Violent Video Games and Attitudes Towards Victims of Crime: An Empirical Study Among Youth

Previous research has indicated that playing violent video games may be associated with an increase in acceptance of violence and positive attitudes towards perpetrators of crime. This study is the first to investigate the relationship between playing violent video games and attitudes towards victims of crime. A total of 206 young people aged 12-24 years completed measures of attitudes towards victims and violent video game exposure. The results suggest that exposure to violent video games is associated with less concern being reported for victims of crime. Young people who play more violent video games reported less concern for general victims and for culpable victims, and these effects cannot be explained by gender or age differences. The results are discussed in relation to relevant research in the area, along with recommendations for future research.

[1]  Kelly G. Shaver,et al.  Defensive attribution-Effects of severity and relevance on the responsibility assigned for an accident , 1970 .

[2]  M. Lerner.  EVALUATION OF PERFORMANCE AS A FUNCTION OF PERFORMER'S REWARD AND ATTRACTIVENESS. , 1965, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[3]  D. Olweus.  Bully/victim problems in school: Facts and intervention , 1997 .

[4]  R. Wyer,et al.  Cognitive mediators of reactions to rape. , 1985, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[5]  R. M. Tobin,et al.  You Can't Always Get What You Want , 2005, Psychological science.

[6]  Laura Stockdale,et al.  Game on… girls: associations between co-playing video games and adolescent behavioral and family outcomes. , 2011, The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine.

[7]  Carl B. Clements,et al.  The measurement of concern about victims: Empathy, victim advocacy and the Victim Concern Scale (VCS) , 2006 .

[8]  Anita K. F. Li,et al.  Bully and Victim Problems in Elementary Schools and Students' Beliefs about Aggression , 1996 .

[9]  J. Workman,et al.  An Examination of Date Rape, Victim Dress, and Perceiver Variables Within the Context of Attribution Theory , 1999 .

[10]  M. Griffiths.  Video games and aggression , 1997 .

[11]  Christoph Klimmt,et al.  Of Virtual Victims and Victimized Virtues: Differential Effects of Experienced Aggression in Video Games on Social Cooperation , 2011, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[12]  Tom Ziemke,et al.  Empathy with Computer Game Characters : A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective , 2005 .

[13]  J. Hunter,et al.  Factors predicting the blaming of victims of physical child abuse or rape , 1994 .

[14]  Nick Yee,et al.  The Demographics, Motivations, and Derived Experiences of Users of Massively Multi-User Online Graphical Environments , 2006, PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

[15]  P. Vorderer,et al.  It’s okay to shoot a character: Moral disengagement in violent video games , 2010 .

[16]  E. Donnerstein,et al.  Harmful effects of exposure to media violence: Learning of aggression, emotional desensitization, and fear. , 1998 .

[17]  Craig A. Anderson,et al.  Interactive effects of life experience and situational cues on aggression: The weapons priming effect in hunters and nonhunters , 2005 .

[18]  Pelet,et al.  User Behavior in Ubiquitous Online Environments , 2013 .

[19]  Brenda K. Bryant,et al.  An Index of Empathy for Children and Adolescents. , 1982 .

[20]  Lee Baer,et al.  M-Rated Video Games and Aggressive or Problem Behavior Among Young Adolescents , 2009 .

[21]  D. G. Perry,et al.  Cognitive social learning mediators of aggression. , 1986, Child development.

[22]  C. Anderson,et al.  Gender differences in aggression as a function of provocation: a meta-analysis. , 1996, Psychological bulletin.

[23]  Karen E. Dill,et al.  Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[24]  Ken Rigby,et al.  Expressed Readiness of Australian Schoolchildren to Act as Bystanders in Support of Children who are Being Bullied , 2006 .

[25]  Brad E. Sheese,et al.  Deciding to Defect , 2005, Psychological science.

[26]  B. Bushman,et al.  I wish I were a warrior: the role of wishful identification in the effects of violent video games on aggression in adolescent boys. , 2007, Developmental psychology.

[27]  R. Fazio.  Multiple Processes by which Attitudes Guide Behavior: The Mode Model as an Integrative Framework , 1990 .

[28]  C. Fox,et al.  The association between adolescents' beliefs in a just world and their attitudes to victims of bullying. , 2010, The British journal of educational psychology.

[29]  G. Spencer,et al.  University Students' Attitudes About Attributing Blame in Domestic Violence , 2003, Journal of Family Violence.

[30]  Christopher R. Engelhardt,et al.  Violent and nonviolent video games differentially affect physical aggression for individuals high vs. low in dispositional anger. , 2011, Aggressive behavior.

[31]  N. McLatchie,et al.  Denying Humanness to Others , 2011, Psychological science.

[32]  Wei Peng,et al.  Will the experience of playing a violent role in a video game influence people's judgments of violent crimes? , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[33]  Tobias Greitemeyer,et al.  Prosocial video games reduce aggressive cognitions , 2009 .

[34]  Marina Krcmar,et al.  The Influences of Video Gaming on US Children's Moral Reasoning About Violence , 2011 .

[35]  Ron Tamborini,et al.  What Do We Really Know About First-Person-Shooter Games? An Event-Related, High-Resolution Content Analysis , 2009, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[36]  Veena Bhasin,et al.  Oral Health Behaviour Among Bhils of Rajasthan , 2004 .

[37]  Karen Yescavage.  Teaching Women a Lesson , 1999 .

[38]  J. Cooper,et al.  Video Games and Aggression in Children , 1986 .

[39]  Richard J. Hazler,et al.  The Perceived Roles of Bullying in Small‐Town Midwestern Schools , 1994 .

