research about video games and violence

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The contagious impact of playing violent video games on aggression: Longitudinal evidence

Tobias greitemeyer.

1 Department of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck Austria

Meta‐analyses have shown that violent video game play increases aggression in the player. The present research suggests that violent video game play also affects individuals with whom the player is connected. A longitudinal study ( N  = 980) asked participants to report on their amount of violent video game play and level of aggression as well as how they perceive their friends and examined the association between the participant's aggression and their friends’ amount of violent video game play. As hypothesized, friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 was associated with the participant's aggression at Time 2 even when controlling for the impact of the participant's aggression at Time 1. Mediation analyses showed that friends’ aggression at Time 1 accounted for the impact of friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2. These findings suggest that increased aggression in video game players has an impact on the player's social network.

1. INTRODUCTION

Given its widespread use, the public and psychologists alike are concerned about the impact of violent video game play. In fact, a great number of studies have addressed the effects of exposure to violent video games (where the main goal is to harm other game characters) on aggression and aggression‐related variables. Meta‐analyses have shown that playing violent video games is associated with increased aggression in the player (Anderson et al., 2010 ; Greitemeyer & Mügge, 2014 ). The present longitudinal study examines the idea that violent video game play also affects the player's social network, suggesting that concern about the harmful effects of playing violent video games on a societal level is even more warranted.

1.1. Theoretical perspective

When explaining the effects of playing violent video games, researchers often refer to the General Aggression Model (GAM) proposed by Anderson & Bushman ( 2002 ). According to this theoretical model, person and situation variables (sometimes interactively) may affect a person's internal state, consisting of cognition, affect, and arousal. This internal state then affects how events are perceived and interpreted. Based on this decision process, the person behaves more or less aggressively in a social encounter. For example, playing violent video games is assumed to increase aggressive cognition and affect, which in turn results in behavioral aggression. An extension of this model further assumes that increased aggression due to previous violent video game play may instigate an aggression escalation cycle in that the victim also behaves aggressively (cf. Anderson & Bushman, 2018 , Figure 5). The present research tested key predictions derived from the GAM and its extension, that (a) violent video game play is associated with increased aggression in the player and that (b) individuals who are connected to the player will also become more aggressive.

1.2. Effects of violent video game play on aggression

The relationship between violent video game play and aggression has been examined in studies employing cross‐sectional, longitudinal, and experimental designs. Cross‐sectional correlational studies typically show a positive relationship between the amount of violent video game play and aggression in real‐world contexts (e.g., Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, 2004 ; Krahé & Möller, 2004 ). Several longitudinal studies have been conducted, showing that habitual violent video game play predicts later aggression even after controlling for initial aggressiveness (e.g., Anderson, Buckley, & Carnagey, 2008 ). That violent video game play has a causal impact on aggression and related information processing has been demonstrated by experimental work (e.g., Anderson & Carnagey, 2009 ; Gabbiadini & Riva, 2018 ). Finally, meta‐analyses corroborated that violent video game play significantly increases aggressive thoughts, hostile affect, and aggressive behavior (Anderson et al., 2010 ; Greitemeyer & Mügge, 2014 ). Some studies failed to find significant effects (e.g., McCarthy, Coley, Wagner, Zengel, & Basham, 2016 ). However, given that the typical effect of violent video games on aggression is not large, it is to be expected that not all studies reveal significant effects.

1.3. The contagious effects of aggression

Abundant evidence has been collected that aggression and violence can be contagious (Dishion, & Tipsord, 2011 ; Huesmann, 2012 ; Jung, Busching, & Krahé, 2019 ). Indeed, the best predictor of (retaliatory) aggression is arguably previous violent victimization (Anderson et al., 2008 ; Goldstein, Davis, & Herman, 1975 ). However, even the observation of violence can lead to increased violence in the future (Widom, 1989 ). Overall, it is a well‐known finding that aggression begets further aggression. Given that violent video game play increases aggression, it thus may well be that this increased aggression then has an impact on people with whom the player is connected.

Correlational research provides initial evidence for the idea that the level of people's aggression is indeed associated with how often their friends play violent video games (Greitemeyer, 2018 ). In particular, participants who did not play violent video games were more aggressive the more their friends played violent video games. However, due to the cross‐sectional design, no conclusions about the direction of the effect are possible. It may be that violent video game players influence their friends (social influence), but it is also conceivable that similar people attract each other (homophily) or that there is some shared environmental factor that influences the behavior of both the players and their friends (confounding). That is, it is unclear whether indeed aggression due to playing violent video games spreads or whether the effect is reversed, such that aggressive people are prone to befriend others who are attracted to violent video game play. Moreover, it is possible that some third variable affected both, participants’ reported aggression and their friends’ amount of violent video game play. There is also the possibility that people are unsure about the extent to which their friends play violent video games. In this case, they may perceive their friends as behaving aggressively and then (wrongly) infer that the friends play violent video games. To disentangle these possibilities and to show that the effect of violent video game play (i.e., increased aggression in the player) indeed has an impact on the player's social network, relationships among variables have to be assessed over time while covarying prior aggression (Bond & Bushman, 2017 ; Christakis & Fowler, 2013 ).

Verheijen, Burk, Stoltz, van den Berg, and Cillessen ( 2018 ) tested the idea that players of violent video games have a long‐term impact on their social network. These authors found that participants’ exposure to violent video games increased their friend's aggressive behavior 1 year later. However, given that the authors did not examine whether the violent video game player's increased aggression accounts for the impact on their friend's aggressive behavior, it is unknown whether violent video game play indeed instigates an aggression cycle. For example, players of violent video games may influence their friends so that these friends will also play violent video games. Any increases in aggression could then be an effect of the friends playing violent video games on their own.

1.4. The present research

The present study examines the longitudinal association between the participant's aggression and their friends’ amount of violent video game play, employing an egocentric networking approach (Stark & Krosnick, 2017 ). In egocentric networking analyses, participants provide self‐reports but also report on how they perceive their friends. In the following, and in line with Greitemeyer ( 2018 ), the friends were treated as the players and the participant was treated as their friends’ social network. Please note that ties between the participant's friends (i.e., whether friends also know each other) were not assessed (Greitemeyer, 2018 ; Mötteli & Dohle, 2019 ), because this information was not needed for testing the hypothesis that participants become more aggressive if their friends play violent video games. It was expected that friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 would predict the participant's aggression at Time 2 even when controlling for the impact of the participant's aggression and amount of violent video game play at Time 1. It was further examined whether friends’ aggression at Time 1 would account for the impact of friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2. Such findings would provide suggestive evidence that violent video game play may instigate an aggression cycle. The study received ethical approval from the Internal Review Board for Ethical Questions by the Scientific Ethical Committee of the University of Innsbruck. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/jp8ew/ .

2.1. Participants

Participants were citizens of the U.S. who took part on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Because it was unknown how many of the participants will complete both questionnaires, no power analyses were conducted a priori but a large number of participants was run. At Time 1, there were 2,502 participants (1,376 females, 1,126 males; mean age = 35.7 years, SD =  11.8). Of these, 980 participants (522 females, 458 males; mean age = 38.9 years, SD =  12.5) completed the questionnaire at Time 2. Time 1 and Time 2 were 6 months apart. There were no data exclusions, and all participants were run before any analyses were performed. The questionnaire included some further questions (e.g., participant's perceived deprivation) that are not relevant for the present purpose and are reported elsewhere (Greitemeyer & Sagioglou, 2018 ). 1 Given that the questionnaire was relatively short, no attention checks were employed.

2.2. Procedure and measures

Procedure and measures were very similar to Greitemeyer ( 2018 ), with the main difference that individuals participated at two time points (instead of one). After providing demographics, self‐reported aggressive behavior was assessed. As in previous research (e.g., Krahé & Möller, 2010 ), participants indicated for 10 items how often they had shown the respective behavior in the past 6 months. Sample items are: “I have pushed another person” and “I have spread gossip about people I don't like” (5 items each address physical aggression and relational aggression, respectively). All items were rated on a scale from 1 ( never ) to 5 ( very often ), and scores were averaged. Participants were then asked about their amount of violent video game play, employing one item: “How often do you play violent video games (where the goal is to harm other game characters)?” (1 =  never to 7 =  very often ).

Afterwards, participants learned that they will be asked questions about people they feel closest to. These may be friends, coworkers, neighbors, relatives. They should answer questions for three contacts with whom they talked about important matters in the last few months. For each friend, they reported the level of aggression (αs between = 0.90 and 0.91) and the amount of violent video game play, employing the same questions as for themselves. Responses to the three friends were then averaged. Finally, participants were thanked and asked what they thought this experiment was trying to study, but none noted the hypothesis that their friend's amount of violent video game play would affect their own level of aggression. At Time 2, the same questions were employed. Reliabilities for how participants perceived the level of aggression for each friend were between 0.89 and 0.90.

Descriptive statistics, intercorrelations, and internal consistencies of all measures are shown in Table ​ Table1 1 .

Means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations

Note : For Time 1, N  = 2,502; for Time 2, N  = 980. All correlation coefficients: p  < .001. Where applicable, α reliabilities are presented along the diagonal.

3.1. Time 1 ( N  = 2,502)

The relationship between the amount of violent video game play and reported aggression was significant, both for the participant and the friends. That is, violent video game play was associated with increased aggression in the player and participants perceived their friends who play more violent video games to be more aggressive than their less‐playing friends. Participant's and friends’ amount of violent video game play as well as their level of reported aggression, respectively, were also positively associated, indicating that participants perceived their friends to be similar to them. Most importantly, participant's aggression was significantly associated with friends’ amount of violent video game play. 2

It was then examined whether friends’ amount of violent video game play is still associated with the participant's aggression when controlling for the participant's amount of violent video game play. Participant sex (coded 1 = male, 2 = female) and age were included as covariates. In fact, a bootstrapping analysis showed that the impact of friends’ amount of violent video game play remained significant (point estimate = 0.08, SE  = 0.02, t  = 4.72, p  < .001, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.05, 0.11]). Participant's amount of violent video game play (point estimate = 0.03, SE  = 0.01, t  = 2.18, p  = .029, 95% CI = [0.00, 0.05]) and the interaction were also significant (point estimate = −0.01, SE  = 0.00, t  = 2.41, p  = .016, 95% CI = [−0.02, −0.00]). At low levels of the participant's amount of violent video game play (− 1 SD, equals that the participant does not play violent video games in the present data set), friends’ amount of violent video game play was associated with the participant's aggression (point estimate = 0.07, SE  = 0.01, t  = 5.06, p  < .001, 95% CI = [0.04, 0.10]). At high levels of the participant's amount of violent video game play ( + 1 SD), friends’ amount of violent video game play was also associated with the participant's aggression (point estimate = 0.03, SE  = 0.01, t  = 3.14, p  = .002, 95% CI = [0.01, 0.06]), but the effect was less pronounced. Participants were thus most strongly affected by whether their social network plays violent video games when they do not play violent video games themselves (Figure ​ (Figure1). 1 ). Participant sex was not significantly associated with the participant's aggression (point estimate = −0.04, SE  = 0.02, t  = 1.95, p  = .052, 95% CI = [−0.09, 0.00]), whereas age was (point estimate = −0.01, SE  = 0.00, t  = 7.84, p  < .001, 95% CI = [−0.009, −0.005]).

Simple slopes of the interactive effect of friends’ amount of violent video game play and the participant's amount of violent video game play on the participant's aggression, controlling for participant sex and age (Time 1, N  = 2,502)

3.2. Time 1 and Time 2 ( N  = 980)

To examine the impact of friends’ amount of violent video game play on the participant's aggression over time, a cross‐lagged regression analysis was performed on the data. Participant's amount of violent video game play, friends’ amount of violent video game play, participant's aggression at Time 1, as well as participant sex and age were used as predictors for participant's aggression at Time 2. The overall regression was significant, F (5,974) = 68.92, R 2  = 0.26, p  < .001. Most importantly, friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 significantly predicted participant's aggression at Time 2, t  = 2.60, β  = .09, 95% CI = (0.02, 0.16), p  = .009. Participant's aggression showed high stability, t  = 16.77, β  = .48, 95% CI = (0.42, 0.53), p  < .001, whereas the participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1 did not significantly predict the participant's aggression at Time 2, t  = 1.77, β  = −.07, 95% CI = (− 0.14, 0.01), p  = .077 (Figure ​ (Figure2 2 ). 3 , 4 Participant sex also received a significant regression weight, t  = 2.08, β  = −.06, 95% CI = (−0.12, −0.00), p  = .038, whereas age did not, t  = 1.93, β  = −.06, 95% CI = (−0.12, 0.00), p  = .054. The reverse effect that the participant's aggression at Time 1 predicts their friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 2 when controlling for the participant's amount of violent video game play and friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1, as well as participant sex and age, was not significant, t  = 0.67, β  = .02, 95% CI = (−0.03, 0.06), p  = .504.

Participant's aggression at Time 2 simultaneously predicted by friends’ amount of violent video game play, participant's aggression, and participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1. Participant sex and age were controlled for, but were not included in the figure (see the main text for the impact of participant sex and age). * p  < .01, ** p  < .001 ( N  = 980)

Finally, it was examined whether the impact of friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2 would be mediated by friends’ level of aggression at Time 1 (while controlling for the participant's aggression and amount of violent video game play at Time 1 as well as participant sex and age). A bootstrapping analysis (with 5.000 iterations) showed that the impact of friends’ level of aggression at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2 was significant (point estimate = 0.16, SE  = 0.04, t  = 4.28, p  < .001, 95% CI = [0.09, 0.23]). Participant's aggression at Time 1 was also a significant predictor (point estimate = 0.34, SE  = 0.03, t  = 10.19, p  < .001, 95% CI = [0.27, 0.40]). Friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 (point estimate = 0.03, SE  = 0.01, t  = 1.82, p  = .069, 95% CI = [−0.00, 0.05]) and participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1 (point estimate = −0.01, SE  = 0.01, t  = 1.65, p  = .099, 95% CI = [−0.03, 0.00]) were not significant predictors. Participant sex significantly predicted the participant's aggression at Time 2 (point estimate = −0.06, SE  = 0.03, t  = 2.31, p  = .021, 95% CI = [−0.11, −0.01]), whereas age did not (point estimate = −0.00, SE  = 0.00, t  = 1.90, p  = .058, 95% CI = [−0.00, 0.00]). The indirect effect was significantly different from zero (point estimate = 0.01, 95% CI = [.00, 0.02]), suggesting that participants are more aggressive if their friends play violent video games for the reason that these friends are more aggressive. Figure ​ Figure3 3 displays a simplified version of this mediation effect, based on regression coefficients and without controlling for the participant's aggression at Time 1, the participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1, participant sex, and age.

