Violent video game play, gender, and trait aggression influence subjective fighting ability, perceptions of men's toughness, and anger facial recognition

Abstract

Violent video game play can alter how people process social information. We examined the extent to which violent video game play influenced anger facial recognition, perceptions of one's own fighting ability, and perceptions of others' toughness. In three experiments (N = 868), participants were randomly assigned to play a violent or non-violent video game in the laboratory for 15 min (Experiments 1 and 2) or online for 5 min (Experiment 3). Participants then completed anger recognition tasks. Participants also indicated when they would back out of a physical confrontation with images of men that morphed from feminine to masculine. They rated these same target images on how tough they were and how much they could bench press. Participants rated themselves on how well they would fare in a fight against the men. Although not perfectly replicated, the general pattern of findings suggest that violent video game play impaired anger recognition, increased players' self-perceived fighting ability and reduced perceptions of the target men's toughness. Several effects were moderated by gender and/or trait aggression. These results provide insight into improved subjective fighting ability as a reinforcing feature of violent video games that may make them highly attractive to players.