too much violence in video games makes it easy for individuals to become accustomed to violence and emotionally apathetic towards the harmful consequences of violence. Moreover, it can make individuals accept the idea that violence is a good way of problem solving, leading to an increase in normative beliefs about aggression; under certain situational cues, it is more likely to become violent or aggressive. This conclusion is supported by other studies ( Gentile et al., 2014 ; Anderson et al., 2017 ; Huesmann et al., 2017 ). Like Hypothesis 1, Hypothesis 2 was validated the GAM.

One of the main findings of this study was the validation of Hypothesis 3: a moderated mediation model was constructed involving exposure to violent video games, family environment, normative beliefs about aggression, and aggression. Family environment moderated the first half of the mediation process of violent video games, normative beliefs about aggression, and aggression. In this study, family environment encompassed three factors, including (1) cohesion reflecting the degree of mutual commitment, assistance, and support among family members; (2) conflict reflecting the extent of anger, aggression, and conflict among family members; and (3) moral-religious emphasis reflecting the degree of emphasis on ethics, religion, and values. Individuals with high scores of family environment often help each other; seldom show anger, attack, and contradiction openly; and pay more attention to morality and values. These positive aspects would help them understand violence in video games from the right perspective, reduce recognition and acceptance of violence or aggression, and diminish the effect of violent video games on normative beliefs about aggression. Hence, exposure to violent video games could not predict normative beliefs about aggression of these individuals. By contrast, individuals with low scores of family environment are less likely to help each other; they often openly show anger, attack, and contradiction and do not pay much attention to morality and values. These negative aspects would not decrease but increase their acceptance of violence and aggression. For these individuals, because of the lack of mitigation mechanisms, exposure to violent video games could predict normative beliefs about aggression significantly.

The moderated mediation model of the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression could not only help reveal that exposure to violent video games can affect aggression but also provide an elaboration of the influencing mechanism. According to this model, for individuals with high scores of family environment, exposure to violent video games had only direct effect on aggression. However, for those with low scores of family environment, there was not only a direct effect of exposure to violent video games on aggression but also an indirect effect mediated by normative beliefs about aggression. In short, exposure to violence video games affecting aggression through normative beliefs about aggression is more likely to happen to adolescents with poor family environment than those with good family environment. That is, generation of adolescent aggression is not only related to internal cognitive factors but also to external situations. As Piotrowski and Valkenburg ( Piotrowski and Valkenburg, 2015 ; Valkenburg, 2015 ) pointed out, the effect of violent video games/media on adolescents is a complex interaction of dispositional, developmental, and social factors, and individual differences in susceptibility to these three factors determine the nature and the extent of this influence. The proposed model incorporated some perspectives of GAM and CM: while confirming the effect of exposure to violent video games on aggression occurrence, the combined effect of individual and environmental factors was verified.

Compared with the simple mediation or moderation model, the present moderated mediation model provided deeper insights into the internal mechanism of the effect of violent video games on aggression, providing inspirations for preventing adolescent aggression. First, in view of the close relationship between exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression, relevant government departments should continue to improve the grading system of video games; meanwhile, parents should appropriately monitor the types of video games used by teenagers as well as the time spent and reduce the degree of exposure to violent video games. Second, by allowing teenagers to objectively distinguish between violence in games and reality, the mediating role of normative beliefs about aggression could inspire people to identify rational ways to solve violence problems and to experience the hurtful consequences of aggression. This would help adolescents change normative beliefs about aggression, establish a correct view of right and wrong, and reduce the occurrence of aggression. Finally, the moderating effect of family environment on the mediation process suggests that more attention should be paid to the important role of family environment. On the one hand, family education is closely related to adolescent aggression. Then, parents should create a good family atmosphere, publicly show anger and aggression as little as possible, and advocate and practice positive moral values. Parents should adopt authoritative styles, abandoning autocratic and indulgent parenting styles ( Casas et al., 2006 ; Sandstrom, 2007 ; Underwood et al., 2009 ; Kawabata et al., 2011 ) to minimize the negative effect of exposure to violent video games. On the other hand, for teenagers with poor family environment, while reducing exposure to violent video games, it is particularly important to change their normative beliefs about aggression, no longer viewing aggression as an alternative way to solve problems.

Limitations

Limitations of the current study should be mentioned. First, only Chinese school students were assessed, in a relatively small number, which could affect sample representativeness. A large sample of teenagers from different countries and in different ages, also including juvenile offenders, would be more accurate in revealing the effect of violent video games on adolescent aggression. Second, this study only focused on violent video games, not involving violent media such as internet and television, daily life events, wars, and other major social events. Indeed, these factors also have important effects on adolescent aggression, and their influencing mechanisms and combined effect are worth investigating further. Third, this study mainly adopted the self-report method. Use of peer, parent, or teacher reports to assess exposure to violent video games and aggression would help improve the effectiveness of the study. Fourth, there might be other mediators, moderating variables and relational models. In addition to normative beliefs about aggression and family environment, individual emotions, personality characteristics, school climate, and companions may play mediating or moderating roles in the relationship between violent video games and aggression. This study developed a moderated mediation model between family environment and normative beliefs about aggression, but the possibility of multiple mediation and mediated moderation models cannot be ruled out.

The current study showed that exposure to violent video games is positively related to adolescent aggression; normative beliefs about aggression have a mediating effect on exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression, while the family environment regulates the first part of the mediation process. For individuals with good family environment, exposure to violent video games only has a direct effect on aggression; however, for those with poor family environment, there is an indirect effect mediated by normative beliefs about aggression alongside a direct effect. This moderated mediation model incorporates some perspectives of GAM and CM, enriching studies of generative mechanism of adolescent aggression.

Author Contributions

YW and RS conceived the idea of the study. RS analyzed the data. YW and RS interpreted the results and wrote the paper. YW discussed the results and revised the manuscript.

This study was supported by a grant from the National Social Science Foundation of China (14CSH017) to YW.

Conflict of Interest Statement

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: violence video games, aggression, family environment, normative beliefs about aggression, moderated mediation effect

Citation: Shao R and Wang Y (2019) The Relation of Violent Video Games to Adolescent Aggression: An Examination of Moderated Mediation Effect. Front. Psychol . 10:384. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00384

Received: 25 September 2017; Accepted: 07 February 2019; Published: 21 February 2019.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2019 Shao and Wang. 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: Yunqiang Wang, [email protected] ; [email protected]

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

• Childhood Development
• Perspectives on Psychological Science
• Video Games

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Violent Video Games and Aggression

After mass shootings, the media and public officials often question the role of the shooter’s video game habits.

The American Psychological Association (APA) considers violent video games a risk factor for aggression . [1] In 2017, the APA Task Force on Violent Media concluded that violent video game exposure was linked to increased aggressive behaviors, thoughts, and emotions, as well as decreased empathy. However, it is not clear whether violent video game exposure was linked to criminality or delinquency.

Do Violent Video Games Increase Aggression?

Studies have shown that playing violent video games can increase aggressive thoughts, behaviors, and feelings in both the short-term and long-term. [2] Violent video games can also desensitize people to seeing aggressive behavior and decrease prosocial behaviors such as helping another person and feeling empathy (the ability to understand others). The longer that individuals are exposed to violent video games, the more likely they are to have aggressive behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. These effects have been seen in studies in both Eastern and Western countries. Although males spend more time than females playing violent video games, violent video game exposure can increase aggressive thoughts, behaviors, and feelings in both sexes.

Aggressive behavior is measured by scientists in a number of ways. Some studies looked at self-reports of hitting or pushing, and some looked at peer or teacher ratings on aggressive behaviors. Other studies looked at how likely an individual was to subject others to an unpleasant exposure to hot sauce or a loud noise after playing violent video games.

Unfortunately, few studies have been completed on violent video game exposure and aggression in children under age 10. There is also little information about the impact of violent video game exposure on minority children.

There have not been many studies on the effects of different characteristics of video games, such as perspective or plot. However, some studies have found that competition among players in video games is a better predictor of aggressive behavior than is the level of violence. [3] 

Do Violent Video Games Increase Violence?