Mediation of the impact of friends’ violent video game exposure (VVE) at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2 by friends’ aggression at Time 1. All paths are significant. β * = the coefficient from friends’ VVE at Time 1 to the participant's aggression at Time 2 when controlling for friends’ aggression at Time 1 ( N  = 980)

4. DISCUSSION

Violent video games have an impact on the player's aggression (Anderson et al., 2010 ; Greitemeyer & Mügge, 2014 ), but—as the present study shows—they also increase aggression in the player's social network. In particular, participants who do not play violent video games reported to be more aggressive the more their friends play violent video games. Mediation analyses showed that the increased aggression in the friends accounted for the relationship between friends’ amount of violent video game play and the participant's aggression. Because changes in aggression over time were assessed, the present study provides evidence for the hypothesized effect that violent video game play is associated with increased aggression in the player, which then instigates aggression in their social network. Importantly, the impact of the participant's amount of violent video game play was controlled for, indicating that the relationship between friends’ amount of violent video game play and the participant's aggression is not due to the friends being similar to the participants. Moreover, the reverse effect that aggressive people will become attracted to others who play violent video games was not reliable. The present research thus documents the directional effects that violent video games is associated with increased aggression in the player and that this increased aggression then has an impact on people with whom the player is connected.

Overall, the present study provides comprehensive support for key hypotheses derived from the GAM and its extension (Anderson & Bushman, 2018 ). It shows that violent video game play is associated with increased aggression in the player and it documents that others who are connected to players might be also affected even when controlling for their own amount of violent video game play. To the best of my knowledge, this study is the first that shows that because violent video game players are more aggressive their friends will become aggressive, too. Previous research either employed a cross‐sectional design and thus could not address the direction of the effect (Greitemeyer, 2018 ) or did not examine whether the effect of violent video game play (i.e., increased aggression) indeed spreads (Verheijen et al., 2018 ). As proposed by the GAM and its extension (Anderson & Bushman, 2018 ), increased aggression in violent video game players appears to instigate an aggression escalation cycle (cf. Anderson et al., 2008 ).

It is noteworthy, however, that the longitudinal effect of the participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2 was not reliable. Hence, although there were significant correlations between participants’ aggression and their violent video game use at both time points, the present study does not show that repeatedly playing violent video games leads to long‐term changes in aggression. However, a recent meta‐analysis of the long‐term effects of playing violent video games confirmed that violent video game play does increase physical aggression over time (Prescott, Sargent, & Hull, 2018 ), although the effect size was relatively small ( β  = 0.11) and thus single studies that produce nonsignificant results are to be expected. Importantly, in the present study, a single‐item measure of violent video game play was employed. In contrast, previous research on the relationship between violent video game play and the player's aggression has often employed multi‐item measurement scales that are typically more reliable and precise (for an overview, Busching et al., 2015 ). Hence, it may well be that due to the limitations of the single‐item measure of the participant's amount of violent video game play the relationship between participants’ violent game play and their aggressive behavior was artificially reduced.

Even though the longitudinal design allows ruling out a host of alternative explanations for the impact of violent video games on the player's social network, causality can only inferred by using an experimental design. Future research may thus randomly assign participants to play a violent or nonviolent video game (players) and assesses their aggression against new participants (partners). It can be expected that the partners suffer more aggression when the player had played a violent, compared to a nonviolent, video game. Afterwards, it could be tested whether the partner of a violent video game player is more aggressive than a partner of a nonviolent video game player. Given that the partner is not exposed to any video games, firm causal conclusions could be drawn that violent video game play affects aggression in people who are connected to violent video game players. It could be also tested whether the partner of a violent video game player would not only be more likely to retaliate against the player, but also against a third party. In fact, previous research into displaced aggression has shown that people may react aggressively against a target that is innocent of any wrongdoing after they have been provoked by another person (Marcus‐Newhall, Pedersen, Carlson, & Miller, 2000 ). It may thus well be that the effect of playing violent video games spreads in social networks and that even people who are only indirectly linked to violent video game players are affected.

An important limitation of the present egocentric network data is the reliance on the participant's perception of their social network, leaving the possibility that participants did not accurately perceive their friends. It is noteworthy that participants perceived their friends to be highly similar to them. In this regard, it is important to keep in mind that participants always provided self‐ratings first, followed by perceptions of their friends. It is thus conceivable that participants used their self‐ratings as anchors for the perceptions of their friends. Such a tendency, however, would reduce the unique effect of friends’ amount of violent video game play on the participant's aggression when controlling for the participant's amount of violent video game play. The finding that participants in particular who do not play violent video games reported to be more aggressive if their friends play violent video games also suggests that the impact of violent video games on the player's social network is not due to participants providing both self‐reports and how they perceive their friends. Finally, rather than by their friends’ objective qualities, people's behavior should be more likely to be affected by their subjective perceptions of their friends.

As noted in the introduction, participants may not be aware of the extent to which their friends play violent video games and hence used the perception of how aggressive their friends are as an anchor for estimating their friends’ amount of violent video game play. Importantly, however, the participant's aggression at Time 2 was significantly predicted by friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 even when controlling for friends’ level of aggression at Time 1 (see Figure ​ Figure3). 3 ). Moreover, whereas aggression might be used for estimating violent video game exposure of the friends, participants should be well aware of the extent to which they play violent video games so that anchoring effects for participant's self‐reports are unlikely. However, given that it cannot be completely ruled out that the correlation between violent game play of friends at Time 1 and aggressive behavior of participants at Time 2 reflects a pseudocorrelation that is determined by the correlation between aggressive behavior of friends at Time 1 and aggressive behavior of the participant at Time 2, future research that employs sociocentric network analyses where information about the friends is provided by the friends themselves would be informative.

Another limitation is the employment of self‐report measures to assess aggressive behavior. Self‐report measures are quite transparent, so participants may have rated themselves more favorably than is actually warranted. In fact, mean scores of reported aggressive behavior were quite low. This reduced variance, however, typically diminishes associations with other constructs. In any case, observing how actual aggressive behavior is influenced by the social network's violent video game play would be an important endeavor for future work. It also has to be acknowledged that some participants may have reported on different friends at Time 1 and Time 2. Future research would be welcome that ensures that participants consider the same friends at different time points.

Future research may also shed some further light on the psychological processes. In the present study, the violent video game players’ higher levels of aggression accounted for the relationship between their amount of violent video game play and the participants’ reported aggression. It would be interesting to examine why the players’ aggression influences the aggression level of their social network. One possibility is that witnessing increased aggression by others (who play violent video games) leads to greater acceptance of norms condoning aggression, which are known to be an antecedent of aggressive behavior (Huesmann & Guerra, 1997 ). After all, if others behave aggressively, why should one refrain from engaging in the same behavior.

Another limitation of the present work is that it was not assessed how participants and their friends play violent video games. A recent survey (Lenhart, Smith, Anderson, Duggan, & Perrin, 2015 ) showed that many video game users play video games together with their friends, either cooperatively or competitively. This is insofar noteworthy as there might be some overlap between participants’ and their friends’ violent video game play. Moreover, cooperative video games have been shown to increase prosocial tendencies (Greitemeyer, 2013 ; Greitemeyer & Cox, 2013 ; but see Verheijen, Stoltz, van den Berg, & Cillessen, 2019 ) and decrease aggression (Velez, Greitemeyer, Whitaker, Ewoldsen, & Bushman, 2016 ). In contrast, competitive video game play increases aggressive affect and behavior (e.g., Adachi & Willoughby, 2016 ). Hence, future research should examine more closely whether participants play violent video games on their own, competitively, or cooperatively. The latter may show some positive effects of video game play, both on the player and the player's friends, whereas opposing effects should be found for competitive video games.

To obtain high statistical power and thus to increase the probability to detect significant effects, data were collected via an online survey. The current sample was drawn from the MTurk population (for a review of the trend to rely on MTurk samples in social and personality psychology, see Anderson et al., 2019 ). Samples drawn from MTurk are not demographically representative of the U.S. population as a whole. For example, MTurk samples are disproportionally young and female and they are better educated but tend to be unemployed (for a review, Keith, Tay, & Harms, 2017 ). On the other hand, MTurk samples are more representative of the U.S. population than are college student samples (Paolacci & Chandler, 2014 ) and the pool of participants is geographically diverse. Moreover, MTurk participants appear to be more attentive to survey instructions than are undergraduate students (Hauser & Schwarz, 2016 ). Nevertheless, future research on the impact of violent video game play on the player's social network that employs other samples would improve the generalizability of the present findings.

In conclusion, violent video game play is not only associated with increased aggression in the player but also in the player's social network. In fact, increased aggression due to violent video game play appears to instigate further aggression in the player's social network. This study thus provides suggestive evidence that not only players of violent video games are more aggressive, but also individuals become more aggressive who do not play violent video games themselves but are connected to others who do play.

Greitemeyer T. The contagious impact of playing violent video games on aggression: Longitudinal evidence . Aggressive Behavior . 2019; 45 :635–642. 10.1002/ab.21857 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

1 Participant's perceived deprivation was positively related to both violent video game exposure, r (2,502) = 0.08, p  < .001, and reported aggression, r (2,502) = 0.14, p  < .001. However, the relationship between violent video game exposure and reported aggression, r (2,502) = 0.15, p  < .001, was relatively unaffected when controlling for perceived deprivation, r (2,499) = 0.14, p  < .001.

2 Given that the measures of violent video game exposure and aggressive behavior violated the normal distribution, Spearman's ρ coefficients were also calculated. However, the pattern of finding was very similar (e.g., the crucial relationship between the participant's aggression and friends’ amount of violent video game play was 0.18 [Pearson] and 0.17 [Spearman]). All these analyses can be obtained from the author upon request.

3 When dropping friends’ amount of violent video game play from the analysis, the participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1 still did not predict participant's aggression at Time 2, t  = 0.44, β  = −.01, 95% CI = (− 0.02, 0.01), p  = .657 (when controlling for participant's aggression at Time 1, participant sex, and age).

4 Given that violent video games primarily model physical aggression, violent video games should have a stronger effect on the player's physical aggression than on other types of aggression. In fact, the impact of the participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1 on the participant's physical aggression at Time 2, t  = 1.49, β  = .04, 95% CI = (− 0.00, 0.02), p  = .136 (when controlling for the participant's physical aggression at Time 1), was more pronounced than the impact on the participant's relational aggression at Time 2, t  = 0.52, β  = .02, 95% CI = (− 0.01, 0.02), p  = .603 (when controlling for the participant's relational aggression at Time 1), but both effects were not significant.

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• Published: 13 March 2018

Does playing violent video games cause aggression? A longitudinal intervention study

• Simone Kühn 1 , 2 ,
• Dimitrij Tycho Kugler 2 ,
• Katharina Schmalen 1 ,
• Markus Weichenberger 1 ,
• Charlotte Witt 1 &
• Jürgen Gallinat 2  

Molecular Psychiatry volume  24 ,  pages 1220–1234 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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It is a widespread concern that violent video games promote aggression, reduce pro-social behaviour, increase impulsivity and interfere with cognition as well as mood in its players. Previous experimental studies have focussed on short-term effects of violent video gameplay on aggression, yet there are reasons to believe that these effects are mostly the result of priming. In contrast, the present study is the first to investigate the effects of long-term violent video gameplay using a large battery of tests spanning questionnaires, behavioural measures of aggression, sexist attitudes, empathy and interpersonal competencies, impulsivity-related constructs (such as sensation seeking, boredom proneness, risk taking, delay discounting), mental health (depressivity, anxiety) as well as executive control functions, before and after 2 months of gameplay. Our participants played the violent video game Grand Theft Auto V, the non-violent video game The Sims 3 or no game at all for 2 months on a daily basis. No significant changes were observed, neither when comparing the group playing a violent video game to a group playing a non-violent game, nor to a passive control group. Also, no effects were observed between baseline and posttest directly after the intervention, nor between baseline and a follow-up assessment 2 months after the intervention period had ended. The present results thus provide strong evidence against the frequently debated negative effects of playing violent video games in adults and will therefore help to communicate a more realistic scientific perspective on the effects of violent video gaming.

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The concern that violent video games may promote aggression or reduce empathy in its players is pervasive and given the popularity of these games their psychological impact is an urgent issue for society at large. Contrary to the custom, this topic has also been passionately debated in the scientific literature. One research camp has strongly argued that violent video games increase aggression in its players [ 1 , 2 ], whereas the other camp [ 3 , 4 ] repeatedly concluded that the effects are minimal at best, if not absent. Importantly, it appears that these fundamental inconsistencies cannot be attributed to differences in research methodology since even meta-analyses, with the goal to integrate the results of all prior studies on the topic of aggression caused by video games led to disparate conclusions [ 2 , 3 ]. These meta-analyses had a strong focus on children, and one of them [ 2 ] reported a marginal age effect suggesting that children might be even more susceptible to violent video game effects.

To unravel this topic of research, we designed a randomised controlled trial on adults to draw causal conclusions on the influence of video games on aggression. At present, almost all experimental studies targeting the effects of violent video games on aggression and/or empathy focussed on the effects of short-term video gameplay. In these studies the duration for which participants were instructed to play the games ranged from 4 min to maximally 2 h (mean = 22 min, median = 15 min, when considering all experimental studies reviewed in two of the recent major meta-analyses in the field [ 3 , 5 ]) and most frequently the effects of video gaming have been tested directly after gameplay.

It has been suggested that the effects of studies focussing on consequences of short-term video gameplay (mostly conducted on college student populations) are mainly the result of priming effects, meaning that exposure to violent content increases the accessibility of aggressive thoughts and affect when participants are in the immediate situation [ 6 ]. However, above and beyond this the General Aggression Model (GAM, [ 7 ]) assumes that repeatedly primed thoughts and feelings influence the perception of ongoing events and therewith elicits aggressive behaviour as a long-term effect. We think that priming effects are interesting and worthwhile exploring, but in contrast to the notion of the GAM our reading of the literature is that priming effects are short-lived (suggested to only last for <5 min and may potentially reverse after that time [ 8 ]). Priming effects should therefore only play a role in very close temporal proximity to gameplay. Moreover, there are a multitude of studies on college students that have failed to replicate priming effects [ 9 , 10 , 11 ] and associated predictions of the so-called GAM such as a desensitisation against violent content [ 12 , 13 , 14 ] in adolescents and college students or a decrease of empathy [ 15 ] and pro-social behaviour [ 16 , 17 ] as a result of playing violent video games.

