Video games and prosocial behavior: A study of the effects of non-violent, violent and ultra-violent gameplay

What is it about?

This paper improves on the method used by Tear & Nielsen (2013) to be more methodologically rigorous. Even with more exemplars of video game stimuli, more sensitive measures, and a larger sample, our data could not support a traditional hypothesis that violent video games lead to negative social outcomes.

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Why is it important?

There exists a heated debate about the level of concern we ought to have regarding violent video games. An earlier study by Tear and nielsen 2013 suggested current concern was overstated because they were unable to demonstrate a negative effect of violent video games. Those studies, however, had several methodological concerns that inhibited the certainty of the conclusions. To provide useful input for that debate, those methodological concerns were addressed in the present experiment, concluding, again, that it is difficult to demonstrate a negative effect of playing violent video games.