Violence is a form of aggression, but not all aggressive behaviors are violent. Very few studies have looked at whether playing violent video games increases the chances of later delinquency, criminal behavior, or lethal violence. Such studies are difficult to conduct, and require very large numbers of children. It makes sense that since playing violent video games tends to increase the level of aggressive behavior it would also results in more lethal violence or other criminal behaviors, but there is no clear evidence to support that assumption.

In the aftermath of the Parkland shooting in Florida in 2018, policymakers are again questioning the influence of violent video games. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) affirms that their rating system is effective, but the APA Task Force on Violent Media recommends that the ESRB revise their rating system to make the level of violence clearer. The Task Force also recommends that further research must be done using delinquency, violence, and criminal behavior as outcomes to determine whether or not violent video games are linked to violence.

Bottom Line

It is important to keep in mind that violent video game exposure is only one risk factor of aggressive behavior. For example, mental illness, adverse environments, and access to guns are all risk factors of aggression and violence.

All articles are reviewed and approved by  Dr. Diana Zuckerman and other senior staff.

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References :

• The American Psychological Association Task Force on Violent Media. (2017). The American Psychological Association Task Force Assessment of Violent Video Games: Science in the Service of Public Interest. American Psychologist . 72(2): 126-143. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0040413 . Accessed on March 9, 2018.
• Anderson CA, Shibuya A, Ihori N, Swing EL, Bushman BJ, Sakamoto A, Rothstein HR, Muniba. Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychological Bulletin . 2010.
• Adachi, PJ and Willoughby, T. (2013). Demolishing the Competition: The Longitudinal Link Between Competitive Video Games, Competitive Gambling, and Aggression. Journal of Youth Adolescence. 42(7): 1090-104. doi: 10.1007/s10964-013-9952-2.
• Sanstock, JW. A Topical Approach to Life Span Development 4th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Ch 15. 489-491
• Lemmens JS, Valkenburg PM, Peter J. The Effects of Pathological Gaming on Aggressive Behavior. Journal of Youth Adolescence . 2010.
• Huesmann LR, Moise J, Podolski CP, Eron LD. (2003). Longitudinal relations between childhood exposure to media violence and adult aggression and violence. Developmental Psychology . 35:201-221.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Stress and Violence in Video Games: Their Influence on Aggression

• Original Article
• Published: 21 January 2022
• Volume 30 , pages 497–512, ( 2022 )

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• Genicelle Barrington 1 &
• Christopher J. Ferguson 1  

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This study investigated whether stress or violent content in video games plays a greater role in aggressiveness towards a cooperative partner while playing a video game. It was hypothesized that participants, when exposed to stress, would demonstrate greater aggressiveness toward an incompetent partner than a competent partner. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that participants, when exposed to a violent video game, would demonstrate greater aggression toward an incompetent partner than those exposed to a non-violent video game. Stress was provoked in half of the participants using the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT), while others took a simple math quiz. Participants were then assigned to a video game condition, violent or non-violent with a competent or incompetent confederate and completed a reaction time task to measure aggression. Results indicated that provoked stress and violent content are not linked to aggression in this context.

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Under stressful circumstances, individuals tend to resort to aggressiveness. Studies have highlighted that stressful situations which have developed earlier in life and are repeatedly imposed on an individual have underlying effects on aggression. However, many studies have also discussed the perception that immediate stress can also provoke and incite aggression (Verona & Kilmer, 2007 ). Despite this, it is important to understand whether acquired stress plays a role in the expression of human aggression.

Animals, Stress, and Aggression

One means of examining how stress impacts aggression is through the study of animal models. In one study conducted with male adult mice, acute stressors were the primary causes of a marked increase in aggressiveness (Nosjean et al., 2015 ). During this study, the researchers’ aim was to determine the immediate effect acute stress would have on social interaction in adult male mice. In order to conduct their study, the researchers used 70 adult male mice purchased from a laboratory and separated them into isolated host (IH) mice and social visitor (SV) mice. During the study, each isolated host mice either received or did not receive acute stress while the social visitor mice remained unstressed throughout the environment. After being placed under duress, the IH mice were allowed to explore their cage before being exposed to an SV mouse for social interaction. This interaction was videotaped and analyzed by researchers. The researchers concluded that stress depleted the mice’s social repertoire, accelerated their dominance behaviors, and furthered aggressive behaviors. Due to their findings, they concluded that social interactions can be influenced by a single stressful event.

Kohl et al. ( 2013 ) utilized a similar procedure, wherein mice were exposed to a resident intruder to measure and evaluate the resident’s aggressive behaviors. In their study, they primarily focused on whether there was an interaction of conditional neural cell adhesion molecule knockout (NCAM-KO) and the extent to which exposure to repeated stress influenced aggression. Through the utilization of a gene by environment experiment, researchers attempted to determine whether the lack of forebrain in NCAM-KO mice would facilitate the development of an aggressive phenotype following exposure to either subchronic stress and chronic stress or one stressful condition when compared to wild-type variations of the mice. During their procedure, the researchers first measured the animals’ baseline anxiety-like behavior through the use of an elevated plus-maze; they also conducted a bedding preference test to determine social behavior, an open field test to observe exploratory behavior, and the resident-intruder test for aggression. After running statistical analyses on their data, they found that NCAM-KO mice exhibited no differences in aggressive behavior prior to subchronic stress exposure and while under basal conditions. However, following chronic exposure to stress, the NCAM-KO mice showed increased aggressive behavior toward their intruder. These findings led to the conclusion that chronic stress-induced differences in aggressive behavior rather than subchronic stress. Furthermore, the researchers outlined that due to the age of their mice, there could be age differences in the vulnerability to stress and thus a differing impact of stress on aggression.

Studies such as these provide some useful hints as to how stress can influence animals. However, mice are not humans, and it is to human research that we next turn.

Humans, Stress, and Aggression

It has been long suggested as part of the Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis that certain types of stress may provoke aggression. Other scholars have suggested that stress more generally, not merely frustration, could lead to aggression. Hinsberger et al. ( 2016 ) aimed to determine whether individuals were more aggressive when exposed to continuous traumatic stress. Researchers had trained mental health experts and counselors to conduct diagnostic interviews of 290 South African participants. The researchers discovered that there was a significant correlation between self and witnessed traumatic events, PTSD symptom severity, and engagement in violent behavior. Researchers found that attraction to violence was predicted by witnessed traumatic events as well as victimization, and perpetrated acts of violence were directly predicted by the witnessing of violence and that PTSD symptom severity was directly predicted by victimization. They also found that exposure to violence did not directly influence PTSD severity or perpetrated violence by means of appetitive aggression. Instead, they determined that appetitive aggression predicted the severity of PTSD and aggressive behavior. This study primarily focused on the act of resorting to violence when under continually stressful circumstances and concluded that aggression exhibited in stressful environments would aid in survival.

In a study conducted by Verona and Kilmer ( 2007 ), acute stress was examined as a determinant of aggressive behaviors in 120 volunteers. The researchers used the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule before and after a stress manipulation. Participants were exposed to either low- and high-stress conditions after which they interacted with a confederate who they could inflict with shocks during judgment task. In their study, the researchers primarily found gender differences in the influence of acute stressors on aggressive behaviors. They concluded that women displayed less aggression whereas men displayed increased aggression after being exposed to the high-stress condition.

Meta-analyses likewise have examined the relationship between stress and aggression. Evidence suggests that stress and trauma can increase the propensity to engage in aggression in both men and women (Augsburger, & Maercker, 2020 ; Orth, & Wieland, 2006 ). Such effects appear fairly consistent in the literature with moderate to large effects for hostile feelings and small to moderate effects for aggressive behavior.