[40]  M. Lerner,et al.  Reactions to suffering of others under conditions of indirect responsibility. , 1967, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[41]  Cheryl K. Olson.  Children's Motivations for Video Game Play in the Context of Normal Development , 2010 .

[42]  N. Haslam.  Dehumanization: An Integrative Review , 2006, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[43]  Eugene V Beresin,et al.  Factors correlated with violent video game use by adolescent boys and girls. , 2007, The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine.

[44]  N. Haslam,et al.  Excluded from humanity: The dehumanizing effects of social ostracism , 2010 .

[45]  Gerd Bohner,et al.  Attitudes and attitude change. , 2002, Annual review of psychology.

[46]  P. Vorderer,et al.  How players manage moral concerns to make video game violence enjoyable , 2006 .

[47]  Gianmarco Altoè,et al.  Does empathy predict adolescents' bullying and defending behavior? , 2007, Aggressive behavior.

[48]  C. Anderson,et al.  The Effects of Reward and Punishment in Violent Video Games on Aggressive Affect, Cognition, and Behavior , 2005, Psychological science.

[49]  Eric Vanman,et al.  Desensitization to media violence over a short period of time. , 2009, Aggressive behavior.

[50]  J. Funk,et al.  The Attitudes Toward Violence Scale , 2003 .

[51]  Ersilia Menesini,et al.  Moral emotions and bullying: A cross-national comparison of differences between bullies, victims and outsiders , 2003 .

[52]  L. Festinger.  A Theory of Social Comparison Processes , 1954 .

[53]  I. Ajzen.  Attitudes, Personality and Behavior , 1988 .

[54]  D. Mazumdar,et al.  Causal and Moral Responsibility of Victims of Rape and Robbery , 1985 .

[55]  R. Fazio.  How do attitudes guide behavior , 1986 .

[56]  P. Pollard.  Judgements about victims and attackers in depicted rapes: a review. , 1992, The British journal of social psychology.

[57]  D. Espelage,et al.  Factors Associated with Bullying Behavior in Middle School Students , 1999 .

[58]  L. Rowell Huesmann,et al.  The role of social information processing and cognitive schema in the acquisition and maintenance of habitual aggressive behavior , 1998 .

[59]  S. Fling,et al.  Videogames, aggression, and self-esteem: A survey , 1992 .

[60]  Latifa Chaari.  The Role of Communication in Online Trust: The Communicative Action Theory Contribution , 2014 .

[61]  A. Bandura.  Selective Moral Disengagement in the Exercise of Moral Agency , 2002 .

[62]  S. Hymel,et al.  Moral Disengagement: A Framework for Understanding Bullying Among Adolescents , 2005 .

[63]  Jeremy N. Bailenson,et al.  The Unbearable Likeness of Being Digital: The Persistence of Nonverbal Social Norms in Online Virtual Environments , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[64]  A. Bandura.  Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities , 1999, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[65]  F. Winkel,et al.  Social workers' and police officers' perceptions of victim credibility: perspective-taking and the impact of extra-evidential factors , 1996 .

[66]  Robert Zheng,et al.  Adolescent Online Social Communication and Behavior: Relationship Formation on the Internet , 2009 .

[67]  Katherine E. Buckley,et al.  Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy , 2007 .

[68]  Tracie Pasold,et al.  Violence exposure in real-life, video games, television, movies, and the internet: is there desensitization? , 2004, Journal of adolescence.

[69]  V. Rideout,et al.  Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds , 2010 .

[70]  A. Bandura,et al.  Sociocognitive Self-Regulatory Mechanisms Governing Transgressive , 2001 .

[71]  K. Rigby,et al.  Dimensions of interpersonal relation among Australian children and implications for psychological well-being. , 1993, The Journal of social psychology.

[72]  C. Anderson,et al.  Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior: Potential sex differences. , 2002 .

[73]  B. Bushman,et al.  Chronic violent video game exposure and desensitization to violence: Behavioral and event-related brain potential data. , 2006 .

[74]  C. Brewin,et al.  Gender, Social Support, and PTSD in Victims of Violent Crime , 2003, Journal of traumatic stress.

[75]  Jolanda Jetten,et al.  Cyber-dehumanization: Violent video game play diminishes our humanity , 2012 .

[76]  Nancy G. Guerra,et al.  Cognitive mediators of aggression in adolescent offenders: I. Assessment. , 1988 .

[77]  R. Fazio,et al.  The MODE model of attitude-behavior processes. , 1999 .

[78]  Giannis Stamatellos,et al.  Virtue, Privacy and Self-Determination: A Plotinian Approach to the Problem of Information Privacy , 2011, Int. J. Cyber Ethics Educ..

[79]  I. Anderson.  Explaining negative rape victim perception: Homophobia and the male rape victim. , 2004 .

[80]  K Rigby,et al.  Bullying among Australian school children: reported behavior and attitudes toward victims. , 1991, The Journal of social psychology.

[81]  Susan M. Miller,et al.  Connected at any Cost: Adolescent Developmental Needs and Online Relationship Formation , 2010 .

[82]  Empathy and fairness , 2006 .

[83]  Frithjof Staude-Müller,et al.  Hostile and Hardened? An Experimental Study on (De-)Sensitization to Violence and Suffering Through Playing Video Games , 2008 .

[84]  Craig A. Anderson,et al.  Comfortably Numb , 2009, Psychological science.

[85]  Raymond A Mar,et al.  Triggering the intentional stance. , 2007, Novartis Foundation symposium.