Virtually justifiable homicide: The effects of prosocial contexts on the link between violent video games, aggression, and prosocial and hostile cognition

Abstract

Previous work has shown that playing violent video games can stimulate aggression toward others. The current research has identified a potential exception. Participants who played a violent game in which the violence had an explicitly prosocial motive (i.e., protecting a friend and furthering his nonviolent goals) were found to show lower short-term aggression (Study 1) and show higher levels of prosocial cognition (Study 2) than individuals who played a violent game in which the violence was motivated by more morally ambiguous motives. Thus, violent video games that are framed in an explicitly prosocial context may evoke more prosocial sentiments and thereby mitigate some of the short-term effects on aggression observed in previous research. While these findings are promising regarding the potential aggression-reducing effects of prosocial context, caution is still warranted as a small effect size difference (d = .2-.3), although nonsignificant, was still observed between those who played the explicitly prosocial violent game and those who played a nonviolent game; indicating that aggressive behavior was not completely eliminated by the inclusion of a prosocial context for the violence.

Impact of e-Discipline on Children's Screen Time

“…For instance, playing a violent video game can prime aggressive thoughts, increase hostile affect, and cause physiological arousal. 2 Behavioral and attitudinal measures relating to Internet use and video games are associated with a measure of violent delinquency and antisocial behaviors, 3 and also with dysfunction at home, increased aggression, 4,5 depression, 6 and psychological well-being. 7,8 Academically, children who spend a lot of time on screen devices may experience failure in school performance.…”

The No-Effect of Player Role in Digital Games on Prosocial Behavior

“…Cooperation games, in this sense, could be associated with more prosocial behaviors (Ewoldsen et al, 2012b;Greitemeyer & Cox, 2013;Greitemeyer et al, 2012). Other studies shows that contextual characteristics of the avatar played (Dolgov, Graves, Nearents, Schwark, & Volkman, 2014) and character motivation (Gitter, Ewell, Guadagno, Stillman, & Baumeister, 2013) also could play a signifi cant role on the occurrence of prosocial behavior outside the game. Those evidences suggest that the context of play could be an important variable for understanding the infl uence of video games on behavior.…”

Untitled

“…Svarīgi situatīvie faktori ir datorspēles spēja noturēt spēlētāja interesi, datorspēles saturs (prosociāls, neitrāls, vardarbīgs) un laiks, kas pavadīts, spēlējot datorspēli. Starp situatīvajiem un personiskajiem faktoriem notiek mijiedarbība, piemēram, vardarbīgas datorspēles saturs varētu vairāk ietekmēt tos indivīdus, kuri jau ir ar agresīvām raksturīpašībām (Gitter et al, 2013).…”

“…Spēles prosociālais konteksts var ietekmēt spēlētāja vardarbīgo elementu uztveri (Gitter et al, 2013). Ir arī iespējams, ka aktivizētās prosociālās kognīcijas konkurē ar agresīvām kognīcijām, lai iegūtu spēlētāja uzmanību.…”

“…Teorētiski var pieņemt, ka, salīdzinot ar viennozīmīgi vardarbīgām datorspēlēm, vardarbīgas datorspēles ar prosociāliem elementiem samazinās agresīvas uzvedības varbūtību spēlētājiem. Tieši šo pieņēmumu pārbaudīja Gitters un kolēģi (Gitter et al, 2013). Viņi izvirzīja hipotēzi, ka vardarbīgu datorspēļu, kurās galvenajam varonim ir prosociāli nolūki, spēlēšana izraisīs mazāk agresijas nekā vardarbīgu spēļu bez šāda veidā attaisnojuma spēlēšana.…”