Violence in Video Games

Prior studies outlined observed aggression in relation to stress; however, in this study, it is important to understand whether the task the participant engaged in also influences aggression, especially under stressful circumstances. Therefore, it is important to also understand the relationship between video games and aggression. The issue of whether violence in video games can impact aggression has been controversial. Despite several decades of research, no consensus has emerged. Though the American Psychological Association (APA) has taken a stance that violent games promote aggression (but not violent crime), reanalysis of their work has suggested that this claim is not supported by the extant literature and the APA may be misinforming the public (Ferguson et al., 2020 ). Below, we consider just a few studies in this realm.

In a unique study designed by Weber et al. ( 2006 ), researchers analyzed brain activity in relation to game play to understand and distinguish between virtual violence and non-virtual violence. The researchers conducted their experiment using 13 volunteers who chose to play a mature-rated first-person shooter game while under fMRI scanning. They recorded brain activity, physiological responses throughout game play, audio data from the game, and video display of the game play. They also included a questionnaire measure meant to control for arousal and subjective experiences throughout the experiment. After analyzing their data, they found that virtual violence produces similar brain activity when compared to the experience of aggressive thoughts and actions.

Despite the previous findings, several studies have found no relationship between violent video games and aggression (e.g., Przybylski et al., 2014 ; Toniutti et al., 2013 ). For example, in a longitudinal experiment, Kuhn and colleagues found no evidence that repeated exposure to a violent video game had any impact on aggressive behavior (Kühn et al., 2019 ). One issue that appears to emerge is that preregistered studies, wherein scholars post their analyses plans in advance so as to reduce questionable researcher practices, are particularly unlikely to find significant results (e.g., Hilgard et al., 2019 ; McCarthy et al., 2016 ). As such, more preregistered studies in this realm would be welcome.

Although individual studies may naturally differ in results , it is possible that meta-analyses may provide some illumination regarding larger trends in the field. However, there are disagreements in the conclusions of meta-analyses here too. For instance, Anderson and colleagues ( 2010 ) concluded that there are meaningful relationships between violent game playing and aggression in players. However, a reanalysis of this data concluded that effects, particularly for experimental studies, were largely driven by publication bias (Hilgard et al., 2017 ). Likewise, Prescott et al. ( 2018 ) found that there are very, very small longitudinal relationships between violent gameplay and later aggression. However, in reanalyzing this data, Drummond et al. ( 2020 ) concluded the effect sizes ( r  = 0.06) were trivial and driven by methodological noise, not true effects. Best practice studies demonstrated effect sizes that were no different from zero.

The Current Study

The purpose of this study was to determine whether violent content or acute stress plays a greater role in aggressiveness towards a cooperative partner while playing a video game. This study not only focused on investigating the role of stress in aggression but also its influence under varying conditions. The hypotheses being tested are as follows:

H1: Participants when exposed to acute stress will demonstrate greater aggressiveness toward an incompetent partner than a competent partner.

H2: Acute stress will play a greater role in causing aggressiveness towards an incompetent partner than chronic stress.

H3: Participants when exposed to stress and a violent video game will depict greater aggression toward an incompetent partner than those exposed to a non-violent video game.

We note that these hypotheses are expressed as main effects. However, it is possible that stress may moderate any relationship between violent game play and aggression (Shao & Wang, 2019 ). As such, we will also be alert for interaction effects between the independent variables.

Data Availability Statement

A preregistration of this study can be found at https://aspredicted.org/37ie4.pdf . Original data files can be found at https://osf.io/8w7mz/ .

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Participants

This study involved 73 participants who were compensated with two extra credit points for psychology courses registered in the undergraduate research portal. About twenty percent of the participants were male (20.5%, n  = 15), while the others were female (79.5%, n  = 58). Participants’ age ranged from 18 to 50 years old ( M  = 20.55, SD  = 4.98). Frequencies were also gathered for participants in each condition. In the stress condition, there were 37 participants (50.7%) in the acute stress condition and 49.3% in the control condition ( n  = 36). For the video game condition, about half of the participants were in the violent condition (52.1%, n  = 38) while 35 were in the nonviolent condition (47.9%). Additionally, the incompetent confederate condition included 38 participants (52.1%) while the competent condition consisted of 47.9% participants ( n  = 35). For a further two participants, a technical glitch resulted in the loss of their aggression data. In our preregistration document, we had planned to reach 100 participants. However, due to COVID-19 shutting down in-person research and the graduation of the lead author, participant recruitment was discontinued. This was done prior to examining any data.

State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI)

The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) is a self-report anxiety measure (Spielberger et al., 1983 ). The inventory consists of a form Y-1, which measures current anxiety levels, and Y-2, which measures anxiety levels for the past 6 months. This measure contains 40 items, 20 state anxiety and 20 trait anxiety. For our purposes, we administered the Y2 trait form. Questions range from “I feel upset” to “I feel that difficulties are piling up so that I cannot overcome them.” These questions were rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from almost never to almost always. For the trait anxiety form with the current sample, the coefficient alpha was 0.90. The range of scores was from 22 to 70 from a possible range of 20–80. The mean score was 71.49 with a standard deviation of 10.63 indicating good variability in scores.

Crossword Puzzle

Participants took a simple crossword puzzle based on school classes, to act as a distractor task (see Appendix).

Stress Conditions

In this study, participants were randomly assigned to one of two stress conditions: The Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT) or a control math quiz (see Appendix). The PASAT was originally used as a means of assessing short-term memory loss; however, for this study, it was used as a measure of inducing stress in participants . In this study, the computerized version (PASAT-C) of the PASAT was used (Lejuez et al., 2003 ). Participants mentally calculated addition problems during a set time frame. The PASAT requires sustained and specific attention. Participants are given simple math problems, but these are done with intervening numbers that are distractors, thus setting up high frustration. Participants must add each number to the number before it, keying in the response. However, each response serves as a distractor. For instance, a respondent may be given the numbers, in sequence, 3, 9, and 5. For the first two numbers, they key in the correct response “12”; however, then, they are supposed to add 5 to the 9. Yet, having “12” in working memory sets up a distractor and increases frustration, particularly as the task speeds up. Previous evidence has supported that the PASAT is effective in inducing stress, including for college students specifically ( Holdwick, & Wingenfeld, 1999 ; Starcke et al., 2016 ). Participants not assigned to the PASAT took a 10-min math quiz meant to represent the no-stress condition. This quiz was not difficult. Examples of questions are finding the sum of 2 plus 2 and what is 5 multiplied by 5.

Video Game Conditions

For this study, participants played either a “violent” or “non-violent” video game on the XBOX One. Participants assigned to the violent game condition played Battlefront. Battlefront is an action-packed video game wherein the player was in control of a Star Wars character who wields a lightsaber or gun throughout gameplay. Those assigned to the “non-violent” condition played portal 2. Portal 2 is an action-adventure game rated E10 + . This is a strategy video game wherein the player masqueraded as a first-person shooter wielding a portal gun which creates shortcuts throughout the game and does not cause harm to another character. Thus, the games are similar in gameplay and the use of a gun, but without violence of any kind in the portal 2 game.

Aggressive Behavior

This study utilized a modified version of the Taylor competitive reaction time task (TCRTT). This is a newer version utilizing noise blasts instead of the electric shocks, used in the original study (Taylor, 1967 ). In Taylor’s version, the participant had electrodes hooked up to their bodies and to convince the participant that they were playing against an individual they distributed a shock when the participant lost. He also had the wins and losses predetermined wherein the participant lost fifty percent of the trials. In this version, participants were asked to set the level and duration of a white noise blast acting as a punishment for their previous confederate partner. This game lasts for a total of 15 min and has 25 different trials. In the task, the wins and losses are preset as participants are not playing against a human opponent. The blast is not harmful and causes no discomfort; it is just annoying. As per the standardization suggested by Ferguson et al. ( 2008 ), aggressive behavior was measured as the averaged of the 25 intensity scores.

