The Implicit Aggression in Adolescents: The Priming Effect of Internet Violent Stimulus

Abstract

The goals of the current study used field experiment were to investigate relations between internet violent games and the implicit aggression in adolescents with a sample of 86 middle school students. The results showed that: there is a gender difference when adolescents are affected by implicit aggressiveness that under different priming threshold levels. Compared with girls, supraliminal priming materials are easier to prime boys' implicit aggressiveness; compared with boys, girls are more likely to be affected by subliminal priming materials. The adolescents who have high level of aggressiveness are easier to be affected by aggressive materials, and significantly increase their implicit aggressiveness in the aggressive priming condition. This result shows that the adolescents who have high aggressive level are more vulnerable to the effects of network violent stimulus and prefer to use violent ways to solve problems.

Gaming, Social Media, and Gender in Chinese and Canadian Cultures

“…Another concern relating to video game play is its association with aggression in adolescents. Tian, Zhou, Pan, and Zhao (2010) examined 86 Chinese middle school students and found that adolescents with higher aggression levels are more likely to be affected by violent game content, subsequently demonstrating an increase in their implicit aggressiveness. This is consistent with similar research in the West, which demonstrates that an aggressive personality predisposes certain individuals to violence in gaming (Ferguson, 2010;Markey & Markey, 2010).…”