Effect of Multiplayer Interactive Violent Video Games on Players' Explicit and Implicit Aggression

摘要

While violent video games are of great concern to the public for their potential impact of inducing aggression, recent changes in the dynamics of gaming has rendered study of such phenomena quite challenging. The impact of interpersonal factors on players' aggression has not yet to be fully understood. The present experiment was designed to test explicit and implicit aggression caused by multiplayer interactive violent games. 56 male participants were randomly assigned to three groups (four-player group, double-player group and solo-play group). Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST) and words evaluation task (WET) were used to test implicit and explicit aggressive cognition respectively. Competitive Reaction Time Task (CRT) was for measuring explicit aggressive behavior. Results showed: (1) Participants with low-trait aggression were more aggressive in implicit aggressive cognition when playing in four-player group than in other two groups. (2) Explicit aggressive cognition was affected by both interactive modes and trait aggression without interaction. The solo-play group was more explicitly aggressive than the four-player group. High-trait aggression group was more aggressive than low-trait group. (3) Participants' aggressive behavior decreased as the number of players increased. Factors that affect violent video games' impact on players' aggression were discussed.