Data collection began following Institutional Review Board approval. Participants who signed up under the undergraduate research portal were told that the researcher was conducting a study on the effect of several tests on an individual’s ability to play games. To participate in this study, participants were asked to sign an informed consent form and to complete the STAI – Y2. Upon completion, they were asked to take a simple crossword puzzle, a distractor task to reduce hypothesis guessing. Participants were then randomly assigned to a stress condition, wherein they either took the PASAT-C or take a simple math quiz, both of which lasted 10 min. After completing the stress condition activity, participants were then randomly assigned to a video game condition, wherein they either played Battlefront, a “violent” video game, or portal 2, a “non-violent” video game. Furthermore, they were randomly assigned to play the game for 30 min with either a competent or incompetent confederate partner. Once they entered the room, they were given instructions on how to operate an XBOX One controller and how to play the game they are assigned. After the game play, participants engaged with the TCRTT task. Participants were asked to play a reaction time game which lasted around 15 min. For this game, they were informed that they were playing against their previous confederate, who is now in a separate room, and was competing against them on a separate computer. They were told that for every trial they can set the intensity and duration of white noise for their confederate as a form of punishment. Participants were also informed that they would hear the noise if they lost, while their partners would hear the noise if they won. They were told that they can set the noise level from 0 to 10 and that they can set the blast from 0 to 5 s. Post gameplay, participants were debriefed, and the true nature of the study was revealed; all hypotheses were discussed, and they were asked if they held any suspicion of the topic’s true hypotheses.

Research Design

To assess the effects of stress and video games on aggression, this study utilized a 2 × 2 × 2 (stress × game condition × competence) factorial analysis of variance. The dependent variable was the noise blast intensity (aggression). To assure that randomization worked, and conditions were not confounded by demographic factors, chi-square analyses were run for gender, and bivariate correlations for age with a group assignment. No outcomes were statistically significant, suggesting randomization was effective. As such, age and gender will not be included as covariates.

Screening, Cleaning, and Descriptive Statistics

Once data collection was completed, data were entered and analyzed using IBM SPSS Version 26. A total of 73 participants partook in the study and received credit for their participation. Demographic data for the participants are presented in Table 1 .

Descriptive statistics data are presented in Table 2 .

Hypotheses Tests

A factorial ANOVA was conducted to evaluate the study hypotheses (Table 3 ). Firstly, there was no significant effect for the stress condition on the intensity setting by participants, F (1,65) = 0.04, p  = 0.85, \({\eta }_{p}^{2}\) = 0.001. Similarly, there was also no significant effect for the video game condition on the intensity level setting, F (1,65 = 0.09, p  = 0.77, \({\eta }_{p}^{2}\) = 0.001. The confederate condition also did not have a significant effect with the intensity setting, F (1,65) = 0.05, p  = 0.828, \({\eta }_{p}^{2}\) = 0.001. Hypothesis one stated that participants when exposed to acute stress will depict greater aggressiveness toward an incompetent partner than a competent partner. There was no significant finding for this hypothesis, as the stress condition and the confederate condition showed no significant interaction with the intensity level settings, F (1,65) = 2.05, p  = 0.16, \({\eta }_{p}^{2}\) = 0.03. Related to hypothesis 3, there was no significant impact of video game condition and stress condition F (1,65) = 0.002, p  = 0.97, \({\eta }_{p}^{2}\) = 0.03. As such, hypothesis 3 was not supported.

Exploratory Analysis (H2)

We also examined the issue of whether acute stress played a greater role in causing aggressiveness towards an incompetent partner than chronic stress. For this, we conducted an OLS regression with pairwise deletion. Gender, STAI score (chronic stress), and stress condition (acute stress) were included as predictors. Although this was our H2 we note, as an oversight, we had not included the specifics of this analysis in our preregistration; thus, it should be considered exploratory. Ultimately, the regression model was non-significant F (3, 69) = 0.017, p  = 0.997.

Given null results can be difficult to interpret all three major contrasts (game condition, stress condition, and confederate competence) were reassessed using Bayesian contrasts. In each case, Bayes factors indicated support for the null for game condition (BF = 5.401), stress condition (BF = 5.550), and confederate competence (BF = 5.502). Thus, we are confident in interpreting results as supportive of the null.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether stress or violent content played a role in aggressiveness towards a cooperative partner who is incompetent when playing a video game. Although there have been several studies on the influence of stress on aggression, there is still a lack of experimental studies discussing the influence of the different types of stress on aggression especially towards another individual, and whether that individual’s actions play a role in increasing aggression. Moreover, this study attempted to examine the role of video games in aggression and whether they also influenced aggression towards another individual as this is important to several current concerns.

After conducting this study, there was no support for any of the study hypotheses. The results showed that the stress condition, whether it be acute (as primed by the PASAT) or chronic (as measured by the STAI), had no effect on the intensity setting participants gave their confederate partner. This finding illustrated that despite the participants’ exposure to stress, there was no significant impact on their aggression, which means that the form of stress the individual is experiencing does not particularly influence their decision at least in this context. Furthermore, the stress condition and confederate competence condition in interaction had no significant impact on the aggression exhibited towards participants.

The video game condition also had no effect on the intensity of the noise burst participants administered to the confederate. The findings of this study were similar to those of previously mentioned studies (e.g., Hilgard et al., 2019 ; McCarthy et al., 2016 ). There was no significant difference in intensity level setting between participants in the violent or nonviolent group, thus illustrating that the type of video game experienced had no real effect on aggression towards another individual. Additionally, the confederate competence condition, interacting with the video game condition also had no significant effect on aggression towards the confederate, thus signifying that confederate competency and an individual’s ability to further frustrate someone may not necessarily impact or increase their aggression towards them in this context. The absence of interaction effects was unable to support that stress may moderate links between violent games and aggressive behavior. Of course, it is possible that other moderators may function in other ways, but that was not evident from the current data.

Participants were also assigned to varying confederate conditions which exhibited two levels of competency, incompetent or competent, and these conditions had no significant effect on aggression. In studies like Hinsberger et al.’s ( 2016 ), it was found that participants administered shocks when individuals did not complete the judgment tasks correctly. This study’s findings differ greatly and exhibit that competency itself does not necessarily impact aggression and other factors could play a role in the intensity level setting. For example, several participants described being competitive and disliked losing, while others exhibited far more passive feelings towards their confederate. As such, many participants may not have worried greatly about the competence of the confederate.

Limitations

As with all studies, ours has limitations. Our use of the STAI, in capturing anxiety, may have only considered a portion of chronic stress. It is possible that this measure may tap into personality characteristics as much as it does chronic stress. However, prior studies have used the STAI as a measure of chronic stress (e.g., al Abdi et al., 2018 ; Valsamakis et al., 2020 ). Our sample size was not as large as we had initially intended which naturally reduces the power of our analyses. Furthermore, generalizations from experiments on aggression that take place in the lab to real-life aggression should be done only with great care.

Conclusions

Future studies should look at other factors that may also influence aggression, especially when playing a game. For instance, competition would be a great variable to observe, especially as the aggression measure was viewed as a form of competitive task. The current study is a small one and, as noted, data collection was interrupted by COVID-19. However, in combination with other studies, it appears that violent content in video games has little impact on aggressive behavior, even in combination with acute stress.

Data Availability

Al Abdi, R., Alhitary, A., Abdul Hay, E., & Al-bashir, A. (2018). Objective detection of chronic stress using physiological parameters. Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing, 56 , 2273–2286.

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Barrington, G., Ferguson, C.J. Stress and Violence in Video Games: Their Influence on Aggression. Trends in Psychol. 30 , 497–512 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43076-022-00141-2

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Violent Video Game Exposure and Problem Behaviors among Children and Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Deviant Peer Affiliation for Gender and Grade Differences

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Data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Based on problem behavior theory, a mediation model for gender and grade differences is explored in this study. The study examined gender and grade differences in the effects of violent video games and deviant peer affiliation on problem behaviors among children and adolescents. A total of 2118 children and adolescents from four primary and middle schools in China (M age = 13.08, SD = 2.17) were surveyed using an anonymous questionnaire on basic information, exposure to violent video games, deviant peer affiliation, and problem behaviors. The results showed that exposure to violent video games significantly positively predicted problem behaviors, and deviant peer affiliation played a mediating role. Significant gender and grade differences were found in the mediating effect. This finding helps understand the individual differences in the influencing factors of problem behaviors. Further, it has important implications for interventions to reduce problem behaviors among children and adolescents.

