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We investigated how aggression resulting from playing violent computer games varies by gender and trait aggressiveness level. In Study 1, 220 children rated 2 video games in terms of pleasantness, excitement, violent content, violent images, fear, interest, and reality. Results indicated that Virtual Cop2 and Fight Landlord games were perceived as violent and nonviolent, respectively. In Study 2, 240 different children responded to the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire, played either Virtual Cop2 or Fight Landlord, and completed a semantic classification task involving rating whether 60 words were aggressive or nonaggressive. Results showed that boys, but not girls, displayed stronger aggression after playing Virtual Cop2, compared to Fight Landlord. Further, children with high trait aggressiveness exhibited strong aggression after playing Virtual Cop2, whereas those with moderate or low trait aggressiveness did not. Overall, our results indicate that gender and trait aggressiveness both affect aggression among children who play violent video games.
Keywords: computer games, computer game violence, aggression, children, gender, trait aggressiveness.
Literature Review
Aggression has been defined as a problem behavior involving the intention to attack other people who wish to avoid the attack, or where two aggressive parties attack each other, and neither wants to avoid the attack (Anderson & Bushman, 2002; Baron & Richardson, 1994; DeWall, Anderson, & Bushman, 2012). Therefore, we consider aggression as an implicit action whereby individuals with deliberate intent bring harm to others both directly (i.e., physically hitting, kicking, and punching, or insulting) and indirectly (i.e., engaging in hurtful social gossip, spreading rumors, or excluding a person from the in-group).
Aggression may be enhanced in children through playing computer games, which is a popular form of entertainment for this group (Cesarone, 1998; Gross, 2010; Kirsh, 2003). Playing computer games has been found to make people feel relaxed (Wu, Wang, & Tsai, 2010) and many children spend a great amount of time on this activity (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, 2004). Researchers have estimated that around 89% of the electronic games children play include images of blood and violent content (Wallenius & Punamäki, 2008). For example, counter-strike games teach users to shoot others with automatic rifles in real-life settings through observational learning (Bandura, 1973; Polman, Orobio de Castro, & van Aken, 2008).
In relation to this, teachers have reported that...