Violent video games and social behaviour

Abstract

There is public and scientific concern surrounding violent content in interactive video games. After several decades of experimental research, there is some evidence that violent content in media can influence people to behave in predictable, anti-social ways. These include increased hostile attributions, aggressive cognitions, and aggressive behaviour. There has been comparatively little research, however, on how prosocial behaviour (e.g. helping behaviour) is affected by violent media. Thus, the present thesis examined the hypothesis that, to the extent that violent video games can increase anti-social behaviour, they should similarly decrease prosocial behaviour. The investigation is grounded in contemporary theories of aggression, and draws from literature on social priming, economic games, and dehumanisation. The experiments presented in Chapter 2 explore reasons for why a recent study found, un-intuitively, that violent video games have no effect on prosocial behaviour. I tried to demonstrate a violent video game effect using a traditional media exposure paradigm. I also report on the role of context in these paradigms, and the subsequent effect that context has on behaviour measures. Finally, I report a direct replication attempt of past research that suggested video game content can influence prosocial behaviour. In Chapter 3, I tested the assumption that increasing violent content has an incremental effect on social behaviour. I used games with differing levels of violent content (non-violent, violent, and ultra-violent) and examined their impact on prosocial behaviour. This experiment extended on those reported in Chapter 2 by several means: (1) I increased the strength of violent content manipulation; (2) I used multiple measures of prosocial behaviour; and (3) I recruited a larger sample. Finally, Chapter 4 tests whether certain preconditions need to be met for violent video games to affect prosocial behaviour. In this experiment, I tested whether participants need to be in a hostile cognitive state in order for violent video games to influence their behaviour. I paired violent video gameplay with a hostile semantic prime and observed whether participants were more or less likely to help another. The results of these experiments suggest that the effect of violent video games on prosocial behaviour is, at most, a small effect, and that corresponding public concern should be minimal. These findings are, unfortunately, at odds with most prevalent theories of media effects. A key issue with prevalent media effects theories, however, is that they assume a content-driven view of media influence: that is, that media affect users in reliable and predictable ways. What seems more likely is that, while media can influence behaviour, users are active shapers of their media experience. A user-driven view of media influence would examine motivations for using media (violent content or not), the social benefits of gaming with others (through violent media or not), and the satisfaction of needs for competence and autonomy (via skill development in violent games or not).