However, in our view the question that society is actually interested in is not: “Are people more aggressive after having played violent video games for a few minutes? And are these people more aggressive minutes after gameplay ended?”, but rather “What are the effects of frequent, habitual violent video game playing? And for how long do these effects persist (not in the range of minutes but rather weeks and months)?” For this reason studies are needed in which participants are trained over longer periods of time, tested after a longer delay after acute playing and tested with broader batteries assessing aggression but also other relevant domains such as empathy as well as mood and cognition. Moreover, long-term follow-up assessments are needed to demonstrate long-term effects of frequent violent video gameplay. To fill this gap, we set out to expose adult participants to two different types of video games for a period of 2 months and investigate changes in measures of various constructs of interest at least one day after the last gaming session and test them once more 2 months after the end of the gameplay intervention. In contrast to the GAM, we hypothesised no increases of aggression or decreases in pro-social behaviour even after long-term exposure to a violent video game due to our reasoning that priming effects of violent video games are short-lived and should therefore not influence measures of aggression if they are not measured directly after acute gaming. In the present study, we assessed potential changes in the following domains: behavioural as well as questionnaire measures of aggression, empathy and interpersonal competencies, impulsivity-related constructs (such as sensation seeking, boredom proneness, risk taking, delay discounting), and depressivity and anxiety as well as executive control functions. As the effects on aggression and pro-social behaviour were the core targets of the present study, we implemented multiple tests for these domains. This broad range of domains with its wide coverage and the longitudinal nature of the study design enabled us to draw more general conclusions regarding the causal effects of violent video games.

Materials and methods

Participants.

Ninety healthy participants (mean age = 28 years, SD = 7.3, range: 18–45, 48 females) were recruited by means of flyers and internet advertisements. The sample consisted of college students as well as of participants from the general community. The advertisement mentioned that we were recruiting for a longitudinal study on video gaming, but did not mention that we would offer an intervention or that we were expecting training effects. Participants were randomly assigned to the three groups ruling out self-selection effects. The sample size was based on estimates from a previous study with a similar design [ 18 ]. After complete description of the study, the participants’ informed written consent was obtained. The local ethics committee of the Charité University Clinic, Germany, approved of the study. We included participants that reported little, preferably no video game usage in the past 6 months (none of the participants ever played the game Grand Theft Auto V (GTA) or Sims 3 in any of its versions before). We excluded participants with psychological or neurological problems. The participants received financial compensation for the testing sessions (200 Euros) and performance-dependent additional payment for two behavioural tasks detailed below, but received no money for the training itself.

Training procedure

The violent video game group (5 participants dropped out between pre- and posttest, resulting in a group of n  = 25, mean age = 26.6 years, SD = 6.0, 14 females) played the game Grand Theft Auto V on a Playstation 3 console over a period of 8 weeks. The active control group played the non-violent video game Sims 3 on the same console (6 participants dropped out, resulting in a group of n  = 24, mean age = 25.8 years, SD = 6.8, 12 females). The passive control group (2 participants dropped out, resulting in a group of n  = 28, mean age = 30.9 years, SD = 8.4, 12 females) was not given a gaming console and had no task but underwent the same testing procedure as the two other groups. The passive control group was not aware of the fact that they were part of a control group to prevent self-training attempts. The experimenters testing the participants were blind to group membership, but we were unable to prevent participants from talking about the game during testing, which in some cases lead to an unblinding of experimental condition. Both training groups were instructed to play the game for at least 30 min a day. Participants were only reimbursed for the sessions in which they came to the lab. Our previous research suggests that the perceived fun in gaming was positively associated with training outcome [ 18 ] and we speculated that enforcing training sessions through payment would impair motivation and thus diminish the potential effect of the intervention. Participants underwent a testing session before (baseline) and after the training period of 2 months (posttest 1) as well as a follow-up testing sessions 2 months after the training period (posttest 2).

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA)

GTA is an action-adventure video game situated in a fictional highly violent game world in which players are rewarded for their use of violence as a means to advance in the game. The single-player story follows three criminals and their efforts to commit heists while under pressure from a government agency. The gameplay focuses on an open world (sandbox game) where the player can choose between different behaviours. The game also allows the player to engage in various side activities, such as action-adventure, driving, third-person shooting, occasional role-playing, stealth and racing elements. The open world design lets players freely roam around the fictional world so that gamers could in principle decide not to commit violent acts.

The Sims 3 (Sims)

Sims is a life simulation game and also classified as a sandbox game because it lacks clearly defined goals. The player creates virtual individuals called “Sims”, and customises their appearance, their personalities and places them in a home, directs their moods, satisfies their desires and accompanies them in their daily activities and by becoming part of a social network. It offers opportunities, which the player may choose to pursue or to refuse, similar as GTA but is generally considered as a pro-social and clearly non-violent game.

Assessment battery

To assess aggression and associated constructs we used the following questionnaires: Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire [ 19 ], State Hostility Scale [ 20 ], Updated Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale [ 21 , 22 ], Moral Disengagement Scale [ 23 , 24 ], the Rosenzweig Picture Frustration Test [ 25 , 26 ] and a so-called World View Measure [ 27 ]. All of these measures have previously been used in research investigating the effects of violent video gameplay, however, the first two most prominently. Additionally, behavioural measures of aggression were used: a Word Completion Task, a Lexical Decision Task [ 28 ] and the Delay frustration task [ 29 ] (an inter-correlation matrix is depicted in Supplementary Figure 1 1). From these behavioural measures, the first two were previously used in research on the effects of violent video gameplay. To assess variables that have been related to the construct of impulsivity, we used the Brief Sensation Seeking Scale [ 30 ] and the Boredom Propensity Scale [ 31 ] as well as tasks assessing risk taking and delay discounting behaviourally, namely the Balloon Analogue Risk Task [ 32 ] and a Delay-Discounting Task [ 33 ]. To quantify pro-social behaviour, we employed: Interpersonal Reactivity Index [ 34 ] (frequently used in research on the effects of violent video gameplay), Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale [ 35 ], Reading the Mind in the Eyes test [ 36 ], Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire [ 37 ] and Richardson Conflict Response Questionnaire [ 38 ]. To assess depressivity and anxiety, which has previously been associated with intense video game playing [ 39 ], we used Beck Depression Inventory [ 40 ] and State Trait Anxiety Inventory [ 41 ]. To characterise executive control function, we used a Stop Signal Task [ 42 ], a Multi-Source Interference Task [ 43 ] and a Task Switching Task [ 44 ] which have all been previously used to assess effects of video gameplay. More details on all instruments used can be found in the Supplementary Material.

Data analysis

On the basis of the research question whether violent video game playing enhances aggression and reduces empathy, the focus of the present analysis was on time by group interactions. We conducted these interaction analyses separately, comparing the violent video game group against the active control group (GTA vs. Sims) and separately against the passive control group (GTA vs. Controls) that did not receive any intervention and separately for the potential changes during the intervention period (baseline vs. posttest 1) and to test for potential long-term changes (baseline vs. posttest 2). We employed classical frequentist statistics running a repeated-measures ANOVA controlling for the covariates sex and age.

Since we collected 52 separate outcome variables and conduced four different tests with each (GTA vs. Sims, GTA vs. Controls, crossed with baseline vs. posttest 1, baseline vs. posttest 2), we had to conduct 52 × 4 = 208 frequentist statistical tests. Setting the alpha value to 0.05 means that by pure chance about 10.4 analyses should become significant. To account for this multiple testing problem and the associated alpha inflation, we conducted a Bonferroni correction. According to Bonferroni, the critical value for the entire set of n tests is set to an alpha value of 0.05 by taking alpha/ n  = 0.00024.

Since the Bonferroni correction has sometimes been criticised as overly conservative, we conducted false discovery rate (FDR) correction [ 45 ]. FDR correction also determines adjusted p -values for each test, however, it controls only for the number of false discoveries in those tests that result in a discovery (namely a significant result).

Moreover, we tested for group differences at the baseline assessment using independent t -tests, since those may hamper the interpretation of significant interactions between group and time that we were primarily interested in.

Since the frequentist framework does not enable to evaluate whether the observed null effect of the hypothesised interaction is indicative of the absence of a relation between violent video gaming and our dependent variables, the amount of evidence in favour of the null hypothesis has been tested using a Bayesian framework. Within the Bayesian framework both the evidence in favour of the null and the alternative hypothesis are directly computed based on the observed data, giving rise to the possibility of comparing the two. We conducted Bayesian repeated-measures ANOVAs comparing the model in favour of the null and the model in favour of the alternative hypothesis resulting in a Bayes factor (BF) using Bayesian Information criteria [ 46 ]. The BF 01 suggests how much more likely the data is to occur under the null hypothesis. All analyses were performed using the JASP software package ( https://jasp-stats.org ).

Sex distribution in the present study did not differ across the groups ( χ 2 p -value > 0.414). However, due to the fact that differences between males and females have been observed in terms of aggression and empathy [ 47 ], we present analyses controlling for sex. Since our random assignment to the three groups did result in significant age differences between groups, with the passive control group being significantly older than the GTA ( t (51) = −2.10, p  = 0.041) and the Sims group ( t (50) = −2.38, p  = 0.021), we also controlled for age.

The participants in the violent video game group played on average 35 h and the non-violent video game group 32 h spread out across the 8 weeks interval (with no significant group difference p  = 0.48).

To test whether participants assigned to the violent GTA game show emotional, cognitive and behavioural changes, we present the results of repeated-measure ANOVA time x group interaction analyses separately for GTA vs. Sims and GTA vs. Controls (Tables  1 – 3 ). Moreover, we split the analyses according to the time domain into effects from baseline assessment to posttest 1 (Table  2 ) and effects from baseline assessment to posttest 2 (Table  3 ) to capture more long-lasting or evolving effects. In addition to the statistical test values, we report partial omega squared ( ω 2 ) as an effect size measure. Next to the classical frequentist statistics, we report the results of a Bayesian statistical approach, namely BF 01 , the likelihood with which the data is to occur under the null hypothesis that there is no significant time × group interaction. In Table  2 , we report the presence of significant group differences at baseline in the right most column.

Since we conducted 208 separate frequentist tests we expected 10.4 significant effects simply by chance when setting the alpha value to 0.05. In fact we found only eight significant time × group interactions (these are marked with an asterisk in Tables  2 and 3 ).

When applying a conservative Bonferroni correction, none of those tests survive the corrected threshold of p  < 0.00024. Neither does any test survive the more lenient FDR correction. The arithmetic mean of the frequentist test statistics likewise shows that on average no significant effect was found (bottom rows in Tables  2 and 3 ).

In line with the findings from a frequentist approach, the harmonic mean of the Bayesian factor BF 01 is consistently above one but not very far from one. This likewise suggests that there is very likely no interaction between group × time and therewith no detrimental effects of the violent video game GTA in the domains tested. The evidence in favour of the null hypothesis based on the Bayes factor is not massive, but clearly above 1. Some of the harmonic means are above 1.6 and constitute substantial evidence [ 48 ]. However, the harmonic mean has been criticised as unstable. Owing to the fact that the sum is dominated by occasional small terms in the likelihood, one may underestimate the actual evidence in favour of the null hypothesis [ 49 ].

To test the sensitivity of the present study to detect relevant effects we computed the effect size that we would have been able to detect. The information we used consisted of alpha error probability = 0.05, power = 0.95, our sample size, number of groups and of measurement occasions and correlation between the repeated measures at posttest 1 and posttest 2 (average r  = 0.68). According to G*Power [ 50 ], we could detect small effect sizes of f  = 0.16 (equals η 2  = 0.025 and r  = 0.16) in each separate test. When accounting for the conservative Bonferroni-corrected p -value of 0.00024, still a medium effect size of f  = 0.23 (equals η 2  = 0.05 and r  = 0.22) would have been detectable. A meta-analysis by Anderson [ 2 ] reported an average effects size of r  = 0.18 for experimental studies testing for aggressive behaviour and another by Greitmeyer [ 5 ] reported average effect sizes of r  = 0.19, 0.25 and 0.17 for effects of violent games on aggressive behaviour, cognition and affect, all of which should have been detectable at least before multiple test correction.

Within the scope of the present study we tested the potential effects of playing the violent video game GTA V for 2 months against an active control group that played the non-violent, rather pro-social life simulation game The Sims 3 and a passive control group. Participants were tested before and after the long-term intervention and at a follow-up appointment 2 months later. Although we used a comprehensive test battery consisting of questionnaires and computerised behavioural tests assessing aggression, impulsivity-related constructs, mood, anxiety, empathy, interpersonal competencies and executive control functions, we did not find relevant negative effects in response to violent video game playing. In fact, only three tests of the 208 statistical tests performed showed a significant interaction pattern that would be in line with this hypothesis. Since at least ten significant effects would be expected purely by chance, we conclude that there were no detrimental effects of violent video gameplay.

This finding stands in contrast to some experimental studies, in which short-term effects of violent video game exposure have been investigated and where increases in aggressive thoughts and affect as well as decreases in helping behaviour have been observed [ 1 ]. However, these effects of violent video gaming on aggressiveness—if present at all (see above)—seem to be rather short-lived, potentially lasting <15 min [ 8 , 51 ]. In addition, these short-term effects of video gaming are far from consistent as multiple studies fail to demonstrate or replicate them [ 16 , 17 ]. This may in part be due to problems, that are very prominent in this field of research, namely that the outcome measures of aggression and pro-social behaviour, are poorly standardised, do not easily generalise to real-life behaviour and may have lead to selective reporting of the results [ 3 ]. We tried to address these concerns by including a large set of outcome measures that were mostly inspired by previous studies demonstrating effects of short-term violent video gameplay on aggressive behaviour and thoughts, that we report exhaustively.

Since effects observed only for a few minutes after short sessions of video gaming are not representative of what society at large is actually interested in, namely how habitual violent video gameplay affects behaviour on a more long-term basis, studies employing longer training intervals are highly relevant. Two previous studies have employed longer training intervals. In an online study, participants with a broad age range (14–68 years) have been trained in a violent video game for 4 weeks [ 52 ]. In comparison to a passive control group no changes were observed, neither in aggression-related beliefs, nor in aggressive social interactions assessed by means of two questions. In a more recent study, participants played a previous version of GTA for 12 h spread across 3 weeks [ 53 ]. Participants were compared to a passive control group using the Buss–Perry aggression questionnaire, a questionnaire assessing impulsive or reactive aggression, attitude towards violence, and empathy. The authors only report a limited increase in pro-violent attitude. Unfortunately, this study only assessed posttest measures, which precludes the assessment of actual changes caused by the game intervention.

