Video Racing Games Increase Actual Health-Related Risk-Taking Behavior

The present study investigated whether the consumption of risk-glorifying video games increases health-related risk-taking in real life. Participants were assigned to 1 of 2 conditions, whereby they either played a risk-glorifying video racing game or a risk-neutral video game for 25 minutes. Afterward, they were given the option of a saliva test in the context of a medical checkup. Our data showed that exposure to risk-glorifying video games (video racing games) increases actual general health-related risk-taking behavior. That is, players of risk-glorifying video games were significantly less likely to participate in the health checkup test than players of risk-neutral games. The potentially negative effect of risk-glorifying media on public health needs to be considered by science and politics. This is the first study showing that exposure to risk-glorifying video games actually increases real-life health-related risk-taking behavior. In addition, it is the first study showing that the impact of risk-glorifying video games is not content-specific, as it carries over from one risk-taking domain (i.e., risky driving in video games) to another completely unrelated risk-outcome domain (health-related risk-taking).