Long-term Effects Of Violent Video Games Exposure History On Aggression

While video games are becoming more and more common in our lifes,educators and media workers are paying more and more attention to the negative effects of video games,especially the violent ones.Psychology has also conducted researches on this issue for nearly 20 years,mainly in two directions,one is the change of state aggression within a few minutes(generally no more than half an hour)after playing video games(short-term effect),the other is the change of aggression after a long-term highly-frequent video games playing(long-term effect,more than half a year in previous studies).Considering the contradictions in the existing studies on long-term effects and the practical significance of it,this study,with using in-game aggressive behavior to measure violent video game exposure and experimental method to aggression in long-term effect,will explore the long-term effect of violent video game exposure history on aggression through three in-depth studies.In study 1,a questionnaire survey was conducted among 298 long-term video game players,and the data of violent video game exposure(for one year),trait aggression,childhood abuse and in-game aggressive behavior(kill,death and assist)were collected.Among them,childhood abuse was dealed as the control variable.The result showed that neither violent video game exposure nor in-game aggressive behavior significantly affected the trait aggression.In study 2,another questionnaire survey was conducted among 296 people aged between 18 and 40 who had experience in video games.The data of violent video game exposure history from the first time they played video game,neuroticism,trait aggression and childhood abuse were collected.Among them,childhood abuse was dealed as the control variable.The results showed that :(1)6~9 years repeated exposure to violent video game since middle or high school age would significantly increase trait aggression.(2)the influence of violent video game exposure history on trait aggression was less than that of neuroticism and childhood abuse.Based on study 2,study 3 added an online experiment,which had two situations(game/ nongame),to study the mediating role of trait aggression in the influence of violent video game exposure history on verbal aggression and aggressive behavior and the moderating effect of different situations.In the experiment,we provoked participants and collected their following verbal aggression and aggressive behavior.60 participants were involved and obtained the following results:(1)the results of study 2 were verified.(2)trait aggression does not mediate the influence of violent video game exposure history on verbal aggression and aggressive behavior.(3)individuals are more inclined to show their aggression without the victim’s knowledge through the analysis of chatting materials.The conclusions of the three studies can be summarized as follows:(1)adults’ last-year exposure to violent video games does not significantly affect their current trait aggression.(2)the violent video game exposure which people(18~25 years old)got when they were under age will significantly affected the trait aggression after 3-6 years,while the influence was less than that of neuroticism.(3)violent video game exposure history and neuroticism cannot influence verbal aggression and aggressive behavior through trait aggression.Summing up the above,these studies found that the effect of violent video games on trait aggression only occurred on specific age and trait aggression cannot turin into state aggression,which means the long-term effect is not significant.