The present study goes beyond these studies by showing that 2 months of violent video gameplay does neither lead to any significant negative effects in a broad assessment battery administered directly after the intervention nor at a follow-up assessment 2 months after the intervention. The fact that we assessed multiple domains, not finding an effect in any of them, makes the present study the most comprehensive in the field. Our battery included self-report instruments on aggression (Buss–Perry aggression questionnaire, State Hostility scale, Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance scale, Moral Disengagement scale, World View Measure and Rosenzweig Picture Frustration test) as well as computer-based tests measuring aggressive behaviour such as the delay frustration task and measuring the availability of aggressive words using the word completion test and a lexical decision task. Moreover, we assessed impulse-related concepts such as sensation seeking, boredom proneness and associated behavioural measures such as the computerised Balloon analogue risk task, and delay discounting. Four scales assessing empathy and interpersonal competence scales, including the reading the mind in the eyes test revealed no effects of violent video gameplay. Neither did we find any effects on depressivity (Becks depression inventory) nor anxiety measured as a state as well as a trait. This is an important point, since several studies reported higher rates of depressivity and anxiety in populations of habitual video gamers [ 54 , 55 ]. Last but not least, our results revealed also no substantial changes in executive control tasks performance, neither in the Stop signal task, the Multi-source interference task or a Task switching task. Previous studies have shown higher performance of habitual action video gamers in executive tasks such as task switching [ 56 , 57 , 58 ] and another study suggests that training with action video games improves task performance that relates to executive functions [ 59 ], however, these associations were not confirmed by a meta-analysis in the field [ 60 ]. The absence of changes in the stop signal task fits well with previous studies that likewise revealed no difference between in habitual action video gamers and controls in terms of action inhibition [ 61 , 62 ]. Although GTA does not qualify as a classical first-person shooter as most of the previously tested action video games, it is classified as an action-adventure game and shares multiple features with those action video games previously related to increases in executive function, including the need for hand–eye coordination and fast reaction times.

Taken together, the findings of the present study show that an extensive game intervention over the course of 2 months did not reveal any specific changes in aggression, empathy, interpersonal competencies, impulsivity-related constructs, depressivity, anxiety or executive control functions; neither in comparison to an active control group that played a non-violent video game nor to a passive control group. We observed no effects when comparing a baseline and a post-training assessment, nor when focussing on more long-term effects between baseline and a follow-up interval 2 months after the participants stopped training. To our knowledge, the present study employed the most comprehensive test battery spanning a multitude of domains in which changes due to violent video games may have been expected. Therefore the present results provide strong evidence against the frequently debated negative effects of playing violent video games. This debate has mostly been informed by studies showing short-term effects of violent video games when tests were administered immediately after a short playtime of a few minutes; effects that may in large be caused by short-lived priming effects that vanish after minutes. The presented results will therefore help to communicate a more realistic scientific perspective of the real-life effects of violent video gaming. However, future research is needed to demonstrate the absence of effects of violent video gameplay in children.

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SK has been funded by a Heisenberg grant from the German Science Foundation (DFG KU 3322/1-1, SFB 936/C7), the European Union (ERC-2016-StG-Self-Control-677804) and a Fellowship from the Jacobs Foundation (JRF 2016–2018).

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Kühn, S., Kugler, D., Schmalen, K. et al. Does playing violent video games cause aggression? A longitudinal intervention study. Mol Psychiatry 24 , 1220–1234 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-018-0031-7

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Whether or not exposure to violent media is a risk factor for aggressive behavior has been the subject of numerous studies over many years. Research, which was mostly focused on the effects of television during the first decades, started to shift its focus in the 1980s to video games. The interactive and rewarding nature of video gaming and the active role it imposes on players not only facilitates the comprehension of educational content, but also accelerates the modeling and reinforcement of negative orientations. Studies have generally shown that violent video games can trigger harmful effects in physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral terms. This chapter presents an overview of current findings from experiments, longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, meta-analyses, and conclusions based on the main theoretical frameworks. Initially, a comparison of the effects of violent video games and violent television is presented. Then, research findings concerning the effects of violent video game and theoretical explanations of the underlying processes are reviewed in detail. This is followed by a summary of research findings concerning the effect of violent video games on aggressive tendencies in accordance with the main theoretical frameworks and ongoing academic conflicts based on disagreements in method, tool, sampling, and statistical dimensions. Finally, a comprehensive discussion is presented along with various recommendations.

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Demirtaş-Madran, H.A. (2022). Violent Video Games and Aggression. In: Martin, C., Preedy, V.R., Patel, V.B. (eds) Handbook of Anger, Aggression, and Violence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98711-4_21-1

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October 2, 2018

Do Violent Video Games Trigger Aggression?

A study tries to find whether slaughtering zombies with a virtual assault weapon translates into misbehavior when a teenager returns to reality

By Melinda Wenner Moyer

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Intuitively, it makes sense Splatterhouse and Postal 2 would serve as virtual training sessions for teens, encouraging them to act out in ways that mimic game-related violence. But many studies have failed to find a clear connection between violent game play and belligerent behavior, and the controversy over whether the shoot-‘em-up world transfers to real life has persisted for years. A new study published on October 1 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences tries to resolve the controversy by weighing the findings of two dozen studies on the topic.

The meta-analysis does tie violent video games to a small increase in physical aggression among adolescents and preteens. Yet debate is by no means over. Whereas the analysis was undertaken to help settle the science on the issue, researchers still disagree on the real-world significance of the findings.

This new analysis attempted to navigate through the minefield of conflicting research. Many studies find gaming associated with increases in aggression, but others identify no such link. A small but vocal cadre of researchers have argued much of the work implicating video games has serious flaws in that, among other things, it measures the frequency of aggressive thoughts or language rather than physically aggressive behaviors like hitting or pushing, which have more real-world relevance.

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Jay Hull, a social psychologist at Dartmouth College and a co-author on the new paper, has never been convinced by the critiques that have disparaged purported ties between gaming and aggression. “I just kept reading, over and over again, [these] criticisms of the literature and going, ‘that’s just not true,’” he says. So he and his colleagues designed the new meta-analysis to address these criticisms head-on and determine if they had merit.

Hull and colleagues pooled data from 24 studies that had been selected to avoid some of the criticisms leveled at earlier work. They only included research that measured the relationship between violent video game use and overt physical aggression. They also limited their analysis to studies that statistically controlled for several factors that could influence the relationship between gaming and subsequent behavior, such as age and baseline aggressive behavior.

Even with these constraints, their analysis found kids who played violent video games did become more aggressive over time. But the changes in behavior were not big. “According to traditional ways of looking at these numbers, it’s not a large effect—I would say it’s relatively small,” he says. But it’s “statistically reliable—it’s not by chance and not inconsequential.”

Their findings mesh with a 2015 literature review conducted by the American Psychological Association, which concluded violent video games worsen aggressive behavior in older children, adolescents and young adults. Together, Hull’s meta-analysis and the APA report help give clarity to the existing body of research, says Douglas Gentile, a developmental psychologist at Iowa State University who was not involved in conducting the meta-analysis. “Media violence is one risk factor for aggression,” he says. “It's not the biggest, it’s also not the smallest, but it’s worth paying attention to.”

Yet researchers who have been critical of links between games and violence contend Hull’s meta-analysis does not settle the issue. “They don’t find much. They just try to make it sound like they do,” says Christopher Ferguson, a psychologist at Stetson University in Florida, who has published papers questioning the link between violent video games and aggression.

Ferguson argues the degree to which video game use increases aggression in Hull’s analysis—what is known in psychology as the estimated “effect size”—is so small as to be essentially meaningless. After statistically controlling for several other factors, the meta-analysis reported an effect size of 0.08, which suggests that violent video games account for less than one percent of the variation in aggressive behavior among U.S. teens and pre-teens—if, in fact, there is a cause-and effect relationship between game play and hostile actions. It may instead be that the relationship between gaming and aggression is a statistical artifact caused by lingering flaws in study design, Ferguson says.  

Johannes Breuer, a psychologist at GESIS–Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Germany, agrees, noting that according to “a common rule of thumb in psychological research,” effect sizes below 0.1 are “considered trivial.” He adds meta-analyses are only as valid as the studies included in them, and that work on the issue has been plagued by methodological problems. For one thing, studies vary in terms of the criteria they use to determine if a video game is violent or not. By some measures, the Super Mario Bros. games would be considered violent, but by others not. Studies, too, often rely on subjects self-reporting their own aggressive acts, and they may not do so accurately. “All of this is not to say that the results of this meta-analysis are not valid,” he says. “But things like this need to be kept in mind when interpreting the findings and discussing their meaning.”

Hull says, however, that the effect size his team found still has real-world significance. An analysis of one of his earlier studies, which reported a similar estimated effect size of 0.083, found playing violent video games was linked with almost double the risk that kids would be sent to the school principal’s office for fighting. The study began by taking a group of children who hadn’t been dispatched to the principal in the previous month and then tracked them for a subsequent eight months. It found 4.8 percent of kids who reported only rarely playing violent video games were sent to the principal’s office at least once during that period compared with 9 percent who reported playing violent video games frequently. Hull theorizes violent games help kids become more comfortable with taking risks and engaging in abnormal behavior. “Their sense of right and wrong is being warped,” he notes.

Hull and his colleagues also found evidence ethnicity shapes the relationship between violent video games and aggression. White players seem more susceptible to the games' putative effects on behavior than do Hispanic and Asian players. Hull isn’t sure why, but he suspects the games' varying impact relates to how much kids are influenced by the norms of American culture, which, he says, are rooted in rugged individualism and a warriorlike mentality that may incite video game players to identify with aggressors rather than victims. It might “dampen sympathy toward their virtual victims,” he and his co-authors wrote, “with consequences for their values and behavior outside the game.”

Social scientists will, no doubt, continue to debate the psychological impacts of killing within the confines of interactive games. In a follow-up paper Hull says he plans to tackle the issue of the real-world significance of violent game play, and hopes it adds additional clarity. “It’s a knotty issue,” he notes—and it’s an open question whether research will ever quell the controversy.

Violent Video Games and Aggression: The Connection Is Dubious, at Best

• Childhood Development
• Perspectives on Psychological Science
• Video Games

Summary: If you are worried about violent video games triggering aggressive behavior in children, new research may help to alleviate your concerns.

The coronavirus pandemic put a damper on many traditional summertime activities for kids, like trips to the pool and youth camps. This gave more opportunity for children to socialize with friends virtually through online gaming. But many hours of extra screen time may have worried parents, especially in light of a highly publicized 2015 report by the American Psychological Association (APA) linking violent video games with aggressive behavior in children.

However, a recent reanalysis of these findings published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science came to a very different conclusion, finding no clear link between video game violence and aggression in children. Both the 2015 and the 2020 studies were meta-analyses, statistical methods of finding significant patterns in a large group of independent studies.

“Our new meta-analysis found that the evidence base was not sufficient to make the conclusions outlined in the 2015 report,” said Christopher J. Ferguson, lead author on the new paper and a professor of psychology at Stetson University. “We found that violent video games do not appear to be linked to aggression.”

When Ferguson and his colleagues reexamined the data used in the earlier meta-analysis, they found that it did not include most of the existing studies of video games and violence and failed to take quality issues into consideration.

“Studies that are well designed, such as those using standardized and well-validated aggression measures, almost never find evidence for negative, violent effects,” said Ferguson. “Our new meta-analysis also illustrates the need to focus on well-designed studies when researching the impact of violent media.”

“Games are now more important than ever for socialization, feeling autonomy and control during an uncertain time, and just de-stressing,” said Ferguson.

Additional research on the potential connection between video games and violent behavior is featured in the APS Research Topic Video Games and Violence .

Reference : Ferguson, C. J., Coperhaver, A., & Marley, P. (2020). Reexamining the Findings of the American Psychological Association’s 2015 Task Force on Violent Media: A meta-analysis. Perspectives on Psychological Science . Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620927666

Perspectives on Psychological Science  is a bimonthly journal publishing an eclectic mix of provocative reports and articles, including broad integrative reviews, overviews of research programs, meta-analyses, theoretical statements, and articles on topics such as the philosophy of science, opinion pieces about major issues in the field, autobiographical reflections of senior members of the field, and even occasional humorous essays and sketches.

APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines .

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Violent Video Games and Aggression

After mass shootings, the media and public officials often question the role of the shooter’s video game habits.

The American Psychological Association (APA) considers violent video games a risk factor for aggression . [1] In 2017, the APA Task Force on Violent Media concluded that violent video game exposure was linked to increased aggressive behaviors, thoughts, and emotions, as well as decreased empathy. However, it is not clear whether violent video game exposure was linked to criminality or delinquency.

Do Violent Video Games Increase Aggression?

Studies have shown that playing violent video games can increase aggressive thoughts, behaviors, and feelings in both the short-term and long-term. [2] Violent video games can also desensitize people to seeing aggressive behavior and decrease prosocial behaviors such as helping another person and feeling empathy (the ability to understand others). The longer that individuals are exposed to violent video games, the more likely they are to have aggressive behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. These effects have been seen in studies in both Eastern and Western countries. Although males spend more time than females playing violent video games, violent video game exposure can increase aggressive thoughts, behaviors, and feelings in both sexes.

Aggressive behavior is measured by scientists in a number of ways. Some studies looked at self-reports of hitting or pushing, and some looked at peer or teacher ratings on aggressive behaviors. Other studies looked at how likely an individual was to subject others to an unpleasant exposure to hot sauce or a loud noise after playing violent video games.

Unfortunately, few studies have been completed on violent video game exposure and aggression in children under age 10. There is also little information about the impact of violent video game exposure on minority children.

There have not been many studies on the effects of different characteristics of video games, such as perspective or plot. However, some studies have found that competition among players in video games is a better predictor of aggressive behavior than is the level of violence. [3] 

Do Violent Video Games Increase Violence?

Violence is a form of aggression, but not all aggressive behaviors are violent. Very few studies have looked at whether playing violent video games increases the chances of later delinquency, criminal behavior, or lethal violence. Such studies are difficult to conduct, and require very large numbers of children. It makes sense that since playing violent video games tends to increase the level of aggressive behavior it would also results in more lethal violence or other criminal behaviors, but there is no clear evidence to support that assumption.

In the aftermath of the Parkland shooting in Florida in 2018, policymakers are again questioning the influence of violent video games. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) affirms that their rating system is effective, but the APA Task Force on Violent Media recommends that the ESRB revise their rating system to make the level of violence clearer. The Task Force also recommends that further research must be done using delinquency, violence, and criminal behavior as outcomes to determine whether or not violent video games are linked to violence.

Bottom Line

It is important to keep in mind that violent video game exposure is only one risk factor of aggressive behavior. For example, mental illness, adverse environments, and access to guns are all risk factors of aggression and violence.

All articles are reviewed and approved by  Dr. Diana Zuckerman and other senior staff.

The  National Center for Health Research  is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research, education and advocacy organization that analyzes and explains the latest medical research and speaks out on policies and programs. We do not accept funding from pharmaceutical companies or medical device manufacturers.  Find out how you can support us here .

References :

• The American Psychological Association Task Force on Violent Media. (2017). The American Psychological Association Task Force Assessment of Violent Video Games: Science in the Service of Public Interest. American Psychologist . 72(2): 126-143. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0040413 . Accessed on March 9, 2018.
• Anderson CA, Shibuya A, Ihori N, Swing EL, Bushman BJ, Sakamoto A, Rothstein HR, Muniba. Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychological Bulletin . 2010.
• Adachi, PJ and Willoughby, T. (2013). Demolishing the Competition: The Longitudinal Link Between Competitive Video Games, Competitive Gambling, and Aggression. Journal of Youth Adolescence. 42(7): 1090-104. doi: 10.1007/s10964-013-9952-2.
• Sanstock, JW. A Topical Approach to Life Span Development 4th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Ch 15. 489-491
• Lemmens JS, Valkenburg PM, Peter J. The Effects of Pathological Gaming on Aggressive Behavior. Journal of Youth Adolescence . 2010.
• Huesmann LR, Moise J, Podolski CP, Eron LD. (2003). Longitudinal relations between childhood exposure to media violence and adult aggression and violence. Developmental Psychology . 35:201-221.

The evidence that video game violence leads to real-world aggression

A 2018 meta-analysis found that there is a small increase in real-world physical aggression among adolescents and pre-teens who play violent video games. Led by Jay Hull, a social psychologist at Dartmouth College, the study team pooled data from 24 previous studies in an attempt to avoid some of the problems that have made the question of a connection between gaming and aggression controversial.

Many previous studies, according to a story in Scientific American, have been criticized by “a small but vocal cadre of researchers [who] have argued much of the work implicating video games has serious flaws in that, among other things, it measures the frequency of aggressive thoughts or language rather than physically aggressive behaviors like hitting or pushing, which have more real-world relevance.”

Hull and team limited their analysis to studies that “measured the relationship between violent video game use and overt physical aggression,” according to the Scientific American article .

The Dartmouth analysis drew on 24 studies involving more than 17,000 participants and found that “playing violent video games is associated with increases in physical aggression over time in children and teens,” according to a Dartmouth press release describing the study , which was published Oct. 1, 2018, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

The studies the Dartmouth team analyzed “tracked physical aggression among users of violent video games for periods ranging from three months to four years. Examples of physical aggression included incidents such as hitting someone or being sent to the school principal’s office for fighting, and were based on reports from children, parents, teachers, and peers,” according to the press release.

The study was almost immediately called in to question. In an editorial in Psychology Today , a pair of professors claim the results of the meta-analysis are not statistically significant. Hull and team wrote in the PNAS paper that, while small, the results are indeed significant. The Psychology Today editorial makes an appeal to a 2017 statement by the American Psychological Association’s media psychology and technology division “cautioning policy makers and news media to stop linking violent games to serious real-world aggression as the data is just not there to support such beliefs.”

It should be noted, however, that the 2017 statement questions the connection between “serious” aggression while the APA Resolution of 2015 , based on a review of its 2005 resolution by its own experts, found that “the link between violent video game exposure and aggressive behavior is one of the most studied and best established. Since the earlier meta-analyses, this link continues to be a reliable finding and shows good multi-method consistency across various representations of both violent video game exposure and aggressive behavior.”

While the effect sizes are small, they’ve been similar across many studies, according to the APA resolution. The problem has been the interpretation of aggression, with some writers claiming an unfounded connection between homicides, mass shootings, and other extremes of violence. The violence the APA resolution documents is more mundane and involves the kind of bullying that, while often having dire long-term consequences, is less immediately dangerous: “insults, threats, hitting, pushing, hair pulling, biting and other forms of verbal and physical aggression.”

Minor and micro-aggressions, though, do have significant health risks, especially for mental health. People of color, LGBTQ people , and women everywhere experience higher levels of depression and anger, as well as stress-related disorders, including heart disease, asthma, obesity, accelerated aging, and premature death. The costs of even minor aggression are laid at the feet of the individuals who suffer, their friends and families, and society at large as the cost of healthcare skyrockets.

Finally, it should be noted that studies looking for a connection between game violence and physical aggression are not looking at the wider context of the way we enculturate children, especially boys. As WSU’s Stacey Hust and Kathleen Rodgers have shown, you don’t have to prove a causative effect to know that immersing kids in games filled with violence and sexist tropes leads to undesirable consequences, particularly the perpetuation of interpersonal violence in intimate relationships.

No wonder, then, that when feminist media critic Anita Saarkesian launched her YouTube series, “ Tropes vs. Women in Video Games ,” she was the target of vitriol and violence. Years later she’d joke about “her first bomb threat,” but that was only after her life had been upended by the boys club that didn’t like “this woman” showing them the “grim evidence of industry-wide sexism.”

Read more about WSU research and study on video games in “ What’s missing in video games .”

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What Research Says About Video Games And Violence In Children

President Trump held a roundtable at the White House Thursday to discuss violent video games and how they relate to school shootings. NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Douglas Gentile, psychology professor at Iowa State University, about what research tells us about video games and violence in children.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

President Trump has held a series of White House meetings on gun violence, and the focus of today's was video games. Lawmakers, parent advocates and people from video game companies were invited to talk with the president. The press was not allowed in. Trump has been focused on this subject for a while now. Here's what he said a couple weeks ago.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'm hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people's thoughts.

SHAPIRO: The central question at the heart of this White House meeting is, does playing violent video games turn people into real-life shooters? Douglas Gentile has researched this issue. He's a psychology professor at Iowa State University. Thanks for joining us.

DOUGLAS GENTILE: My pleasure.

SHAPIRO: If you could just begin with the conclusion of your research - if every violent video game disappeared tomorrow, would there be fewer mass shootings?

GENTILE: We don't know the answer to that, but that's because aggression is actually very complicated. It's multi-causal. No one single thing causes it. And when we've had a school shooting, we usually ask the wrong question. We ask, what was the cause? And then we point around at different things such as mental health or violent video games or poverty or whatever. And none of them is it. What is it is when you put them all together. And so would it reduce the risk - yes. How much - we don't know.

SHAPIRO: So if we take a step back from mass shootings and say how much does playing violent video games increase real-life violence and aggression, do we have a clear answer to that?

GENTILE: We have a clear answer when we're talking about aggression. So aggression is any behavior - that could be a verbal behavior, a physical behavior or a relational behavior - that is intended to harm someone else. So if you give someone the cold shoulder, that is aggressive. But that's different from violence, which is only physical and extreme such that if successful, it would cause severe bodily damage or death. And the research on media violence and aggression seems pretty clear - that the more children consume media violence, whether that's in video games, TV or movies, they do become more willing to behave aggressively when provoked.

SHAPIRO: You sort of conflated video games, TV, movies there. In a video game, you're pretending to be the shooter. You're interacting with a virtual world. TV or movies is much more passive. Is there an important distinction there, or is violence violence in media no matter whether it's interactive or passive?

GENTILE: We used to think that video games would have a much larger effect than passive media like TV or movies. But the research has not seemed to bear that out. It seems to be about the same size effect, which is somewhat surprising because they are active, and you are being rewarded for it. But basically what we're coming down to is learning. We can learn from all of these different ways. And it seems we don't learn particularly differently from video games than from TV or movies.

SHAPIRO: Some people have offered a theory that videogames can be catharsis, and expressing violent impulses in a virtual world helps people not express those in the real world. Has that been disproven?

GENTILE: That has been disproven. So how do you memorize a phone number? You repeat it. Does seeing it one more time take it out of your brain? That would be the catharsis idea, right?

SHAPIRO: (Laughter) Right.

GENTILE: But, no, each new time you see it burns it in a little deeper. So in fact, there's no possible way that catharsis can happen, at least not nearly the way people like to talk about it.

SHAPIRO: Do you think the premise of this White House meeting is flawed? I mean, should video games be one focus of this debate over gun violence in America?

GENTILE: I do think it's flawed. I think the problem is that we're seeking a simple solution to a complex problem. And I noticed there are no real aggression researchers at this White House meeting. So we're not even getting the real picture. What we're getting is just a very one-sided and very limited look into only one of the risk factors for aggression.

SHAPIRO: Professor Gentile, thanks very much.

GENTILE: My pleasure.

SHAPIRO: Psychology professor Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

The relation of violent video games to adolescent aggression: an examination of moderated mediation effect.

• 1 Research Institute of Moral Education, College of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China
• 2 The Lab of Mental Health and Social Adaptation, Faculty of Psychology, Research Center for Mental Health Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China

To assess the moderated mediation effect of normative beliefs about aggression and family environment on exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression, the subjects self-reported their exposure to violent video games, family environment, normative beliefs about aggression, and aggressive behavior. The results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression; normative beliefs about aggression had a mediation effect on exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression, while family environment moderated the first part of the mediation process. For individuals with a good family environment, exposure to violent video games had only a direct effect on aggression; however, for those with poor family environment, it had both direct and indirect effects mediated by normative beliefs about aggression. This moderated mediation model includes some notions of General Aggression Model (GAM) and Catalyst Model (CM), which helps shed light on the complex mechanism of violent video games influencing adolescent aggression.

Introduction

Violent video games and aggression.

The relationship between violent video games and adolescent aggression has become a hot issue in psychological research ( Wiegman and Schie, 1998 ; Anderson and Bushman, 2001 ; Anderson et al., 2010 ; Ferguson et al., 2012 ; Greitemeyer, 2014 ; Yang et al., 2014 ; Boxer et al., 2015 ). Based on the General Aggression Model (GAM), Anderson et al. suggested that violent video games constitute an antecedent variable of aggressive behavior, i.e., the degree of exposure to violent video games directly leads to an increase of aggression ( Anderson and Bushman, 2001 ; Bushman and Anderson, 2002 ; Anderson, 2004 ; Anderson et al., 2004 ). Related longitudinal studies ( Anderson et al., 2008 ), meta-analyses ( Anderson et al., 2010 ; Greitemeyer and Mugge, 2014 ), event-related potential studies ( Bailey et al., 2011 ; Liu et al., 2015 ), and trials about juvenile delinquents ( DeLisi et al., 2013 ) showed that exposure to violent video games significantly predicts adolescent aggression.

Although Anderson et al. insisted on using the GAM to explain the effect of violent video games on aggression, other researchers have proposed alternative points of view. For example, a meta-analysis by Sherry (2001) suggested that violent video games have minor influence on adolescent aggression. Meanwhile, Ferguson (2007) proposed that publication bias (or file drawer effect) may have implications in the effect of violent video games on adolescent aggression. Publication bias means that compared with articles with negative results, those presenting positive results (such as statistical significance) are more likely to be published ( Rosenthal and Rosnow, 1991 ). A meta-analysis by Ferguson (2007) found that after publication bias adjustment, the related studies cannot support the hypothesis that violent video games are highly correlated with aggression. Then, Ferguson et al. proposed a Catalyst Model (CM), which is opposite to the GAM. According to this model, genetic predisposition can lead to an aggressive child temperament and aggressive adult personality. Individuals who have an aggressive temperament or an aggressive personality are more likely to produce violent behavior during times of environmental strain. Environmental factors act as catalysts for violent acts for an individual who have a violence-prone personality. This means that although the environment does not cause violent behavior, but it can moderate the causal influence of biology on violence. The CM model suggested that exposure to violent video games is not an antecedent variable of aggressive behavior, but only acts as a catalyst influencing its form ( Ferguson et al., 2008 ). Much of studies ( Ferguson et al., 2009 , 2012 ; Ferguson, 2013 , 2015 ; Furuya-Kanamori and Doi, 2016 ; Huesmann et al., 2017 ) found that adolescent aggression cannot be predicted by the exposure to violent video games, but it is closely related to antisocial personality traits, peer influence, and family violence.

Anderson and his collaborators ( Groves et al., 2014 ; Kepes et al., 2017 ) suggested there were major methodological shortcomings in the studies of Ferguson et al. and redeclared the validity of their own researches. Some researchers supported Anderson et al. and criticized Ferguson’s view ( Gentile, 2015 ; Rothstein and Bushman, 2015 ). However, Markey (2015) held a neutral position that extreme views should not be taken in the relationship between violent video games and aggression.

In fact, the relation of violent video games to aggression is complicated. Besides the controversy between the above two models about whether there is an influence, other studies explored the role of internal factors such as normative belief about aggression and external factors such as family environment in the relationship between violent video games and aggression.

Normative Beliefs About Aggression, Violence Video Games, and Aggression

Normative beliefs about aggression are one of the most important cognitive factors influencing adolescent aggression; they refer to an assessment of aggression acceptability by an individual ( Huesmann and Guerra, 1997 ). They can be divided into two types: general beliefs and retaliatory beliefs. The former means a general view about aggression, while the latter reflects aggressive beliefs in provocative situations. Normative beliefs about aggression reflect the degree acceptance of aggression, which affects the choice of aggressive behavior.

Studies found that normative beliefs about aggression are directly related to aggression. First, self-reported aggression is significantly correlated to normative beliefs about aggression ( Bailey and Ostrov, 2008 ; Li et al., 2015 ). General normative beliefs about aggression can predict young people’s physical, verbal, and indirect aggression ( Lim and Ang, 2009 ); retaliatory normative beliefs about aggression can anticipate adolescent retaliation behavior after 1 year ( Werner and Hill, 2010 ; Krahe and Busching, 2014 ). There is a longitudinal temporal association of normative beliefs about aggression with aggression ( Krahe and Busching, 2014 ). Normative beliefs about aggression are significantly positively related to online aggressive behavior ( Wright and Li, 2013 ), which is the most important determining factor of adolescent cyberbullying ( Kowalski et al., 2014 ). Teenagers with high normative beliefs about aggression are more likely to become bullies and victims of traditional bullying and cyberbullying ( Burton et al., 2013 ). Finally, normative beliefs about aggression can significantly predict the support and reinforcement of bystanders in offline bullying and cyberbullying ( Machackova and Pfetsch, 2016 ).

According to Bandura’s social cognitive theory ( Bandura, 1989 ), violent video games can initiate adolescents’ observational learning. In this situation, not only can they imitate the aggressive behavior of the model but also their understanding and acceptability about aggression may change. Therefore, normative beliefs about aggression can also be a mediator between violent video games and adolescent aggression ( Duan et al., 2014 ; Anderson et al., 2017 ; Huesmann et al., 2017 ). Studies have shown that the mediating role of normative beliefs about aggression is not influenced by factors such as gender, prior aggression, and parental monitoring ( Gentile et al., 2014 ).

