Video Games and Their Ability to Cause Aggressive Tendencies

Videogames always get the blame placed on them whenever there is a violent outburst from a child and or an adult. The situation usually is after they commit the act they usually say a game inspired them to do it or a parent will outright just blame a newer game because of some of the content that game has in it. Videogames can be very fun and entertaining but do they cause people to become more violent. Videogames have a great amount of potential for almost everything they can be applied to train, teach, and just for leisure. Though some games can be very over the top and sometimes give out a little too much that could be dialed back. Videogames do contain the ability to cause aggressive tendencies in people but not because of the violence that they contain.

Videogames have the ability to cause frustration in the people who play them which can lead to them showing aggressive tendencies. One reason is the games mechanics and or difficulty can cause frustration which can lead to aggressive emotions. Game mechanics are notorious for causing aggression when a player isn’t use to it they can be very frustrating and irritating because they player just feels lost and unable to accomplish anything. In a laboratory study as the authors of the Advance in Experimental Social Psychology take the response of the player to the videogame with this being what they found:

Mediational analysis suggested that the trait effects and the violent videogame effects on laboratory aggression were particularly mediational by revenge motivation. The correlational study uncovered links between habitual exposure to violent videogames, persistent aggression cognitions, and self-reported aggressive behavior. (199)

Puzzle games can be extremely aggravating due to...

... middle of paper ...

... C. Valentine. "VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES: SPECIFIC EFFECTS OF VIOLENT CONTENT ON AGGRESSIVE THOUGHTS AND BEHAVIOR." ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 36 (2004): 199-249. Google Scholar. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .

Möller, Ingrid, and Barbara Krahé. "Exposure to Violent Video Games and Aggression in

German Adolescents: A Longitudinal Analysis." Aggressive Behavior 35.1 (2008): 75-89. Google Scholar. Web. 26 Mar. 2014.

Gentile, Douglas A., Paul J. Lynch, Jennifer Ruh Linder, and David A. Walsh. "The Effects of

Violent Video Game Habits on Adolescent Hostility, Aggressive Behaviors, and School Performance." Journal of Adolescence 27.1 (2004): 5-22.Google Scholar. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .