Insensitive Players? A Relationship Between Violent Video Game Exposure and Recognition of Negative Emotions

Abstract

An ability to accurately recognize negative emotions in others can initiate pro-social behavior and prevent anti-social actions. Thus, it remains of an interest of scholars studying effects of violent video games. While exposure to such games was linked to slower emotion recognition, the evidence regarding accuracy of emotion recognition among players of violent games is weak and inconsistent. The present research investigated the relationship between violent video game exposure (VVGE) and accuracy of negative emotion recognition. We assessed the level of self-reported VVGE in hours per day and the accuracy of the recognition using the Facial Expressions Matching Test. The results, with adolescents (Study 1; N = 67) and with adults (Study 2; N = 151), showed that VVGE was negatively related to accurate recognition of negative emotion expressions, even if controlled for age, gender, and trait empathy, but no causal direction could be assessed. In line with the violent media desensitization model, our findings suggest that higher self-reported VVGE relates to lower recognition of negative emotional expressions of other people. On the one hand, such lower recognition of negative emotions may underlie inaccurate reactions in real-life social situations. On the other hand, lower sensitivity to social cues may help players to better focus on their performance in a violent game.

Emotion Recognition and Inhibitory Control in Adolescent Players of Violent Video Games

“…The finding that habitual exposure to violent video games was not negatively related to emotion recognition skills (Study 1) does not support our H1. While this is in line with the results on the relationship between action (violent) gaming and speed of emotion recognition (Pichon et al, 2020), it is not in line with the recent findings on the relationship between habitual violent gaming and lower accuracy of emotion recognition (Miedzobrodzka, Buczny, Konijn, & Krabbendam, 2021). Moreover, our finding that antisocial media content exposure was negatively related to accuracy of emotion recognition contributes to and further extends previous research on violent media exposure and speed of emotion recognition (Kirsh et al, 2006).…”

“…Furthermore, despite guidelines how to best measure habitual violent video game exposure (Busching et al., 2015 ), this measurement is used quite flexibly across different studies, making comparison with our results for habitual violent gaming measure more difficult. In the current work, we followed Anderson and Dill ( 2000 ) measuring general violent gaming frequencies based on a 5‐point scale, whereas other work asked for the amount of daily hours spent on violent gameplay in the past month (Miedzobrodzka et al., 2021 ). Differences in measurement likely contributed to different outcomes.…”

Traces of Violent Video Gameplay in Adolescent Development

“…According to the Violent Media Desensitization Model, exposure to media violence may lead to altered processing of emotional information (Carnagey et al, 2007), including a lower sensitivity to social cues. This could be further observed in reduced recognition of emotional expressions which was confirmed in earlier correlational (Diaz et al, 2016;Kirsh & Mounts, 2007;Miedzobrodzka et al, 2021a) and experimental studies (Kirsh et al, 2006) on the speed of emotion recognition and on the accuracy of emotion recognition. Such changes in emotion recognition may have a significant impact on players' social relationships (e.g., North et al, 2010;Stanković et al, 2015).…”

Attentional modulation as a mechanism for enhanced facial emotion discrimination: The case of action video game players

“…Interestingly, the main attentional difference between groups was found independently of the emotional status of the target (positive or negative), indicating that the greater attentional modulation in AVGPs is similarly robust across positive and negative valence emotional signals. Previous work on violent video games and emotion processing has yielded inconsistent results regarding a possible reduced happy face advantage in violent video game players (Kirsh and Mounts, 2007 ) or changes in the processing of negative emotions (Diaz et al, 2016 ; Miedzobrodzka et al, 2021 ). The present work contributes evidence that AVGPs do not differ from NVGPs in emotion identification per se, but rather show enhanced emotion discrimination in attention-demanding conditions.…”

“…This may arise from an in-game advantage of sensitivity to fearful stimuli. In contrast, negative associations between violent game exposure and the recognition of negative emotions (measured with facial expression matching) were found in both adolescents and adults, after controlling for age, gender, and trait empathy (Miedzobrodzka et al, 2021 ). The Facial Expressions Matching Test used in this study required participants to perceptually match an emotional expression from a choice of three emotional expressions, removing the need to identify or label the emotions.…”