Family Environment, Violence Video Games, and Aggression

Family violence, parenting style, and other family factors have major effects on adolescent aggression. On the one hand, family environment can influence directly on aggression by shaping adolescents’ cognition and setting up behavioral models. Many studies have found that family violence and other negative factors are positively related to adolescent aggression ( Ferguson et al., 2009 , 2012 ; Ferguson, 2013 ), while active family environment can reduce the aggressive behavior ( Batanova and Loukas, 2014 ).

On the other hand, family environment can act on adolescent aggression together with other factors, such as exposure to violent video games. Analysis of the interaction between family conflict and media violence (including violence on TV and in video games) to adolescent aggression showed that teenagers living in higher conflict families with more media violence exposure show more aggressive behavior ( Fikkers et al., 2013 ). Parental monitoring is significantly correlated with reduced media violence exposure and a reduction in aggressive behavior 6 months later ( Gentile et al., 2014 ). Parental mediation can moderate the relationship between media violence exposure and normative beliefs about aggression, i.e., for children with less parental mediation, predictability of violent media exposure on normative beliefs about aggression is stronger ( Linder and Werner, 2012 ). Parental mediation is closely linked to decreased aggression caused by violent media ( Nathanson, 1999 ; Rasmussen, 2014 ; Padilla-Walker et al., 2016 ). Further studies have shown that the autonomy-supportive restrictive mediation of parents is related to a reduction in current aggressive behavior by decreasing media violence exposure; conversely, inconsistent restrictive mediation is associated with an increase of current aggressive behavior by enhancing media violence exposure ( Fikkers et al., 2017 ).

The Current Study

Despite GAM and CM hold opposite views on the relationship between violent video games and aggression, both of the two models imply the same idea that aggression cannot be separated from internal and external factors. While emphasizing on negative effects of violent video games on adolescents’ behavior, the GAM uses internal factors to explain the influencing mechanism, including aggressive beliefs, aggressive behavior scripts, and aggressive personality ( Bushman and Anderson, 2002 ; Anderson and Carnagey, 2014 ). Although the CM considers that there is no significant relation between violent video games and aggression, it also acknowledges the role of external factors such as violent video games and family violence. Thus, these two models seem to be contradictory, but in fact, they reveal the mechanism of aggression from different points of view. It will be more helpful to explore the effect of violent video games on aggression from the perspective of combination of internal and external factors.

Although previous studies have investigated the roles of normative beliefs about aggression and family factors in the relationship between violent video games and adolescent aggression separately, the combined effect of these two factors remains unstudied. The purpose of this study was to analyze the combined effect of normative beliefs about aggression and family environment. This can not only confirm the effects of violent video games on adolescent aggression further but also can clarify the influencing mechanism from the integration of GAM and CM to a certain extent. Based on the above, the following three hypotheses were proposed:

Hypothesis 1: There is a significant positive correlation between exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression.

Hypothesis 2: Normative beliefs about aggression are the mediator of exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression.

Hypothesis 3: The family environment can moderate the mediation effects of normative beliefs about aggression in exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression; exposure to violent video games, family environment, normative beliefs about aggression, and aggression constitute a moderated mediation model.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

All subjects gave informed written consent for participation in this investigation, and their parents signed parental written informed consent. The study was reviewed and approved by the Professor Committee of School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, which is the committee responsible for providing ethics approvals. A total of 648 Chinese middle school students participated in this study, including 339 boys and 309 girls; 419 students were from cities and towns, and 229 from the countryside. There were 277 and 371 junior and high school students, respectively. Ages ranged from 12 to 19 years, averaging 14.73 ( SD  = 1.60).

Video Game Questionnaire (VGQ)

The Video Game Questionnaire ( Anderson and Dill, 2000) required participants to list their favorite five video games and assess their use frequencies, the degree of violent content, and the degree of violent images on a 7-point scale (1, participants seldom play video games, with no violent content or image; 7, participants often play video games with many violent contents and images). Methods for calculating the score of exposure to violent video games: (score of violent content in the game + score of violent images in the game) × use frequency/5. Chen et al. (2012) found that the Chinese version of this questionnaire had high internal consistency reliability and good content validity. The Chinese version was used in this study, and the Cronbach’s α coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.88.

Aggression Questionnaire (AQ)

There were 29 items in AQ ( Buss and Perry, 1992 ), including four dimensions: physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility. The scale used 5-point scoring criteria (1, very incongruent with my features; 5, very congruent with my features). Scores for each item were added to obtain the dimension score, and dimension scores were summed to obtain the total score. The Chinese version of AQ had good internal consistency reliability and construct validity ( Ying and Dai, 2008 ). In this study, the Chinese version was used and its Cronbach’s α coefficient was 0.83.

Family Environment Scale (FES)

The FES ( Moos, 1990 ) includes 90 true-false questions and is divided into 10 subscales, including cohesion, expressiveness, conflict, independence, achievement-orientation, intellectual-cultural orientation, active-recreational orientation, moral-religious emphasis, organization, and control. The Chinese version of FES was revised by Fei et al. (1991) and used in this study. Three subscales closely related to aggression were selected, including cohesion, conflict, and moral-religious emphasis, with 27 items in total. The family environment score was the sum of scores of these three subscales (the conflict subscale was first inverted). The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.75.

Normative Beliefs About Aggression Scale (NOBAGS)

There are 20 items in the NOBAGS ( Huesmann and Guerra, 1997 ), which includes retaliation (12 items) and general (8 items) aggression belief. A 4-point Likert scale is used (1, absolutely wrong; 4, absolutely right). The subjects were asked to assess the accuracy of the behavior described in each item. High score means high level of normative beliefs about aggression. The revised Chinese version of NOBAGS consists of two factors: retaliation (nine items) and general (six items) aggression belief. Its internal consistency coefficient and test-retest reliability are 0.81 and 0.79. Confirmative factor analysis showed that this version has good construct validity: χ 2  = 280.09, df  = 89, χ 2 / df  = 3.15, RMSEA = 0.07, SRMR = 0.04, NFI = 0.95, NNFI = 0.96, and CFI = 0.96 ( Shao and Wang, 2017 ). In this study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient of the Chinese version was 0.88.

Group testing was performed in randomly selected classes of six middle schools. All subjects completed the above four questionnaires.

Data Analysis

IBM SPSS Statistics 22 was used to analysis the correlations among study variables, the mediating effect of normative beliefs about aggression on the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression, and the moderating role of family environment in the relationship between exposure to violent video games and normative beliefs about aggression. In order to validate the moderated mediation model, Mplus 7 was also used.

Correlation Analysis Among Study Variables

In this study, self-reported questionnaires were used to collect data, and results might be influenced by common method bias. Therefore, the Harman’s single-factor test was used to assess common method bias before data analysis. The results showed that eigenvalues of 34 unrotated factors were greater than 1, and the amount of variation explained by the first factor was 10.01%, which is much less than 40% of the critical value. Accordingly, common method bias was not significant in this study.

As described in Table 1 , the degree of exposure to violent video games showed significant positive correlations to normative beliefs about aggression and aggression; family environment was negatively correlated to normative beliefs about aggression and aggression; normative beliefs about aggression were significantly and positively related to aggression. The gender difference of exposure to violent video games ( t  = 7.93, p  < 0.001) and normative beliefs about aggression ( t  = 2.74, p  < 0.01) were significant, which boys scored significantly higher than girls.

Table 1 . Means, standard deviations, and Pearson correlations among study variables.

Mediating Effect Analysis

To examine the mediation effect of normative beliefs about aggression on the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression, gender factor was controlled firstly. Stepwise regression analysis showed that the regression of aggression to violent video games ( c  = 0.28, t  = 6.96, p  < 0.001), the regression of normative beliefs about aggression to violent video games ( a  = 0.19, t  = 4.69, p  < 0.001), and the regression of aggression to violent video games ( c ′ = 0.22, t  = 5.69, p  < 0.001) and normative beliefs about aggression ( b  = 0.31, t  = 8.25, p  < 0.001) were all significant. Thus, normative beliefs about aggression played a partial mediating role in exposure to violent video games and aggression. The mediation effect value was 0.06, accounting for 21.43% (0.06/0.28) of the total effect.

Moderated Mediation Effect Analysis

After standardizing scores of exposure to violent videogames, normative beliefs about aggression, family environment, and aggression, two interaction terms were calculated, including family environment × exposure to violent video games and family environment × normative beliefs about aggression. Regression analysis was carried out after controlling gender factor ( Table 2 ).

Table 2 . Moderated mediation effect analysis of the relationship between violent video exposure and aggression.

In the first step, a simple moderated model (Model 1) between exposure to violent video games and aggression was established. The result showed that exposure to violent video games had a significant effect on aggression ( c 1  = 0.24, t  = 6.13, p  < 0.001), while the effect of family environment × exposure to violent video games on aggression was not significant ( c 3  = 0.05, t  = −1.31, p  = 0.19), indicating that the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression was not moderated by family environment.

Next, a moderated model (Model 2) between exposure to violent video games and normative beliefs about aggression was established. The results showed that exposure to violent video games had a significant effect on normative beliefs about aggression ( a 1  = 0.13, t  = 3.42, p  < 0.001), and the effect of family environment × exposure to violent video games on normative beliefs about aggression was significant ( a 3  = −0.13, t  = −3.63, p  < 0.01).

In the third step, a moderated mediation model (Model 3) between exposure to violent video games and aggression was established. As shown in Table 2 , the effect of normative beliefs about aggression on aggression was significant ( b 1  = 0.24, t  = 6.15, p  < 0.001), and the effect of family environment × exposure to violent video games on normative beliefs about aggression was not significant ( b 2  = 0.02, t  = 0.40, p  = 0.69). Because both a 3 and b 1 were significant, exposure to violent video games, family environment, normative beliefs about aggression, and aggression constituted a moderated mediation model. Normative beliefs about aggression played a mediating role between exposure to violent video games and aggression, while family environment was a moderator between exposure to violent video games and normative beliefs about aggression. Mplus analysis proved that the moderated mediation model had good model fitting (χ 2 / df  = 1.54, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.03, and SRMR = 0.01).

To further analyze the moderating effect of the family environment and exposure to violent video games on normative beliefs about aggression, the family environment was divided into the high and low groups, according to the principle of standard deviation, and a simple slope test was performed ( Figure 1 ). The results found that for individuals with high score of family environment, prediction of exposure to violent video games to normative beliefs about aggression was not significant ( b  = 0.08, SE  = 0.08, p  = 0.37). For individuals with low score of family environment, exposure to violent video games could significantly predict normative beliefs about aggression ( b  = 0.34, SE  = 0.09, p  < 0.001). Based on the overall findings, individuals with high scores of family environment showed a nonsignificant mediating effect of normative beliefs about aggression on the relation of exposure to violent video games and aggression; however, for individuals with low scores of family environment, normative beliefs about aggression played a partial mediating role in the effect of exposure to violent video games on aggression.

Figure 1 . The moderating effect of the family environment on the relationship between violent video game exposure and normative beliefs about aggression.

Main Findings and Implications

This study found a significantly positive correlation between exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression, corroborating existing studies ( Anderson, 2004 ; Anderson et al., 2010 ; DeLisi et al., 2013 ; Greitemeyer and Mugge, 2014 ). Anderson et al. (2017) assessed teenagers in Australia, China, Germany, the United States, and other three countries and found that exposure to violent media, including television, movies, and video games, is positively related to adolescent aggression, demonstrating cross-cultural consistency; 8% of variance in aggression could be independently explained by exposure to violent media. In this study, after controlling for gender and family environment, R 2 for exposure to violent video games in predicting adolescent aggression was 0.05, indicating that 5% of variation in adolescent aggression could be explained by exposure to violent media. These consistent findings confirm the effect of exposure to violent video games on adolescent aggression and can be explained by the GAM. According to the GAM ( Bushman and Anderson, 2002 ; Anderson and Carnagey, 2014 ), violent video games can make teenagers acquire, repeat, and reinforce aggression-related knowledge structures, including aggressive beliefs and attitude, aggressive perceptual schemata, aggressive expectation schemata, aggressive behavior scripts, and aggression desensitization. Therefore, aggressive personality is promoted, increasing the possibility of aggressive behavior. The Hypothesis 1 of this study was validated and provided evidence for the GAM.

As shown above, normative beliefs about aggression had a partial mediation effect on the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression. Exposure to violent video games, on the one hand, can predict adolescent aggression directly; on the other hand, it had an indirect effect on adolescent aggression via normative beliefs about aggression. According to the above results, when exposure to violent video games changes by 1 standard deviation, adolescent aggression varies by 0.28 standard deviation, with 0.22 standard deviation being a direct effect of exposure to violent video games on adolescent aggression and 0.06 standard deviation representing the effect through normative beliefs about aggression. Too much violence in video games makes it easy for individuals to become accustomed to violence and emotionally apathetic towards the harmful consequences of violence. Moreover, it can make individuals accept the idea that violence is a good way of problem solving, leading to an increase in normative beliefs about aggression; under certain situational cues, it is more likely to become violent or aggressive. This conclusion is supported by other studies ( Gentile et al., 2014 ; Anderson et al., 2017 ; Huesmann et al., 2017 ). Like Hypothesis 1, Hypothesis 2 was validated the GAM.

One of the main findings of this study was the validation of Hypothesis 3: a moderated mediation model was constructed involving exposure to violent video games, family environment, normative beliefs about aggression, and aggression. Family environment moderated the first half of the mediation process of violent video games, normative beliefs about aggression, and aggression. In this study, family environment encompassed three factors, including (1) cohesion reflecting the degree of mutual commitment, assistance, and support among family members; (2) conflict reflecting the extent of anger, aggression, and conflict among family members; and (3) moral-religious emphasis reflecting the degree of emphasis on ethics, religion, and values. Individuals with high scores of family environment often help each other; seldom show anger, attack, and contradiction openly; and pay more attention to morality and values. These positive aspects would help them understand violence in video games from the right perspective, reduce recognition and acceptance of violence or aggression, and diminish the effect of violent video games on normative beliefs about aggression. Hence, exposure to violent video games could not predict normative beliefs about aggression of these individuals. By contrast, individuals with low scores of family environment are less likely to help each other; they often openly show anger, attack, and contradiction and do not pay much attention to morality and values. These negative aspects would not decrease but increase their acceptance of violence and aggression. For these individuals, because of the lack of mitigation mechanisms, exposure to violent video games could predict normative beliefs about aggression significantly.

