The Effects Of Violent Video Game Exposure On Individual Aggressive Behavior

With the development of science and technology,electronic products such as mobile phones and computers have become an important medium for transmitting information,video games inevitably become an important way of leisure in people’s daily life.At the same time,in order to increase the attractiveness to users,game manufacturers have added more and more stimulating factors,such as violence,pornography,blood and other elements to the game.The general aggression model points out that excessive exposure to violent content will affect an individual’s aggressive cognition and aggressive behavior.Many college students with weak self-control ability are easy to be addicted to games,which has aroused widespread concern from all walks of life.Violent games not only contain violent elements,but also contain many moral elements.In order to prevent players from experiencing discomfort during the game,game manufacturers disguise the violent elements in the game,allowing players to perform violent acts in a "more reasonable" way,Players will lower their own moral standards after the game,generate moral disengagement to escape guilt,and then make more aggressive behaviors.Therefore,based on the general aggression theory model and the moral disengagement theory,this study explores the impact of violent video game exposure levels on players’ aggressive behavior,and the role of moral disengagement cues in it.This study consists of three parts.Study 1 adopts the method of questionnaire research,taking 285 college students as the object,using the violent video game exposure questionnaire,the moral disengagement questionnaire,and the aggression scale to examine the relationship between degree of exposure to violent video games,moral disengagement and aggression.Study 2conducts an experimental study on the basis of Study 1.A total of 60 students with different levels of exposure to violent video games are randomly assigned to the justice background group(including moral justification clues)and the injustice background group(excluding moral justification clues)to play games.Then,the aggressive behavior of college students is measured by the competitive reaction time task to explore the effect of exposure to violent video games on the aggressive behavior of college students,and the role of moral justification cues in it.Study 3explores the effect of exposure to violent video games on the aggressive behavior of college students and the role of dehumanization cues in it.Through a questionnaire survey of 225 college students,61 subjects with different game exposure levels are screened out and randomly assigned to the dehumanized character group(including dehumanizing clues)and the humanized character group(excluding dehumanizing clues)to play games.A competitive response time task is then performed to measure participants’ aggressive behavior.The results show that:(1)There is a significant positive correlation between the level of exposure to violent video games and aggression,and moral evasion plays a moderating role in it(2)Moral justification cues and dehumanizing cues play a moderating role in the impact of violent video game exposure on individual aggressive behavior,low-violent video game exposure individuals show more aggressive behaviors in the condition containing moral disengagement cues,and high-violent video game contacts show no difference between the two conditions,and the gender differences are also insignificant.This suggests that moral justification clues and dehumanizing clues will subtly affect the individual’s aggressive behavior when players play violent games,while due to less daily exposure to violent content,low-violent video game contacts are more likely to activate the moral evasion schema under the influence of violent content,and then show more obvious changes in the level of aggressive behavior.This provides new ideas for exploring the impact of violent video games on individual aggressive behavior.