1. Introduction

Problem behavior (PB) is one of the most prevalent and persistent forms of maladjustment among children and adolescents [ 1 ]. It refers to abnormal behaviors that occur in individuals that hinder their social adjustment, involving both their own emotional abnormalities and behaviors that negatively affect others and society [ 2 ]. Further, it can be divided into internalizing and externalizing problems. Research has shown that PBs among children and adolescents are often strongly associated with lower academic performance [ 3 ], substance addiction [ 4 ], adjustment difficulties [ 5 ], and even lead to delinquent behavior [ 6 ]. Moreover, this adverse effect often persists into adulthood [ 7 ]. Therefore, it is necessary to study the factors influencing children and adolescents’ PBs to reduce the occurrence of their PBs and promote the healthy development of primary and middle school students.

Problem behavior theory (PBT) suggests that PBs do not occur randomly among children and adolescents but result from a combination of risk and protective factors. Protective factors reduce the likelihood of PBs by providing prosocial behavior patterns and individual or social regulation of PBs. Contrastingly, risk factors increase the likelihood of PBs by providing PB patterns, greater exposure or involvement in PBs, and increased individual susceptibility to PBs [ 8 , 9 , 10 ].

Since the beginning of the 21st century, with the rapid development of the Internet, video games have been an important leisure and entertainment tool for children and adolescents. Violent video games, as a popular game genre, are vital for the development of children and adolescents. Based on PBT, violent video games serve as a virtual external environment that can influence the production and dissolution of PBs among children and adolescents. Scholars have investigated the effects of violent video games on children and adolescents. Through multiple meta-analyses, they established that violent video games significantly adversely affected aggressive behavior, aggressive affect, violent desensitization, and mental health [ 11 ]. Moreover, few studies have found that deviant peer affiliation (DPA) may mediate the relationship between risk factors and PBs. For example, Bao et al. (2015) found that school climate indirectly predicts juvenile criminal behavior through adverse peer interactions [ 12 ]. Sun and Sun (2021) suggested that peer influence may mediate the relationship between violent video games and PBs [ 13 ]. Violent video games and peers are critical environmental factors that affect children’s and adolescents’ PBs.

Notably, in addition to risk and protective factors, PBT emphasizes the possible differences in PB by gender and age [ 14 ]. Previous studies have found that boys have more PBs than girls [ 15 ], and adolescent PBs increase with age. Further, Moffitt (2003) argues that adolescent antisocial behavior peaks at approximately 17 years of age [ 16 ].

Through literature review, we found that research on how violent video games affect PBs is limited, with inadequate discussion of social context and participants who are middle school or college students. Simultaneously, fewer studies involve middle and elementary school students. Therefore, based on a literature review and PBT, this study investigated the effects of violent video game exposure (VVGE) on children and adolescents’ PBs, including the mediating effect of DPA, with Chinese middle and elementary school students as participants. Moreover, we focused on the differences in the relationship between VVGE, DPA, and PB among children and adolescents of different genders and grades.

1.1. Violent Video Game Exposure and Problem Behavior

Most studies show that violent video games significantly increase PB in players. Regarding violent content, some meta-analyses have found that violent video games increase players’ aggressive cognition, emotion, and behavior and decrease players’ empathy, which negatively impacts players’ social behavior [ 17 , 18 ]. Concerning game frequency, studies have found that long-term video game exposure has adverse effects on adolescents’ emotions and social relations and increases the risk of anxiety, mood disorders, and social adjustment difficulties [ 19 , 20 ]. Further, attention difficulties and hyperactivity disorder are significantly related to game exposure [ 21 ]. Some empirical studies have also shown that VVGE is associated substantially with PBs such as aggressive behavior [ 22 ] and emotional problems, including anxiety and depression [ 23 , 24 ], and even criminal behavior [ 25 ]. Based on the literature reviewed above, we propose the following hypothesis:

VVGE positively correlates with PBs among children and adolescents .

1.2. Deviant Peer Affiliation as a Mediator

DPA refers to associating with peers who violate school rules and regulations, social ethics, and legal behaviors [ 26 ]. Evidence shows that DPA is significantly associated with individual PBs [ 27 , 28 ]. The General Aggression Model is often used to explain and predict the paths and ways in which violent video games lead to increased aggression. Recent revisions to the General Aggression Model theory have highlighted the role of peer groups in the association between violent video games and their adverse effects [ 29 ]. This suggests that DPA may be an important mediating variable between VVGE and PBs among children and adolescents. As children and adolescents join the school and adopt it as their main life scene, they rely more on their peers (classmates). At this stage, children and adolescents have a strong need for a sense of belonging to the group, and peers are vital in the adolescent development stage, especially in the transition to middle school. According to the “interpersonal similarity principle”, children and adolescents seek peers with the same or similar behaviors to establish friendships based on their own characteristics. Children and adolescents who play violent games are more likely to choose peers with similar behavioral characteristics to develop friendships with them [ 30 ]. Studies have found that VVGE affects the social behavior of players and those associated with them, such as increased aggression by players and their peers [ 31 , 32 ]. Some studies on actual violence have also found that exposure to community violence may increase the likelihood of adolescents becoming friends with immoral peers [ 33 ]. To avoid deviating from the social context of peer norms or peer group roles, adolescents may conform to their peers’ interests, hobbies, and behaviors based on adverse peer pressure [ 34 ] and then develop more problematic behaviors.

Similarly, DPA also affects individual behavior; it is one of the common risk factors for externalization problems (EP) [ 35 ]. Studies have found that children or adolescents with aggressive friends are more likely to have social adjustment problems [ 30 ] and that DPA is also commonly associated with skipping class, smoking, violence, or aggression [ 36 , 37 ]. Regarding internalization problems (IP), some researchers believe that the quality of friendships adolescents establish in DPA is low, and the relationship between groups is chaotic. The effort and return between them is inadequate; therefore, it is difficult to obtain necessary emotional support, which is more likely to lead to IPs, such as emotional disorders [ 38 , 39 ]. Based on the literature reviewed above, we propose the following hypothesis:

Deviant peer affiliation significantly mediates the relationship between exposure to violent games and PBs among children and adolescents .

1.3. Gender and Grade Differences

Although gender and grade differences in PBs have been widely acknowledged and discussed, few studies explore the factors influencing PBs among children and adolescents of different genders and grades. Based on PBT, as external environmental factors, VVGE and DPA may have significant gender and grade differences in their relationship with PB.

First, concerning gender, previous studies have shown that boys indulge in violent video games more than girls do. They have a lower level of guilt when exposed to violent video games [ 40 ]. Most researchers also believe that boys are more likely to be influenced by immoral peers and that they have various internal and external problems [ 41 , 42 ]. However, some research results show that girls are more likely to be influenced by immoral peers in drinking behavior [ 43 ] and depression or anxiety [ 44 ]. Second, at grade level, studies have found that playing time decreases with age [ 45 ], and that game preferences change. The susceptibility or resistance of individuals to peer influence also presents different characteristics at various ages. For example, studies have found that the tendency of individual behavior to be susceptible to peer influence seems to appear in early adolescence and reaches its peak at approximately 14 years of age [ 46 ]. This study focuses on the mediating effect of adverse peer interactions between VVGE and problem behavior. Based on this, we propose the following hypothesis:

Significant gender and grade differences exist in the relationships between VVGE, DPA, and PBs among children and adolescents .

1.4. Research Purpose

In summary, this study intends to use Chinese middle and elementary schools as the research object and propose a mediating model ( Figure 1 ) to explore the mediating effect on the relationship between VVGE and PBs among children and adolescents. Based on PBT, the differences in gender and grade were investigated.

Hypothesized model of violent video games affecting problem behavior.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. participants.

This study used the cluster sampling method to randomly select 2191 students from the fourth grade of elementary school to the first grade of senior high school from four elementary and secondary schools in a city in southwest China. The questionnaire was screened according to the principles, whether the answer was complete, whether there was a regular answer, and whether there was a contradiction. After screening questionnaires, 2118 valid questionnaires were obtained, with an effective rate of 96.67%. The participants were aged between 9 and 17 years, with an average age of 13.08 ± 2.17 years.