The moderated mediation model of the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression could not only help reveal that exposure to violent video games can affect aggression but also provide an elaboration of the influencing mechanism. According to this model, for individuals with high scores of family environment, exposure to violent video games had only direct effect on aggression. However, for those with low scores of family environment, there was not only a direct effect of exposure to violent video games on aggression but also an indirect effect mediated by normative beliefs about aggression. In short, exposure to violence video games affecting aggression through normative beliefs about aggression is more likely to happen to adolescents with poor family environment than those with good family environment. That is, generation of adolescent aggression is not only related to internal cognitive factors but also to external situations. As Piotrowski and Valkenburg ( Piotrowski and Valkenburg, 2015 ; Valkenburg, 2015 ) pointed out, the effect of violent video games/media on adolescents is a complex interaction of dispositional, developmental, and social factors, and individual differences in susceptibility to these three factors determine the nature and the extent of this influence. The proposed model incorporated some perspectives of GAM and CM: while confirming the effect of exposure to violent video games on aggression occurrence, the combined effect of individual and environmental factors was verified.

Compared with the simple mediation or moderation model, the present moderated mediation model provided deeper insights into the internal mechanism of the effect of violent video games on aggression, providing inspirations for preventing adolescent aggression. First, in view of the close relationship between exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression, relevant government departments should continue to improve the grading system of video games; meanwhile, parents should appropriately monitor the types of video games used by teenagers as well as the time spent and reduce the degree of exposure to violent video games. Second, by allowing teenagers to objectively distinguish between violence in games and reality, the mediating role of normative beliefs about aggression could inspire people to identify rational ways to solve violence problems and to experience the hurtful consequences of aggression. This would help adolescents change normative beliefs about aggression, establish a correct view of right and wrong, and reduce the occurrence of aggression. Finally, the moderating effect of family environment on the mediation process suggests that more attention should be paid to the important role of family environment. On the one hand, family education is closely related to adolescent aggression. Then, parents should create a good family atmosphere, publicly show anger and aggression as little as possible, and advocate and practice positive moral values. Parents should adopt authoritative styles, abandoning autocratic and indulgent parenting styles ( Casas et al., 2006 ; Sandstrom, 2007 ; Underwood et al., 2009 ; Kawabata et al., 2011 ) to minimize the negative effect of exposure to violent video games. On the other hand, for teenagers with poor family environment, while reducing exposure to violent video games, it is particularly important to change their normative beliefs about aggression, no longer viewing aggression as an alternative way to solve problems.

Limitations

Limitations of the current study should be mentioned. First, only Chinese school students were assessed, in a relatively small number, which could affect sample representativeness. A large sample of teenagers from different countries and in different ages, also including juvenile offenders, would be more accurate in revealing the effect of violent video games on adolescent aggression. Second, this study only focused on violent video games, not involving violent media such as internet and television, daily life events, wars, and other major social events. Indeed, these factors also have important effects on adolescent aggression, and their influencing mechanisms and combined effect are worth investigating further. Third, this study mainly adopted the self-report method. Use of peer, parent, or teacher reports to assess exposure to violent video games and aggression would help improve the effectiveness of the study. Fourth, there might be other mediators, moderating variables and relational models. In addition to normative beliefs about aggression and family environment, individual emotions, personality characteristics, school climate, and companions may play mediating or moderating roles in the relationship between violent video games and aggression. This study developed a moderated mediation model between family environment and normative beliefs about aggression, but the possibility of multiple mediation and mediated moderation models cannot be ruled out.

The current study showed that exposure to violent video games is positively related to adolescent aggression; normative beliefs about aggression have a mediating effect on exposure to violent video games and adolescent aggression, while the family environment regulates the first part of the mediation process. For individuals with good family environment, exposure to violent video games only has a direct effect on aggression; however, for those with poor family environment, there is an indirect effect mediated by normative beliefs about aggression alongside a direct effect. This moderated mediation model incorporates some perspectives of GAM and CM, enriching studies of generative mechanism of adolescent aggression.

Author Contributions

YW and RS conceived the idea of the study. RS analyzed the data. YW and RS interpreted the results and wrote the paper. YW discussed the results and revised the manuscript.

This study was supported by a grant from the National Social Science Foundation of China (14CSH017) to YW.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: violence video games, aggression, family environment, normative beliefs about aggression, moderated mediation effect

Citation: Shao R and Wang Y (2019) The Relation of Violent Video Games to Adolescent Aggression: An Examination of Moderated Mediation Effect. Front. Psychol . 10:384. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00384

Received: 25 September 2017; Accepted: 07 February 2019; Published: 21 February 2019.

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Copyright © 2019 Shao and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Yunqiang Wang, [email protected] ; [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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The Feds Are Coming for “Extremist” Gamers

The Department of Homeland Security and FBI are in dialog with Roblox, Discord, Reddit, and others.

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Gaming companies are coordinating with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to root out so-called domestic violent extremist content, according to a new government report. Noting that mechanisms have been established with social media companies to police extremism, the report recommends that the national security agencies establish new and similar processes with the vast gaming industry.

The exact nature of the cooperation between federal agencies and video game companies, which has not been previously reported, is detailed in a new Government Accountability Office report . The report draws on interviews conducted with five gaming and social media companies including Roblox, an online gaming platform; Discord, a social media app commonly used by gamers; Reddit; as well as a game publisher and social media company that asked the GAO to remain anonymous.

The Intercept reached out to the companies identified in the GAO report for comment, but none responded on the record at time of publication.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have mechanisms to share and receive domestic violent extremism threat-related information with social media and gaming companies,” the GAO says. The report reveals that the DHS intelligence office meets with gaming companies and that the companies can use these meetings to “share information with I&A [DHS’s intelligence office] about online activities promoting domestic violent extremism,” or even simply “activities that violate the companies’ terms of service.” Through its 56 field offices and hundreds of resident agencies subordinate field offices, the FBI receives tips from gaming companies of potential law-breaking and extremist views for further investigation. The FBI also conducts briefings to gaming companies on purported threats.

The GAO warns that FBI and DHS lack an overarching strategy to bring its work with gaming companies in line with broader agency missions. “Without a strategy or goals, the agencies may not be fully aware of how effective their communications are with companies, or how effective their information-sharing mechanisms serve the agencies’ overall missions,” the GAO says. The report ends with a recommendation that both agencies develop such a strategy — a recommendation that DHS concurred with, providing an estimated completion date of June 28 this year. 

“All I can think of is the awful track record of the FBI when it comes to identifying extremism,” Hasan Piker, a popular Twitch streamer who often streams while playing video games under the handle HasanAbi, says of the mechanisms. “They’re much better at finding vulnerable teenagers with mental disabilities to take advantage of.”

The GAO’s investigation, which covers September 2022 to January 2024, was undertaken at the request of the House Homeland Security Committee, which asked the government auditor to examine domestic violent extremists’ use of gaming platforms and social media. While there is no federal law that criminalizes domestic violent extremism as a category of crime, since 2019 the U.S. government has employed five domestic terrorism threat categories. These are defined by the FBI and DHS as racial/ethnically motivated violent extremism, anti-government/anti-authority violent extremism, animal rights or environmental violent extremism , abortion-related violent extremism , and all other domestic terror threats. 

The GAO study also follows pressure from Congress to top gaming companies to crack down on extremist content. Last March, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sent letters to gaming companies Valve, Activision Blizzard, Epic Games, Riot Games, Roblox Corp, and Take-Two Interactive demanding that they take actions to police gamers. 

“Unlike more traditional social media companies — which in recent years have developed public facing policies addressing extremism, created trust and public safety teams, and released transparency reports — online gaming platforms generally have not utilized these tools,” Durbin wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. In the letter, Durbin requested a briefing from the Justice Department on what channels exist “for DOJ and the online video game industry to communicate and coordinate” on the threat of “online video games by extremists and other malicious actors.”

The federal government’s interest in combating extremism has risen sharply following the January 6 storming of the Capitol. On his first full day in office, President Joe Biden directed his national security team to conduct a comprehensive review of federal efforts to fight domestic terrorism, which the White House has deemed “the most urgent terrorism threat facing the United States” — greater than foreign terrorist groups like the Islamic State group. Biden’s directive resulted in the first ever national strategy for fighting domestic terrorism, released by the White House in June 2021. The strategy mentions “online gaming platforms” as a place where “recruiting and mobilizing individuals to domestic terrorism occurs.” 

According to the national strategy, the intelligence community assessed that extremists emboldened by events like January 6 “pose an elevated threat to the Homeland”; and that “DVE [domestic violent extremist] attackers often radicalize independently by consuming violent extremist material online and mobilize without direction from a violent extremist organization, making detection and disruption difficult.” 

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The federal government says that sharing information with gaming and social media companies is another avenue to identify and combat extremism. The government also recognizes that there are constitutional and legal questions about Americans’ free speech rights. According to the GAO report, both the FBI and DHS indicated that they are proceeding with caution in light of federal litigation on such matters, including one case on its way to the Supreme Court.

In response to a 2022 lawsuit brought by attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana, a federal judge last year prohibited the FBI, DHS, and other federal agencies from communicating with social media companies to fight what they consider misinformation. 

Federal law enforcement and intelligence have long focused on gaming as an avenue for both radicalization and as a backdoor platform for extremists to communicate. A 2019 internal intelligence assessment jointly produced by the FBI, DHS, the Joint Special Operations Command, and the National Counterterrorism Center and obtained by The Intercept warns that “violent extremists could exploit functionality of popular online gaming platforms and applications.” The assessment lists half a dozen U.S.-owned gaming platforms that it identifies as popular, including Blizzard Entertainment’s Battle.net, Fortnite, Playstation Xbox Live, Steam, and Roblox.

“We must stop the glorification of violence in our society,” former President Donald Trump said in 2019 after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. “This includes the gruesome video games that are now commonplace.” 

Pentagon List of Extremism Experts Includes Anti-Muslim and Conservative Christian Groups

The GAO report cites over a dozen expert participants in their survey, including three from the Anti-Defamation League as well as the Pentagon-funded RAND Corporation, and several academic institutions. 

The Anti-Defamation League has testified to Congress multiple times about extremists’ use of gaming platforms. In 2019, ADL’s then-senior vice president of international affairs, Sharon Nazarian, was asked by Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., if gaming platforms “are monitored” and if there’s “a way AI can be employed to identify those sorts of conversations.” 

Nazarian replied that gaming platforms “need to be better regulated.”

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Violent crime is a key midterm voting issue, but what does the data say?

Political candidates around the United States have released thousands of ads focusing on violent crime this year, and most registered voters see the issue as very important in the Nov. 8 midterm elections. But official statistics from the federal government paint a complicated picture when it comes to recent changes in the U.S. violent crime rate.

With Election Day approaching, here’s a closer look at voter attitudes about violent crime, as well as an analysis of the nation’s violent crime rate itself. All findings are drawn from Center surveys and the federal government’s two primary measures of crime : a large annual survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and an annual study of local police data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

This Pew Research Center analysis examines the importance of violent crime as a voting issue in this year’s congressional elections and provides the latest available government data on the nation’s violent crime rate in recent years.

The public opinion data in this analysis is based on a Center survey of 5,098 U.S. adults, including 3,993 registered voters, conducted Oct. 10-16, 2022. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology . Here are the questions used in the survey , along with responses, and its methodology .

The government crime statistics cited here come from the National Crime Victimization Survey , published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the National Incident-Based Reporting System , published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For both studies, 2021 is the most recent year with available data.

Around six-in-ten registered voters (61%) say violent crime is very important when making their decision about who to vote for in this year’s congressional elections. Violent crime ranks alongside energy policy and health care in perceived importance as a midterm issue, but far below the economy , according to the Center’s October survey.

Republican voters are much more likely than Democratic voters to see violent crime as a key voting issue this year. Roughly three-quarters of Republican and GOP-leaning registered voters (73%) say violent crime is very important to their vote, compared with around half of Democratic or Democratic-leaning registered voters (49%).

Conservative Republican voters are especially focused on the issue: About eight-in-ten (77%) see violent crime as very important to their vote, compared with 63% of moderate or liberal Republican voters, 65% of moderate or conservative Democratic voters and only about a third of liberal Democratic voters (34%).

Older voters are far more likely than younger ones to see violent crime as a key election issue. Three-quarters of registered voters ages 65 and older say violent crime is a very important voting issue for them this year, compared with fewer than half of voters under 30 (44%).

There are other demographic differences, too. When it comes to education, for example, voters without a college degree are substantially more likely than voters who have graduated from college to say violent crime is very important to their midterm vote.

Black voters are particularly likely to say violent crime is a very important midterm issue. Black Americans have consistently been more likely than other racial and ethnic groups to express concern about violent crime, and that remains the case this year.

Some 81% of Black registered voters say violent crime is very important to their midterm vote, compared with 65% of Hispanic and 56% of White voters. (There were not enough Asian American voters in the Center’s survey to analyze independently.)

Differences by race are especially pronounced among Democratic registered voters. While 82% of Black Democratic voters say violent crime is very important to their vote this year, only a third of White Democratic voters say the same.

Annual government surveys from the Bureau of Justice Statistics show no recent increase in the U.S. violent crime rate. In 2021, the most recent year with available data , there were 16.5 violent crimes for every 1,000 Americans ages 12 and older. That was statistically unchanged from the year before, below pre-pandemic levels and far below the rates recorded in the 1990s, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey .

For each of the four violent crime types tracked in the survey – simple assault, aggravated assault, robbery and rape/sexual assault – there was no statistically significant increase either in 2020 or 2021.

The National Crime Victimization Survey is fielded each year among approximately 240,000 Americans ages 12 and older and asks them to describe any recent experiences they have had with crime. The survey counts threatened, attempted and completed crimes, whether or not they were reported to police. Notably, it does not track the most serious form of violent crime, murder, because it is based on interviews with surviving crime victims.

The FBI also estimates that there was no increase in the violent crime rate in 2021. The other major government study of crime in the U.S., the National Incident-Based Reporting System from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, uses a different methodology from the BJS survey and only tracks crimes that are reported to police.

The most recent version of the FBI study shows no rise in the national violent crime rate between 2020 and 2021. That said, there is considerable uncertainty around the FBI’s figures for 2021 because of a transition to a new data collection system . The FBI reported an increase in the violent crime rate between 2019 and 2020, when the previous data collection system was still in place.

The FBI estimates the violent crime rate by tracking four offenses that only partly overlap with those tracked by the National Crime Victimization Survey: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault and robbery. It relies on data voluntarily submitted by thousands of local police departments, but many law enforcement agencies do not participate.

In the latest FBI study, around four-in-ten police departments – including large ones such as the New York Police Department – did not submit data, so the FBI estimated data for those areas. The high nonparticipation rate is at least partly due to the new reporting system, which asks local police departments to submit far more information about each crime than in the past. The new reporting system also makes it difficult to compare recent data with data from past years.

While the total U.S. violent crime rate does not appear to have increased recently, the most serious form of violent crime – murder – has risen significantly during the pandemic. Both the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a roughly 30% increase in the U.S. murder rate between 2019 and 2020, marking one of the largest year-over-year increases ever recorded. The FBI’s latest data , as well as provisional data from the CDC , suggest that murders continued to rise in 2021.

