The Spoilers of Virtual War: Experience and Performance Mediate the Relationship Between Violent Video Games and Hostility

A substantial portion of the literature investigating whether playing video games with violent content causes aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors has relied on experimental exposure to video game violence. To date, there is significant evidence suggesting these concepts are positively related, while other experiments demonstrate a null effect. A potential explanation for these contradicting findings is a failure to account for confounding such as video game performance and video game experience. This was examined across two experiments in which dyads played a violent video game and then completed state measures of hostility and positive and negative affects. Players with superior performance and greater gaming experience reported less hostility, less negative affect, and more positive affect. Mediation models showed that experience reduced hostility indirectly through performance. Historically, concern for hostility was greatest for frequent players, however, the current evidence suggests that these two variables should be accounted for prior to drawing conclusions. More broadly, future research might benefit by considering the phenomenology of gameplay in research on the risks and benefits of this hobby.