Violent or Not, Video Games May Cause Aggression

Next time you feel frustration’s vice grip closing, you may want to hold off on releasing your anger via video games.

A recent study from the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison delved into how video games are used to handle emotions, and found that while video games may bolster mood, both violent and nonviolent video games can increase accessibility to aggressive cognitions.

“We believe our nonviolent game, which at some points required participants to respond quickly to stimuli to progress in the game, might have activated aggressive cognitions to motivate achievement,”  wrote the authors in their research paper published in Computers in Human Behavior.

The study consisted of 82 undergraduate communications students. Half the students were tasked with playing an online game called Maximum Frustration, a highly difficult game meant to induce frustration, prior to the students’ engagement with either a violent or nonviolent video game.

“The game is designed to be nearly impossible to complete, although the subjects were led to believe they should be able to go through all the levels in 10 min,” according to the university.

Afterwards, the student subjects played either the PlayStation 3 game “LittleBigPlanet 2,” a nonviolent title, or “Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage,” a violent title, both for 18 min.


“If anything, the finding that our nonviolent game also boosted aggressive cognition confirms the notion that even nonviolent games can sometimes increase aggressive responses,” reported the university.  

According to the authors, this find goes against the cognitive neoassociation theory, which would link only violent video games to increased aggressive cognition.

However, in both violent and nonviolent video games, advances in a game, such as level progression, led to decreased frustration and increased feelings of competency. “These factors, in turn, increased enjoyment … suggesting that video games in general can serve to help players manage these emotional concerns,” according to the study.

That being said, “some participants who managed their negative feelings and boosted their overall enjoyment demonstrated an increase in hostility after playing a violent video game.”

According to Time, 90% of children in the U.S. play video games, and more than 90% of those games involve mature content, including violence. The article, using a study led by Craig Anderson, the director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State Univ., reported children who logged more hours per week playing violent video games had greater increases in aggressive behavior and violent tendencies compared with those who played for fewer hours.

The effects of violent video games isn’t a foreign topic in the political world. In January 2013, President Barack Obama, during a speech regarding how to decrease gun violence, directed Congress to fund further research on how violent video games affect young minds.