The Influence of Empathy and Morality of Violent Video Game Characters on Gamers’ Aggression

Abstract

According to the General Aggression Model, situational factors (such as the game characters) and personal factors both affect a gamer’s acquisition of aggressive behavior. Previous studies have found not only that the surface features of game characters, such as appearance and clothing, but also that their inherent characteristics, such as morality and identity, can influence a gamer’s attitude and behavior. Research has also shown that empathy, as a personal factor, can protect gamers from the impact of media violence. However, past research has focused primarily on single factors affecting the player rather than more comprehensive investigations. This study investigates the influence of the game character’s moral features and levels of empathy on the gamer’s aggression. The participants were 120 Chinese university students (61 females and 59 males) with ages ranging from 17 to 27 years. Participants first completed a series of questionnaires: a user experience questionnaire, a video game questionnaire, the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire, and a modified version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. All participants then had 5 min of practice playing a violent video game. They were then divided into three groups: a high empathy group, a low empathy group, and a no empathy group. After the practice, participants in the high and low empathy groups read empathy materials relating to the game characters; participants in the no empathy group began formal gameplay. All participants played the game for 20 min. Finally, participants were required to complete the Scale of Hostility Status questionnaire, the Implicit Aggression Test, and the Competitive Reaction Time Test. The results show that empathy and the morality of game characters both influence aggression, but empathy affected aggression differently in the participants playing justified roles (i.e., killing others for a moral reason in the game) compared to those playing unjustified roles (i.e., killing others for immoral reasons in the game). In the high empathy condition, the implicit aggression of justified players was significantly higher than those playing unjustified roles. However, high empathy does not always play a protective role, and its effect is restricted by the features of the game characters.

When and How Video Games Can Be Good: A Review of the Positive Effects of Video Games on Well-Being

“…For instance, a 3-year longitudinal study demonstrated that video-game violence did not increase aggression over time; rather, it was other factors, including levels of depression, exposure to family violence, antisocial personality traits, and peer influences, that emerged as influencing aggression levels (Ferguson, Miguel, Garza, & Jerabeck, 2012). Thus, it seems that family and social variables and the motivation behind the violence are more significantly related to an increase in aggression than the violence itself (Ferguson et al, 2015; Gao, Weng, Zhou, & Yu, 2017; Sauer, Drummond, & Nova, 2015). Indeed, even the gamer’s level of skill plays an important role in how these games affect aggression, such that the higher the levels of gaming skill, the lower the levels of aggression that are evident (Matthews, 2015).…”

The Effects of Weapon Toys on Aggressive Behavior among Chinese Children: The Mediating Role of Aggressive Cognition

“…Why do girls show increased aggressive cognition instead of aggressive behavior in a weapon toy condition? First, perhaps girls are better at restraining their aggressive cognition in order to inhibit aggressive behavior than boys in the context of weapon toys, whereas boys are more prone to take violent action in order to vent their anger than girls (Engelhardt et al, (Gao et al, 2017;Krahé & Möller, 2010). The nding indicates that parents and teachers should manage aggressive behavior for boys and girls in different ways when they are involved in weapon toy games.…”

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

“…Thereby also accounting for differences between adolescent and adult game players in the level of VVGE to be measured as a continuous variable, and preferably measured objectively. Because the relationship might also work the other way around, it is plausible to assume that the individuals who less accurately recognized facial emotion expressions than the others may have a prior preference to play violent games (Sauer et al, 2015), or may self-report the games as more violent (Przybylski and Weinstein, 2021) and spend more time playing violent games (Gao et al, 2017). Therefore, future studies could measure to what extent the (lower) ability to recognize emotions, or empathy in general, may precede violent gameplay, preference of violent games, and VVGE overall.…”