Monte Carlo power analysis for indirect effects was adopted. Based on the effect sizes of previous research [ 47 , 48 ], the effects size was set for a (r = 0.10), b (r externalization problem = 0.20, r internalization problem = 0.10), and c (r externalization problem = 0.20, r internalization problem = 0.10) path. Consequently, recruiting a total of 1100 (externalization problem) and 1300 (internalization problem) participants would lead to the power of 90 percent for the indirect effects (i.e., a · b) at the p < 0.05 level with 20,000 Monte Carlo replications. Thus, the sample recruited for this study (n = 2118) was more than sufficient to provide adequate statistical power (>95 percent) to detect small indirect effects.

2.2. Measures

2.2.1. violent video game exposure questionnaire.

This questionnaire was compiled by [ 49 ] and revised by Chinese scholars, and is widely used [ 50 , 51 ]. It asked the participants to list three violent video games they had most recently encountered and to rate the frequency and violence of each game. Using a 5-point score, the degree of exposure to violent video games = amount of exposure = ∑ [violent content × frequency of using games]/3; the higher the score, the more exposure to violent video games. The violent video game exposure questionnaire has been shown to be both reliable and valid [ 52 ]. In this study, Cronbach’s α was 0.87.

2.2.2. Deviant Peer Affiliation Questionnaire

The deviant peer affiliation questionnaire [ 53 , 54 ] contained eight questions that involved destructive behaviors, such as smoking, drinking, theft, Internet addiction, truancy, or misbehavior. A 5-point score from 1 “none” to 5 “all” indicated the number of friends who showed one of the eight destructive behaviors in the recent year. Considering the average score, the higher the score, the more undesirable the peer behavior. The questionnaire has been shown to be reliable and valid [ 55 , 56 ]. In this study, Cronbach’s α was 0.78.

2.2.3. Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Student Version)

This scale was developed by Goodman R. [ 57 , 58 ] and revised by Du [ 59 ]. The scale comprises five factors; because this study focused on PBs, the difficult part of the questionnaire was used. This comprised four factors: emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity and attention disorders, and peer relationships, and was divided into internalization (emotional symptoms, peer relationships) and externalization problems (conduct problems, hyperactivity, and attention disorders) using Goodman’s suggestion. A “0–2” scale was used, ranging from “does not meet” to “fully meets”. In previous studies, this questionnaire showed good reliability [ 60 , 61 ]. In this study, Cronbach’s α coefficient for the difficult part of the questionnaire was 0.76.

2.3. Procedure and Data Analysis

Participants voluntarily completed the questionnaire survey while at school during a specified class period lasting 20 min. SPSS 26.0 was applied to obtain descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, and difference test. Data may be missing on some variables because participants left an answer blank for 0.28% to 0.94% of the items across the total sample. We used participants’ average scores to replace such information. Then, Amos 24 was applied to test the mediating effect of deviant peer affiliation using the structural equation model, and the differences in gender and grade in the mediating effect of deviant peer affiliation utilizing the method of group analysis.

2.4. Common Method Deviation

In this study, variable data collection adopted a self-report method. Based on Zhou and Long’s (2004) suggestion, the Harman single-factor test was adopted to test the common method deviation [ 62 ]. The results showed nine factors with eigenvalues > 1, and the variance explained by the first principal factor was 17.35%, which was less than the critical standard of 40%. It can be concluded that there were no common methodological deviations in this study.

3.1. Descriptive Statistics

Table 1 contains the basic information on all subjects. Table 2 contains the correlation, mean, and standard deviation for study variables. Table 3 contains the differences in the research variables in gender and grade.

Basic information.

Correlation.

Note: ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

Difference test.

Note: * p < 0.05, *** p < 0.001.

The results in Table 2 show that there is a significant positive correlation between VVGE and IP and EP, indicating that the more VVGE, the higher the IPs and EPs levels among children and adolescents. Further, there is a significant positive correlation between VVGE and DPA, indicating that the more VVGE, the more DPA among children and adolescents. DPA positively correlates with the IP and EP of children and adolescents, indicating that the more DPA children and adolescents have, the higher their IPs and EPs levels are.

Difference test showed significant differences in VVGE and DPA by gender and grade level—boys had higher levels of VVGE and DPA than girls did. There were substantial differences in IP by gender and non-significant differences by grade level, and girls had higher levels of IPs than boys did. Significant differences existed in EP by grade level and non-significant differences by gender. Children and adolescents in higher grades had more EPs ( Table 3 ).

3.2. Mediating Effect of Deviant Peer Affiliation between Violent Video Game Exposure and Problem Behaviors

A structural equation model was constructed using Amos24 to examine the mediating effect of DPA between VVGE and PB. According to the different test results, gender and grade were included in the mediation effect test as control variables.

Based on the mediation effect test process suggested by [ 63 ], an unmediated model with VVGE as the independent variable and IP and EP as the dependent variables is constructed. The results showed that the unmediated model fit well (χ 2 / df = 11.15, RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.93, GFI = 0.98, IFI = 0.96, SRMR = 0.04), and VVGE positively predicted IPs ( β = 0.15, p < 0.001) and EPs ( β = 0.24, p < 0.001).

A mediating model was constructed using DPA as the mediating variable. The results showed that the mediation model fit well (χ 2 / df = 10.33, RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.92, GFI = 0.97, IFI = 0.95, and SRMR = 0.05). The test results for each coefficient showed that VVGE significantly positively predicted DPA ( β = 0.24, p < 0.001), and DPA significantly positively predicted IP. After adding DPA as a mediating variable, the predictive effect of VVGE on IP weakened ( β = 0.10, p < 0.001). DPA positively predicted EP ( β = 0.38, p < 0.001), while the predictive effect of VVGE on EP was weakened ( β = 0.17, p < 0.001), indicating that DPA partially mediated the relationship between VVGE and IP and EP. Bootstrap (sampling times: 5000) was used further to test DPA’s mediating effect ( Table 4 ). The results showed that the mediating effect of DPA between VVGE and IP was 0.06, and 0.09 between VVGE and EP.

Breakdown table of the total effect, direct effect, and mediating effect.

3.3. Cross-Group Comparison of Mediating Effects of Deviant Peer Affiliation between Violent Game Exposure and Problem Behavior

3.3.1. gender difference analysis.

A structural equation model was used to investigate gender differences in the mediating effect of DPA between VVGE and PB, and the model included grade as a control variable. First, a model test was conducted on male and female students, and the results showed that the model fit was good in the two samples, which could be compared across groups ( Table 5 ). Next, the unconstrained Model M 0 was constructed on this basis (the male and female students had the same shape, and the path coefficient was freely estimated). The measurement weights Model M 1 was constructed based on model M 0 (the factor loading of latent variables in the two groups of models was restricted to remain unchanged across the groups). The two models fit well. The model comparison showed a significant difference between M 0 and M 1 [Δχ 2 = 20.55, p < 0.001], indicating that the model measurement coefficients of the male and female groups had cross-group inequalities. Further tests found cross-group differences in the loading coefficients of factors 1 and 2 on VVGE and the loading coefficients of peer barriers on IP. Therefore, the above coefficients were freely estimated to establish Model M 2 with equal measurement weights across groups. Finally, the structural weights Model M 3 is constructed based on M 2 (the path coefficients in the two groups of models are restricted to remain unchanged across groups). The results showed that both M 2 and M 3 models fit well, and the model comparison revealed a significant difference between M 2 and M 3 [Δχ 2 = 57.14, p < 0.001]. Further tests revealed that the path coefficients of DPA on IP and EP differed across the groups ( Table 5 , Figure 2 ). The predictive effect of DPA on IP in boys ( β = 0.31, p < 0.001) was significantly higher than that in girls ( β = 0.28, p < 0.001). However, the predictive effect of DPA on EP was significantly lower in boys ( β = 0.37, p < 0.001) than in girls ( β = 0.41, p < 0.001).

