Violent video games and physical aggression: Evidence for a selection effect among adolescents.

Abstract

Longitudinal studies investigating the relationship of aggression and violent video games are still scarce. Most of the previous studies focused on children or younger adolescents and relied on convenience samples. This paper presents data from a 1-year longitudinal study of N = 276 video game players aged 14 to 21 drawn from a representative sample of German gamers. We tested both whether the use of violent games predicts physical aggression (i.e., the socialization hypothesis) and whether physical aggression predicts the subsequent use of violent games (i.e., the selection hypothesis). The results support the selection hypotheses for the group of adolescents aged 14 to 17. For the group of young adults (18-21), we found no evidence for both the socialization and the selection hypothesis. Our findings suggest that the use of violent video games is not a substantial predictor of physical aggression, at least in the later phases of adolescence and early adulthood. The differences we found between the age groups show that age plays an important role in the relationship of aggression and violent video games and that research in this area can benefit from a more individualistic perspective that takes into account both intraindividual developmental change and interindividual differences between players.

Violent Video Games Don’t Increase Hostility in Teens, but They Do Stress Girls Out

“…Such studies have suggested that VVG effects are miniscule and may be due to competitive aspects of the games rather than violent content [5] or are entirely negligible [6]. Others have suggested that the impact of video games on youth well-being may be dose specific, with the best outcomes for moderate users, with both non-users and addicted users demonstrating greater problems [7].…”

An empirical examination of factors associated with Game Transfer Phenomena severity

“…Such research has found that many of those affected by violent content have preexisting dispositions and includes individuals with antisocial personality traits, elevated levels of psychoticism, trait aggressiveness, low agreeableness or low conscientiousness, and sensation seeking (Arriaga, Esteves, Carneiro, & Monteiro, 2006;Breuer, Vogelgesang, Quandt, & Festl, 2015;Ferguson, San Miguel, Garza, & Jerabeck, 2012;Giumetti & Markey, 2007;Markey & Scherer, 2009;Sigurdsson, Gudjonsson, Bragason, Kristjansdottir, & Sigfusdottir, 2006). Other factors that can play a role include environmental and sociocultural factors (e.g., family violence, peer influences, less parental involvement) (Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley, 2007;Ferguson, et al, 2012) and individual responses to arousal (Krcmar, Farrar, Jalette, & McGloin, 2015).…”

Sexualised video games, sexist attitudes and empathy towards victims of rape: Correlational evidence for a relationship is minimal in an online study

“…The Sexist Attitudes Scale used was Breuer, Kowert, et al (); Breuer, Vogelgesang, et al () adaptation of a scale devised by Brogan and Kutner (). It consists of three items rated on a five‐point scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” These items were: “In a group of male and female members a man should take the leadership”; “A man should be responsible for all major decisions made in the family”; “Even if both partners work, the women should be responsible for taking care of the house hold.” Internal consistency was high (Cronbach α = .92).…”

“…Recent long‐term analyses also suggest that aggressive traits are not predicted by violent game play specifically (Smith, Ferguson, & Beaver, ). Other evidence, however, suggests early aggressiveness can predict later violent game play (Breuer, Vogelgesang, Quandt, & Festl, ). Thus, trait aggression is a sound candidate for a control variable for violent content.…”