Associations Between Violent Video Gaming, Empathic Concern, and Prosocial Behavior Toward Strangers, Friends, and Family Members

Abstract

Exposure to media violence, including violent video gaming, can have a cognitive desensitization effect, lowering empathic concern for others in need. Since emerging adulthood offers increased opportunities to volunteer, strengthen relationships, and initiate new relationships, decreases in empathic concern and prosocial behavior may prove inhibitive to optimal development during this time. For these reasons, the current study investigated associations between violent video gaming, empathic responding, and prosocial behavior enacted toward strangers, friends, and family members. Participants consisted of 780 emerging adults (M age = 19.60, SD = 1.86, range = 18–29, 69% female, 69% Caucasian) from four universities in the United States. Results showed small to moderate effects between playing violent video gaming and lowered empathic concern for both males and females. In addition, lowered empathic concern partially mediated the pathways between violent video gaming and prosocial behavior toward all three targets (at the level of a trend for females), but was most strongly associated with lower prosocial behavior toward strangers. Discussion highlights how violent video gaming is associated with lower levels of prosocial behavior through the mechanism of decreased empathic concern, how this association can affect prosocial behavior differently across target, and finally what implications this might have for development during emerging adulthood.

The Longitudinal Relationship Between Media Violence and Empathy: Was It Sympathy All Along?

“…1 Direct estimates are frequently used in survey research to measure media violence exposure (e.g., Fraser et al, 2012;Nikkelen et al, 2014;Slater, 2004;Slater, Henry, Swaim, & Anderson, 2003) and has been found reliable and valid for use with adolescents samples (Fikkers, Piotrowski, & Valkenburg, 2015). Direct estimates measured exposure to violent content on television and in electronic games with two items each (four items in total): Participants were given the following definition of violence: "All violence (for example, fighting and shooting) that living beings (for example, humans and monsters) do to each other."…”

“…To date, there are several cross-sectional studies that have demonstrated that media violence is negatively associated with empathy (Anderson et al, 2010;Bartholow, Sestir, & Davis, 2005;Fraser et al, 2012;Funk, 2005;Funk, Baldacci, Pasold, & Baumgardner, 2004;Wei, 2007). This relationship is generally explained by one of two processes.…”

“…In contrast, sympathy refers to "feeling for" the other person, and, thus, not feeling sadness but concern. A review of the literature indicates that there are several studies which, although purporting to study the relationship between media violence and empathy, have in fact studied sympathy instead (Fraser et al, 2012; Media Violence, Empathy and Sympathy 179 Mößle et al, 2014;Wei, 2007). A reason for this confusion is that many empathy measures used with adolescents do not distinguish affective empathy from sympathy.…”

“…A reason for this confusion is that many empathy measures used with adolescents do not distinguish affective empathy from sympathy. For example, Wei (2007) and Fraser et al (2012), have used the empathic concern subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Inventory (IRI; Davis, 1980) in their cross-sectional survey studies on violent game exposure. This subscale measures the "tendency of the respondent to experience feelings of warmth, compassion, and concern for others undergoing negative experiences" (Davis, 1980, p. 6), thus, reflecting sympathy not empathy.…”

“…Thus far, several cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have shown that media violence exposure leads to lower levels of trait empathy among adolescents (e.g., Fraser, Padilla-Walker, Coyne, Nelson, & Stockdale, 2012;Krahé & Möller, 2010). However, the existing research on the influence of media violence on empathy suffers from two conceptual problems.…”