Gender differences in mediating role of deviant peer affiliation. Note: The path coefficient is male outside the brackets and female inside the brackets; the load coefficient between each latent variable and its index, the residual error and error of all variables, and the control variable coefficient are omitted to simplify the model. * p < 0.05, *** p < 0.001.

Fitting index of multi-cohort model for multi-cohort analysis of gender difference.

Note: M male and M female were male and female models.

3.3.2. Grade Difference Test

This study investigated the grade difference of the mediating role of DPA in VVGE and PB used for the cross-group comparison of the structural equation model and considered gender as a control variable in the model. The participants were divided into elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school according to their grades, and the grade differences in the intermediary model were investigated. First, the samples were divided into school sections for the model test. The results showed that the models of the three samples fit well and could be compared across groups ( Table 6 ). Next, the unconstrained model M 4 (three groups of models have the same shape, and the path coefficient can be estimated freely) was built. Further, the measurement coefficient Model M 5 (limiting the factor load of latent variables in three groups of models to be constant across groups) was built. Both models fit well, and the comparison of the models showed a significant difference between Models M 4 and M 5 [Δχ 2 = 45.66, p < 0.001], indicating that the measurement coefficients of the three groups of models were unequal across groups. Further tests showed cross-group differences in the load coefficient of factor 1 and factor 2 on VVGE, the load coefficient of factor 2 on DPA, and the load coefficient of peer obstacles on IP. Therefore, the above coefficients were estimated freely, and Model M 6 with equal measurement weights s across groups was established. Finally, a structural weights Model M 7 was built based on M 6 (the path coefficient among the three models is limited to be unchanged across groups). The results showed that the M 6 and M 7 models fit well, and the comparison indicated that M 6 and M 7 had significant differences [Δχ 2 = 110.07, p < 0.001]. Further examination showed that cross-group differences existed between the path coefficients of DPA on IP and EP and VVGE on EP ( Table 6 , Figure 3 ). For instance, the predictive effect of DPA on IP was significantly higher at the elementary school level ( β = 0.39, p < 0.001) than at the senior high school level ( β = 0.31, p < 0.001), and significantly higher at the senior high school level than at the junior high school level ( β = 0.22, p < 0.001). Further, the predictive effect of DPA on EP was significantly higher at the elementary level ( β = 0.41, p < 0.001) than at the junior high school level ( β = 0.33, p < 0.001), but considerably lower than that at the senior high school level ( β = 0.47, p < 0.001). The direct effect of VVGE on EP was significantly lower at the senior high school level ( β = 0.06, p = 0.217) than at the elementary school level ( β = 0.21, p < 0.001) and junior high school ( β = 0.24, p < 0.001).

Grade differences in mediating role of deviant peer affiliation. Note: Path coefficients outside parentheses are for elementary school, inside parentheses are for junior high school, and inside square brackets are for senior high school. The load coefficient between each latent variable and its index, the residual error and error of all variables, and the control variable coefficient are omitted to simplify the model. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

Fitting index of multi-cohort model for multi-cohort analysis of grade difference.

Note: M elementary school , M junior high school , and M senior high school are models with different school sections.

4. Discussion

Childhood and adolescence are crucial periods of rapid individual development and tremendous change. This study was conducted with elementary, junior high, and senior high school students, focusing on the mechanisms of VVGE and DPA on PBs of children and adolescents and examining the differences by gender and grade.

First, the findings showed that VVGE positively and significantly predicted PB in children and adolescents, validating Research Hypothesis 1, which is consistent with previous research [ 19 , 20 , 21 ]. Regarding IPs, Kuss and Griffiths (2012) argue that the emergence of IPs may result from escapism and that players are attracted to games to escape from real-world problems [ 64 ]. Nonetheless, too much exposure is unhelpful and may exacerbate players’ emotional problems, such as anxiety and depression. Concerning EPs, violent video games are often fast-paced and offer frequent rewards or novel and enjoyable stimuli, which may contribute to the attention problems of child/adolescent players. According to the social learning theory, individuals can acquire undesirable behaviors in two ways: first, through observational learning, in which individuals receive unwanted behaviors by observing or imitating others’ undesirable behaviors. The other way is direct learning, in which individuals acquire undesirable behaviors through personal participation. During the game, child and adolescent players can develop unwanted behaviors by observing and imitating game non-player characters or directly manipulating game characters, which may lead to more EPs being exhibited by children and adolescents in real life.

Second, DPA mediated the relationship between VVGE and IP and EP, validating research Hypothesis 2 that VVGE affects PB by increasing children’s adolescents’ DPA. Games have a significant impact on children’s and adolescents’ peer interaction as a way of maintaining friendship. According to social network theory [ 65 ], individuals who are chronically exposed to violent games may be increasingly exposed to undesirable peers through a process of “selection”. The “selection” process refers to children and adolescents actively choosing peers with similar behaviors as their peers. Children and adolescents chronically exposed to violent video games tend to have more IPs or EPs. They may voluntarily join peers identical to them through a selection process based on similarity. The influence of undesirable peers on children and adolescents’ PB results from the interaction between children and adolescents and undesirable peers. This interaction is two-way, including the “socialization” process and the “selection” process. The process of “socialization” refers to children and adolescents making friends with peers who exhibit PB; they may develop similar behaviors under the influence of peer pressure and other factors. These two processes interact; children and adolescents who play games select peers with behavioral problems, and interactions with undesirable peers increase their own problem behaviors [ 66 ]. Simultaneously, friendships with undesirable peers tend to be unstable, and interactions with them tend to increase traditional peer rejection, which also increases the risk of IPs and EPs in children and adolescents.

Finally, the study’s results found that the effects of DPA on IP and EP showed significant gender and grade differences, partially validating research Hypothesis 3. Regarding gender, boys’ IPs were more likely to be influenced by DPA. Generally, boys are less flexible and lack cognitive and emotional coping skills and regulation when dealing with interpersonal relationships than girls [ 34 ], which may lead to more psychological distress in boys when dealing with DPA. Girls’ EPs are more likely to be influenced by DPA. On the one hand, girls are typically more precocious than boys. They are more likely to be exposed to older mixed-sex groups. Further, adolescent girls are more sensitive to social appraisal concerns and more dependent on intimate relationships as a source of self-evaluation and self-worth [ 67 ]. A qualitative study found that college girls’ drinking behavior is more often driven by pressure to impress their male peers [ 68 ], suggesting that girls are more likely to engage in more EPs out of the need for approval and influence from undesirable peers. On the other hand, boys have a greater tendency toward EPs than girls, and their EPs are more likely to be influenced by a combination of other factors, such as hormones and personality [ 69 ]. Concerning grade differences, elementary school students’ IPs were affected more by DPA. Early adolescence is a critical transition period for individual development, during which essential changes in the individual are often accompanied by changes in the social environment. Simultaneously, individuals become more independent in the face of their parents, where dependence on parents is replaced by reliance on peers, and they are more susceptible to peer influence [ 70 , 71 ]. Additionally, children in elementary school tend to show a one-off imbalance in their psychological development due to their young age. Simultaneously, they have low self-centeredness and self-control; they are more susceptible to peer pressure and more likely to develop IPs. The EPs of senior high school students are affected more by DPA. It has been found that undesirable peer influences play an important role in developing PB in middle and late adolescence [ 27 ]. In senior high school, peer interaction has become an important way for senior high school students to meet their social needs and plays an important role in learning and life. Simultaneously, the character and hobbies of peers are gradually becoming essential criteria for choosing friends, and individuals who interact with undesirable peers often tend to misbehave. Aggression and popularity are often intertwined during interactions with undesirable peers [ 72 ]. Therefore, senior high school students in unwanted peer groups may adopt destructive behaviors to maintain friendships.

