The effect of video games on feelings of aggression.

Fueled by the media, the controversy over whether playing popular arcade/computer games increases aggressiveness has only been compounded by inconsistencies within empirical research. This experiment, conducted with university students in Scotland, was designed to explore some of these inconsistencies. Aggressiveness was manipulated as the independent variable. As dependent variables, the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory (Buss & Durkee, 1957) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975) were used. There was no linear pattern in aggressive affect change across three games that contained varying levels of violence. Results are discussed in terms of the general lack of support for the commonly held view that playing aggressive computer games causes an individual to feel more aggressive.

[1]  Joseph R. Dominick.  Videogames, Television Violence, and Aggression in Teenagers , 1984 .

[2]  D. Graybill,et al.  Effects of Playing Violent Versus Nonviolent Video Games on the Aggressive Ideation of Aggressive and Nonaggressive Children , 1985 .

[3]  C. Anderson,et al.  Affect of the Game Player , 1986 .

[4]  B. Gunter.  Measuring television violence: A review and suggestions for a new analytical perspective , 1981 .

[5]  Thomas W. Malone,et al.  Toward a Theory of Intrinsically Motivating Instruction , 1981, Cogn. Sci..

[6]  T. M. Nelson,et al.  Determining Factors in Choice of Arcade Games and their Consequences upon Young Male Players , 1985 .

[7]  J. Funk,et al.  Video games: benign or malignant? , 1992, Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP.

[8]  L. Weinstein,et al.  Personality, psychopathology, and developmental issues in male adolescent video game use. , 1985, Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry.

[9]  E. Loftus,et al.  Mind at Play; The Psychology of Video Games , 1983 .

[10]  D. Graybill,et al.  Effects of Playing versus Observing Violent versus Nonviolent Video Games on Children's Aggression. , 1987 .

[11]  D. Pearl,et al.  Television and behavior : ten years of scientific progress and implications for the eighties , 1982 .

[12]  F. S. Andison,et al.  TV Violence and Viewer Aggression: A Cumulation of Study Results 1956–1976 , 1977 .

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

[14]  P. Zimbardo.  UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGICAL MAN: A STATE OF THE SCIENCE REPORT , 1982 .

[15]  M. Griffiths,et al.  Amusement machine playing in childhood and adolescence: a comparative analysis of video games and fruit machines. , 1991, Journal of adolescence.

[16]  M. Winkel,et al.  Personality factors, subject gender, and the effects of aggressive video games on aggression in adolescents ☆ , 1987 .

[17]  S. Silvern,et al.  The effects of video game play on young children's aggression, fantasy, and prosocial behavior , 1987 .

[18]  John M. Malouff,et al.  Effects of Playing Videogames on Children's Aggressive and Other Behaviors , 1988 .

[19]  Hans J. Eysenck,et al.  Manual of the Eysenck personality questionnaire , 1975 .

[20]  A. Buss,et al.  An inventory for assessing different kinds of hostility. , 1957, Journal of consulting psychology.

[21]  L. Berkowitz,et al.  Some effects of thoughts on anti- and prosocial influences of media events: a cognitive-neoassociation analysis. , 1984, Psychological bulletin.

[22]  G. Edmunds,et al.  The measurement of human aggressiveness , 1980 .

[23]  L. Eron.  Parent-child interaction, television violence, and aggression of children. , 1982, The American psychologist.