Computer players often deny that playing violent video games makes them aggressive, which is in contrast to the findings of a recent comprehensive meta-analysis. The present research examines whether comparison processes between the players' intense acts of violence in a video game and their comparatively harmless aggressive behavior in daily life not only account for this apparent discrepancy but also underlie the effect of playing violent video games on aggressive behavior. In fact, two experiments reveal that playing a violent video game leads to a bias in the perception of what counts as aggressive, which in turn evokes aggressive behavior.
Empirical investigations have shown that playing violent video games is associated with an increase in aggressive behavior. The most comprehensive meta-analysis so far (Anderson et al., 2010) found that violent video game exposure significantly increases aggressive thoughts, hostile affect, and aggressive behavior. Although effect sizes are only small to medium and some studies fail to find that violent video games cause aggression (e.g., Adachi & Willoughby, 2011), it appears that individuals who frequently play violent video games become more aggressive. However, if one asks avid computer players whether violent video games make them aggressive, you will most likely get a definite “no” (Bushman, 2012). I argue that comparison processes between the players' behavior in a video game and their behavior in daily life account for this apparent discrepancy. In many violent video games, the player uses guns and missiles to kill as many game characters as possible. Relative to those intense acts of violence, daily life aggressive behavior appears to be harmless. That is, after causing serious injury and death during video game play, acts such as shouting at or shoving others are perceived as relatively non-aggressive. In contrast, someone who does not play violent video games is more likely to perceive daily life aggression as such it is.
What is more important: The violent video game player's biased view of what counts as aggressive may explain why playing violent video games increases aggression. Most individuals restrain themselves from yielding violent impulses. However, when an impulse is perceived as relatively harmless, the impulse is less likely to be stifled. For instance, a blow in a real-life argument appears to be innocuous compared to killing (during video game play) and thus one does not inhibit the impulse to perform the blow. Taken together, the comparison approach suggests that performing intense violent acts during video game play leads to a bias in the perception of the aggressiveness of one's subsequent behavior. This biased perception in turn should increase the likelihood of aggressive behavior.
Previous research into why playing violent video games increases subsequent aggressive behavior has mainly highlighted the role of priming existing knowledge structures. For instance, playing violent video games increases the accessibility of antisocial thoughts, which in turn evoke aggressive behavior (Anderson and Dill, 2000 and Anderson et al., 2004). Both the present comparison and the priming approach suggest that playing violent video games increases subsequent aggressive behavior. In terms of underlying processes, however, the comparison approach and the priming mechanism differ. According to the comparison approach, after violent video game play one's own aggressive behavior should be viewed as less aggressive. According to the priming mechanism, stimuli are more likely to be interpreted as an aggressive cue after playing violent video games (Kirsh, 1998 and Srull and Wyer, 1979) and thus daily life aggressive behavior should be perceived as more aggressive. I will return to the priming perspective in the Discussion of Experiment 1 as well as the General Discussion.
To sum up, the present two experiments examine the comparison prediction that playing violent video games decreases the perception of one's own daily life aggressive behavior being aggressive. Experiment 2 also examines whether perceptions of what counts as aggressive underlie the effect of playing violent video games on aggressive behavior.
As intended, the content of the violent video game (M = 4.55, SD = 1.79) was perceived as being more violent than the content of the neutral video game (M = 1.05, SD = 0.22), t(41) = 8.88, p < .001, d = 2.74. Thus, the manipulation was successful.
Playing the violent video game decreased ratings of perceived aggressiveness (violent condition: M = 6.23, SD = 1.28; neutral condition: M = 7.20, SD = 0.70), t(41) = 3.03, p = .004, d = 0.94, and increased aggressive behavior (violent condition: M = 20.34, SD = 21.03; neutral condition: M = 8.33, SD = 5.88), t(41) = 2.52, p = .016, d = 0.78. Ratings of perceived aggressiveness were negatively correlated with aggressive behavior, r(43) = − .46, p = .002. Finally, it was addressed whether perceived aggressiveness would mediate the effect of type of video game on aggressive behavior. As noted above, type of video game significantly predicted perceived aggressiveness and aggressive behavior, respectively. When type of video game and perceived aggressiveness were entered simultaneously to predict aggressive behavior, type of video game did not receive a significant regression weight, whereas perceived aggressiveness did ( Fig. 2). To test whether the indirect effect of type of video game on aggressive behavior was due to differences in perceived aggressiveness, a bootstrapping analysis (with 1,000 iterations) was used, recommended by Preacher and Hayes (2004) for small samples. This analysis revealed a trend such that the effect of playing violent video games on aggressive behavior was mediated by the perception of what counts as aggressive, although this trend fell just short of statistical significance (p = .064) and the confidence interval for the indirect effect included 0 (− 11.80 to 0.45).