This study is an effort to explore the role of DPA between VVGE and PB, as well as gender and grade differences in a large sample (more than 2000 people), covering children and adolescents from different grades in elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school. In the term of theoretical aspect, this study explores the role of social factors in the relationship between VVGE and children and adolescents’ PBs and made clear the differences in both gender and grade, which deepens our understanding of the impact of VVGE on children and adolescents’ PBs and helps to explain its potential impact mechanism. In practice, this can also bring some thinking for the education of children and adolescents. As one of the common entertainment tools for children and adolescents, violent video games have a certain negative impact on children and adolescents’ social interaction and PBs. At the same time, the DPA of children and adolescents significantly affects their IPs and EPs. Therefore, in terms of family, parents should supervise children’s network use, cultivate children’s healthy network use habits, and avoid excessive addiction to video games. At the same time, they should also pay attention to children’s social interaction, guide children to establish healthy and positive peer groups, and reduce communication with bad peers. In school, first of all, teachers and mental health experts should pay attention to network security, to educate and guide children and adolescents to correctly understand the violent factors in video games. Secondly, we should pay attention to the harm of students’ bad companions and help students to establish a healthy and positive circle of friends. In addition, parents and schools should pay attention to the differences among primary, middle, and high school students in educating and guiding children and adolescents. In the social aspect, we can create a healthy network environment for children and adolescents by improving the game classification system and combating the illegal dissemination of harmful information.

Although the current study yielded important and practical findings on the targeted intervention and guidance, several limitations should be noted. First, this study is a cross-sectional study, which is not plausible to make a causal inference. In the future, longitudinal studies can be applied to clarify the causal relationship between variables. Second, all variables in the study are self-reported and may be affected by common method bias. Therefore, a more comprehensive data collection method should be adopted. Thirdly, video games are one of the common entertainment tools for children and adolescents and are regarded as an important factor affecting the psychosocial development of children and adolescents. This study only focuses on the impact of VVGE on children and adolescents’ PBs. Future research can further discuss the differences between different video game content. Finally, future researchers should consider more potential impact factors. In this study, we found that there are significant gender and age differences in the mediating role of DPA between violent video game exposure and problem behaviors, and the development of peer relationships in children and adolescents is affected by the individual growth environment (such as parent–child relationship, school atmosphere) [ 12 , 73 ]. Therefore, examining environmental factors such as family and school helps us understand the role of deviant peer affiliation.

5. Conclusions

In sum, this study found that VVGE can affect the social interaction of children and adolescents, thereby increasing their PBs, and this effect has gender and age differences. In terms of gender, although boys generally show more EPs in their daily lives, their IPs are more susceptible to peer influence, while girls are the opposite. In terms of age, the influence of peers presents different characteristics in different age groups. The IP of primary school students is more susceptible to DPA, while the EP of high school students is more susceptible to DPA.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all the students who participated in this study. The authors would like to thank all the researchers who helped with data collection.

Funding Statement

This work was supported by the Chongqing Federation of Social Science [grant numbers 2020SZ29].

Author Contributions

Conceptualization M.W., Y.L. and S.C.; data curation, M.W., Y.L. and S.C.; formal analysis, M.W. and S.C.; funding acquisition, Y.L.; investigation, M.W., Y.L. and S.C.; methodology, M.W., Y.L. and S.C.; project administration, Y.L.; resources, Y.L.; supervision, Y.L.; writing—original draft preparation, M.W.; writing—review and editing, M.W. and Y.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved Research Project Ethical Review Application Form, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University of China ( {"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"H22074","term_id":"890769"}} H22074 , 4 July 2022).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects and their parents involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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No ‘Hippie Ape’: Bonobos Are Often Aggressive, Study Finds

Despite their peaceful reputation, bonobos act aggressively more often than their chimpanzee cousins, a new study found.

By Carl Zimmer

In the early 1900s, primatologists noticed a group of apes in central Africa with a distinctly slender build; they called them “pygmy chimpanzees.” But as the years passed, it became clear that those animals, now known as bonobos, were profoundly different from chimpanzees.

Chimpanzee societies are dominated by males that kill other males, raid the territory of neighboring troops and defend their own ground with border patrols. Male chimpanzees also attack females to coerce them into mating, and sometimes even kill infants. Among bonobos, in contrast, females are dominant. Males do not go on patrols, form alliances or kill other bonobos. And bonobos usually resolve their disputes with sex — lots of it.

Bonobos became famous for showing that nature didn’t always have to be red in tooth and claw. “Bonobos are an icon for peace and love, the world’s ‘hippie chimps,’” Sally Coxe, a conservationist, said in 2006 .

But these sweeping claims were not based on much data. Because bonobos live in remote, swampy rainforests, it has been much more difficult to observe them in the wild than chimpanzees. More recent research has shown that bonobos live a more aggressive life than their reputation would suggest.

In a study based on thousands of hours of observations in the wild published on Friday, for example, researchers found that male bonobos commit acts of aggression nearly three times as often as male chimpanzees do.

“There is no ‘hippie ape,’” said Maud Mouginot, a biological anthropologist at Boston University who led the analysis.

As our closest living relatives, bonobos and chimpanzees can offer us clues about the roots of human behavior. We and the two species share a common ancestor that lived about 7 million years ago. About 5 million years later, bonobos split off from chimpanzees.

In 2012, a trio of Harvard researchers proposed that bonobos evolved much like dogs did. Less aggressive wolves were not as likely to be killed by humans, which over time led to the emergence of dogs. In a similar fashion, the researchers argued, female bonobos preferred to mate with less aggressive males, giving birth to less aggressive offspring.

The researchers called their idea the self-domestication hypothesis. In later years, they speculated that humans may have undergone a self-domestication of their own.

Dr. Mouginot found the hypothesis intriguing, and decided to test it by tracking individual male chimpanzees and bonobos over several years.

In 2018, she traveled to Tanzania to observe chimpanzees. She would follow an individual male all day long, noting when it committed aggression — a push, a bite, a chase — against another male.

The next year she went to the Democratic Republic of Congo to watch bonobos; she used binoculars to follow them as they raced around in the forest canopy. “Most of the time, I’m seeing their butts,” she said.

Dr. Mouginot soon became perplexed, as she saw that male bonobos acted aggressively on a regular basis. Unlike male chimpanzees, who started their days in a mellow mood, the male bonobos seemed to wake up ready for a fight.

“I thought, where is the peaceful bonobo?” Dr. Mouginot said.

She and her colleagues trained field assistants, who made more observations throughout the pandemic. The new analysis, based on 9,300 hours of observations on 12 male bonobos and 14 male chimpanzees, found that bonobos committed aggressive acts 2.8 times as frequently as the chimpanzees did.

“Those numbers are really big — I thought I messed something up,” Dr. Mouginot said. But she hadn’t.

Dr. Mouginot found that the frequent bonobo aggressions almost always involved a single male attacking another male. Chimpanzees, in contrast, often ganged up to attack a victim.

Brian Hare, an anthropologist at Duke University and one of the authors of the self-domestication hypothesis, said that the study set a new standard for comparing aggression in bonobos and chimpanzees.

“It’s absolutely worth its weight in gold,” he said.

Dr. Mouginot speculated that male chimpanzees engage in one-on-one aggression less often because it poses bigger dangers: A victim of aggression may not want to go on a border patrol with the perpetrator, for example. Or he may bring back some of his own allies to wreak vengeance.

It may be easier for male bonobos to get away with aggression, Dr. Mouginot said, because in their female-dominated society they don’t face the risks that come with male alliances. “I think that’s why we see more aggression in bonobos — because it’s less risky to act aggressively against other males,” Dr. Mouginot said.

In fact, male bonobos may benefit from attacking other males. Dr. Mouginot and her colleagues found that the apes that carried out the most aggressive acts were also the ones who mated most often.

Dr. Hare acknowledged that the study’s results mean that parts of the self-domestication hypothesis “clearly need refinement.” It may be important to consider the effect that different kinds of aggression have on a species, rather than lumping them altogether, he said.

Still, he argued that the differences between the two species remained significant. “Chimpanzees murder, and bonobos don’t,” he said.

Carl Zimmer covers news about science for The Times and writes the Origins column . More about Carl Zimmer