Despite the increase in the nation’s murder rate in 2020, the rate remained well below past highs, and murder remains the least common type of violent crime overall.

There are many reasons why voters might be concerned about violent crime, even if official statistics do not show an increase in the nation’s total violent crime rate. One important consideration is that official statistics for 2022 are not yet available. Voters might be reacting to an increase in violent crime that has yet to surface in annual government reports. Some estimates from nongovernmental organizations do point to an increase in certain kinds of violent crime in 2022: For example, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, an organization of police executives representing large cities, estimates that robberies and aggravated assaults increased in the first six months of this year compared with the same period the year before.

Voters also might be thinking of specific kinds of violent crime – such as murder, which has risen substantially – rather than the total violent crime rate, which is an aggregate measure that includes several different crime types, such as assault and robbery.

Some voters could be reacting to conditions in their own communities rather than at the national level. Violent crime is a heavily localized phenomenon , and the national violent crime rate may not reflect conditions in Americans’ own neighborhoods.

Media coverage could affect voters’ perceptions about violent crime , too, as could public statements from political candidates and elected officials. Republican candidates, in particular, have emphasized crime on the campaign trail this year.

More broadly, the public often tends to believe that crime is up, even when the data shows it is down. In 22 of 26 Gallup surveys conducted since 1993, at least six-in-ten U.S. adults said there was more crime nationally than there was the year before, despite the general downward trend in the national violent crime rate during most of that period.

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Prime Video’s ‘Fallout’ Is an Ultra-Violent and Twistedly Fun Video Game Adaptation: TV Review

By Aramide Tinubu

Aramide Tinubu

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The big and small screens are stuffed full of post-apocalyptic adventures, yet despite that cluttered landscape, few shows and films stick out to offer something unique for viewers. However, in “ Fallout ” for Prime Video , a thrilling adaptation of the beloved video game series, creators Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner present an off-kilter and fascinating look at humanity in the 23rd century.

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Video game adaptations have produced a mixed bag. While films, including the recent “Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Dungeons and Dragons,” saw box office success, others like “Rampage” have not fared so well. On television, there are the successes of HBO’s “The Last of Us” and Netflix’s “The Witcher,” and then there is the less buzzy “Halo” on Paramount+. Here, Wagner and Robertson-Dworet wisely chose to avoid a straight adaptation. Instead, they constructed an original story within the game universe. Moreover, unexpected stylistic choices, including archaic technology, a soundtrack full of hits from Ella Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby and odd mid-20th century dialogue, contrast against disturbingly vicious deaths, making “Fallout” a sensory-fueled feast.

The scope of the series is massive. When the narrative stalls in the sixth episode, recounting Cooper’s life in the months and weeks before the bomb drop, the visuals led by production designer Howard Cummings and art and set direction led by Ann Bartek and Regina Graves keep the audience engaged. Robertson-Dworet and Wagner give their audience intricate looks into various aspects of this universe. From different vaults run by various overseers to the endless deserted sands of California and into the lawless city of Filly, the artisans worked tirelessly to ensure no detail was left unattended.

The first half of “Fallout” is undoubtedly the strongest, as Lucy tries to grapple with the lies she’s been told about the world while barely keeping herself alive. Still, even as the storylines linger too long in less exciting places, viewers are eager to see how the varied mysteries and secrets of the surface and the dwellers will reveal themselves. Bizarre but intensely fun, “Fallout” is like nothing you’ve ever seen; for that reason alone, you won’t be able to turn away.

The eight episodes of “Fallout” premiere on April 11 on Prime Video.

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‘fallout’ showrunners on what kind of violence they ruled out in season 1.

Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner talk about the lessons they learned from Jonathan Nolan making their new Prime Video sci-fi action-comedy.

By James Hibberd

James Hibberd

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Prime Video’s adaption of the Fallout game franchise is looking like a hit.

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The secret to the show’s success seems to be successfully capturing the game franchise’s tricky balance of drama, graphic violence and off-beat humor — something plenty of Western projects have tried and failed to do the in the past (remember Will Smith’s Wild Wild West ?). “I think we’ve seen a lot of big-scoop science fiction television in the last 10 years, and something happened along the way where you can get white-knuckled when you’re spending so much money and it becomes a very serious exercise,” Wagner says. “I feel like this stayed whimsical, stayed fun, and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Hopefully that feels like a new swing in this space and becomes the weirdest version of it. ”

Robertson-Dworet adds, “I love that the games make the apocalypse fun and weird, and I hope that’s something that we properly brought to the screen.”

Below the duo, interviewed last week, take a few questions about the show — such as how Fallout evolved over the course of its development, what kind of violence was considered too extreme, and what lessons they learned from their Westworld veteran director Nolan.

So how did the show creatively evolve from what you were originally thinking to where it ended up?

GENEVA ROBERTSON-DWORET What’s crazy to me is how many things actually remained true throughout these five years. A really fundamental idea Graham and I always thought about was that it’s the mix of comedy and drama that makes Fallout so special. We stayed true to that throughout the process and cared enormously about being very faithful to the mythology.

The scene early on where you have a seemingly tough solider in his weapon-heavy power armor turn into total coward when he was attacked by a bear had me laughing out loud. I had never seen a show build up a hulking armored suit only to completely subvert it.

ROBERTSON-DWORET That’s what’s fun about Fallout , we can either lean into the genre conventions or poke fun at them.

What was the toughest writing challenge when cracking this?

ROBERTSON-DWORET Nailing that tone that we were discussing. We locked in on the idea of three central characters very early. We’re really drawn to a vault dweller ( Ella Purnell ), a member of the Brotherhood of Steel (Aaron Clifton Moten) and a Ghoul ( Walton Goggins ). We were very inspired not just by The Good, the Bad and the Ugly , but by a specific interpretation of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly that Graham has.

WAGNER It’s my interpretation, and I know it’s wrong. But it’s the idea if the same cowboy has been in the Wild West, then the longer you’re out there, that they start as [Clint Eastwood’s hero] Blondie and you end up as [Eli Wallach’s villain] Tuco. That’s sort of our view of Lucy, Max and the Ghoul. Their worldview and ethical compass gets damaged by the amount of time they’ve spent out [in the wasteland].

WAGNER This is more probably for me than Geneva — she’s most used to used to the idea of “anything’s possible.” I’ve learned to artfully cut corners in the half-hour comedy space. I had to turn off the part of my brain that says “you can’t do that” and listen to Jonah and Geneva and swing big at times. That was a big one for me to adjust to.

ROBERTSON-DWORET I spent 10 years writing big studio feature films and the reality of the feature side is, you’re not that involved. When you you create and run a TV show, you’re involved in every step of the process. I was really grateful to Jonah as a mentor to me. The main thing I learned was how much he loves to do things practically. We built an incredible amount for this show. Graham and I always talked about how the power armor will be a [CGI] effect. But no. We built power armor and had dudes walking around in power armor on set, which was amazing. I love the effect and you can totally tell the difference.

WAGNER It was a humbling moment when I asked if I could put on the power armor and the stunt team just politely told me that I’m not physically strong enough.

ROBERTSON-DWORET I didn’t even ask.

You have a lot of fun with graphic violence in the show. I’m curious, what was something you decided not to do? An example where you said, “Let’s draw a line here.”

Walton Goggins is always such a kick. What surprised you most about working with him?

WAGNER It was such a pie-in-the-sky idea. It’s a game we play in the writers room: How would you make this something that you would watch? We’re as cynical of viewers as anybody. And you’re like, “Well, if Walton Goggins is playing a Ghoul, I’d watch that.” Then we wrote it that way. It was a wild ambition, just scheduling alone. This is a guy people want to work with and for good reason. Like every one of our cast members, we’re just so lucky to have them.

What is your favorite iteration of Fallout and your favorite non – Fallout game?

WAGNER The world of the Fallout fandom is like mirroring the world of the games, they’re broken into factions. I want to keep that to myself, because there are elements of all the games in this show. We’re trying to stick to a world in which they all exist.

ROBERTSON-DWORET Gamers have thousands of hours to enjoy each Fallout game. We have eight hours to bring in viewers, introduce them to this world, and tell a story. My interpretation of the Brotherhood slightly evolves over the course of the games. We lean into one interpretation in this season, but it would be lovely to be able to explore some of the other aspects of it in later seasons.

That game also has a new story and new cast each season. Will the show do the same?

Hmm, let me guess: New Vegas for season two?

ROBERTSON-DWORET Well, that would be a big spoiler. Thank you for the idea, though.

I’m certain you don’t need my help!

Fallout is now streaming on Prime Video. Previous: Jonathan Nolan Is Ready to Unleash ‘Fallout’ and Finish ‘Westworld.”

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Prime Video's Fallout adaptation is a spot-on representation of the beloved game

Critics and fans seem to agree that, much like a mini nuke launched with a 100 per cent VATS hit chance on a Super Mutant's big head, the television adaptation of Fallout doesn't miss.

For gamers, Fallout is a big deal. They're hugely popular role-playing games set in an alternate retro future where technology and culture locked in on the '50s aesthetic. It's a world where science focused on atoms and nuclear power rather than miniaturised computer electronics. And it's a world that blew itself up in The Great War in the year 2077.

The games are set decades, or even centuries later, in the aftermath of this worldwide nuclear war, where Earth has become an irradiated wasteland. A select "lucky" (read: rich) few got to ride out the disaster in highly protected Vaults, where they were promised apple pie, verandahs, and the American Dream. Think Mad-Max meets I Love Lucy and you'll kind of get an idea of the Fallout vibe.

The show now brings all that the games had onto the screen for a whole new audience, and makes for some damn fine TV that fans, and even those who can't tell a Pip-Boy from a Radroach, can enjoy.

Here's why it's S.P.E.C.I.A.L! (that's a Fallout reference in case you didn't know).

There's nothing worse than an adaptation that doesn't look right (We're looking at you, Sonic design with the creepy teeth). But Fallout doesn't put a foot wrong aesthetically.

Things that could be considered Easter eggs for fans of the game don't even feel like Easter eggs, they're just how they should be. When a stimpak just more or less heals a stab wound, or when the exact hacking mini game from the games shows up while someone is trying to access a terminal, it doesn't read as fan service, it just feels right.

From the Vaults down to the stitching on the inside of the Power Armour, every prop, set, costume and location feels like it's been ripped straight from the games, and it all shines on screen to deliver that iconic retro-futuristic Fallout vibe.

2. Personality

The Fallout games may be set in a bleak, post-apocalyptic wasteland steeped in violence, but they're surprisingly funny.

They're camp, cheeky, and full of dark humour and satire, poking fun at the absurdities of capitalism and greed that managed to get the world blown up in the first place. The show captures this in spades.

Even the violence is funny. Bullets hit like punchlines, while the comic timing on a decapitation scene is masterful stuff.

Top tier comedians deliver some of the show's stand-out moments too: Chris Parnell's turn as a cyclops Overseer is hard to take your eye off; Matt Berry, a man who could read a microwave instruction booklet and make it hilarious, voices a friendly, organ-harvesting Mister Handy robot in a pitch-perfect bit of casting.

3. Expert hands

Credit must be given to the expert hands of all the crew involved.

That said, it feels like Westworld director Jonathan Nolan was absolutely the right person to help bring this show to life. Nolan was executive producer and directed the first three episodes, which are always crucial in setting a show's overall tone and feel. And no doubt his time with Westworld helped set him up for success here. Deserts? Check. Robots? Check. Dystopian sci-fi interpretation of classic Western themes? Check.

It's also clear that the team at Bethesda Game Studios, helmed by famed Game Director Todd Howard, has kept a gulper throat full of fingers in this pie, making sure it all remained game-accurate and fit into the existing lore. Clearly, it's been a successful creative partnership.

Of course, behind-the-scenes talent is wasted if the actors can't pull off their roles. Not a problem for the three leads of Fallout.

Walton Goggins' turn as American hero Cooper Howard-turned-bounty-hunting-Ghoul is electrifying. He fills his scenes with a Clint Eastwood-esque, "Do you feel lucky, punk?", energy that puts you on edge for each inevitable quick draw.

Ella Purnell nails the wide-eyed, naive, do-gooder Lucy McLean. Her main story quest to find her Dad, à la Fallout 3, confidently leads us on her descent from her American Dream life in the Vault, out to a world where drinking irradiated water from a toilet is going to be a highlight of your day.

Aaron Moten's Maximus hits all the right notes in his journey to be a hero, a shining Knight in Power Armour, a wannabe stereotypical good guy in a world where being "good" usually has to take a back seat to just being alive.

And, of course, there's the real star, Dogmeat. Ok, it's not THAT Dogmeat, she's CX404, but she's still a very good girl. Yes, she is.

5. I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire

If you read that heading and didn't hear the song starting to play in your head, then I feel bad for you, son.

The use of music in the Fallout games has been one of its most defining traits, and it's a trait the show doesn't skimp on.

The crackle of those cheery old-timey tunes as horrible acts of hyper-violence play out across the wasteland is paid due service here, with many of the most iconic songs used in the games making for perfectly timed needle drops.

Even the games' official soundtrack gets used to good effect.

6. Amazon money

Shows like this ain't cheap, and it's clear this has had the full support of that Amazon coin behind it. From the impressive sets of the Vaults and towns to the effects so good you can barely tell they're effects, it looks as good as any big budget film.

According to Variety  the first season cost US$153 million (AU$238 million) to make, which puts it at almost US$20 million (AU$31 million) per episode. For reference, most Game Of Thrones episodes averaged around US$6 Million.

It's an insane amount of money, but it shows.

7. Leave the games out of it

The Fallout games were always going to be perfect for adapting. They're classic, sprawling Bethesda-style role playing games which, for those who don't play games, just means they're games where you get spit out into an open world and left to do whatever you want.

This isn't like The Last of Us — where the show quite faithfully retells the story of the games for a new audience, but leaves those of us who've played it seeing every major plot coming from a mile away. (By the way, if you haven't played The Last of Us 2, you ain't ready for Season 2).

It isn't even like Halo, where they felt the need to rewrite much of the universe and timeline to make it translate on screen, much to the chagrin of die-hard fans.

Instead, just like the sandbox the games let us play in, Fallout the series gives the creatives here that same sandbox to tell their own stories in. Sure, it has a well-established universe with timelines, lore and characters that the show faithfully adheres to, but it's not forced into retelling any specific story.

It can create new characters, show off new Vaults, and explore new areas of the Universe, all while respecting the source material and adding to it, leaving us with one of the best game adaptations we've seen to date.

It's definitely just a little bit special.

Fallout is streaming now on Prime Video.

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