The relationship between everyday sadism, violent video game play, and fascination with weapons

Previous research has shown that everyday sadism is positively related to the amount of violent video game play. The present research extends this line of work by examining whether everyday sadists are attracted to violent video games because they are fascinated with weapons. In fact, a survey (N = 613) showed that everyday sadism was significantly related to both violent video game play and the fascination with weapons. These relationships remained significant when controlling for the impact of trait aggression and the Dark Triad (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism). Most importantly, fascination with weapons mediated the relationship between everyday sadism and amount of violent video game play. It thus appears that everyday sadists use virtual weapons during violent video game play to satisfy their fascination with weapons.