Killing Is Positive! - Hogrefe eContent

Original Article

Killing Is Positive! Intra-Game Responses Meet the Necessary (But Not Sufficient) Theoretical Conditions for Influencing Aggressive Behavior Annie Lang,1 Samuel D. Bradley,2 Edward F. Schneider,3 Sojung C. Kim,4 and Sharon Mayell1 1

Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA, 2Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA, 3 University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA, 4High Point University, High Point, NC, USA Abstract. This paper reports a study designed to investigate whether playing violent video games elicits the psychological conditions theoretically required for media use to cause aggressive behavior. Specifically, the study was designed to examine whether these games elicit desensitization, facilitation, and disinhibition. Thus, does physiological arousal in response to violent activity decrease over time during game play, and is there a difference between novice and experienced game players (as would be expected if desensitization had occurred)? Do players experience positive emotional states when actively engaged in virtual violent behavior (fighting and killing opponents) – a necessary condition for disinhibition? Do game players frame their motivations in terms of self-defense and game success, as would be necessary for facilitation to occur? The results showed that playing first-person shooters did elicit these requisite patterns of cognitive, physiological, and emotional states. Violent game play is a positive, arousing, present, dominant experience, as required for disinhibition and facilitation. Experienced game players are less aroused than less experienced game players (as required for desensitization). Further, during a game-playing session, exploring and searching for enemies become less arousing, while fighting and killing become more arousing over time (as required by desensitization and facilitation). Keywords: video games, attention, emotion, desensitization, facilitation

Introduction Violent video games are a frequent topic of concern. Just hours after a school shooting in Erfurt, Germany, the alleged shooter’s video game habits were being reported on the news (Muriel, 2002). Following Norway’s 2011 youth camp murder spree, several large Norwegian retailers pulled violent video games off the shelves (Poeter, 2011). The killer’s manifesto said he had used the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ‘‘as part of my training-simulation’’ (Waterfield, 2011). It is not surprising that the linkage continues to follow each such event. One of the most widely cited early attacks on video games came from then-US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (Koop, 1982). Although he lambasted the games as ‘‘aberrations in childhood behavior,’’ he admitted that he had no scientific research to back up his claim. Since then a great deal of research has looked at who plays video games, why they play, and how video game playing affects aggressive behavior. The primary independent variable in this research has almost always been time spent with games in general or with a specific genre of game. Dependent variables have included various indicators of aggression, including levels of aggressive traits,

Journal of Media Psychology 2012; Vol. 24(4):154–165 DOI: 10.1027/1864-1105/a000075

behaviors, and reported problems in school and with the law (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Anderson & Ford, 1986; Ballard & Wiest, 1996; Bartholow & Anderson, 2002; Bushman & Anderson, 2002; M. Griffiths, 1997; Irwin & Gross, 1995; Kirsh, 1998; Lin & Lepper, 1987; Schutte, Malouff, Postgorden, & Rodasta, 1988; Silvern & Williamson, 1987). As is often the case with studies that look for an average behavioral effect of media use, individual studies paint a somewhat inconsistent picture and metaanalyses suggest a small – yet persistent – effect. Rather than add another paper to the body of use/behavior studies, this paper seeks to investigate only whether playing violent video games actually elicits the necessary (but not sufficient) psychological conditions – those required by theory – to foster a use/aggression link. Specifically this paper examines the emotional, motivational, and physiological responses of video game players while they are playing a first-person shooter video game. The question being asked is, do these games elicit the emotional and physiological states required by theory to result in desensitization, facilitation, and disinhibition? Thus, does physiological arousal in response to violent activity decrease over time during game play, and is there a difference between novice and experienced game players (as would be expected if

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A. Lang et al.: IntraGame Responses May Influence Future Aggression

desensitization occurs)? Do players experience positive emotional states when actively engaged in virtual violent behavior (fighting and killing opponents) – a necessary condition for disinhibition? Do game players frame their motivations in terms of self-defense and game success, as would be necessary for facilitation to occur?

Theories About Violent Media and Aggression Years of research into the link between violent media and aggression have convinced most researchers that violent media can play a role in the development of aggressive behavior. The general aggression model (GAM) provides a current framework for media/aggression theories. GAM builds a progression from ‘‘inputs’’ through ‘‘routes’’ to ‘‘outcomes’’ where input is the person/situation, route is the internal state (affect, cognition, and arousal), and output is the decision/action (aggression) (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). This study herein focuses on the internal state during video game play as tracked by physiological and self-report measures. This study does not measure any outcomes of aggression, but asks if violent video game play elicits the emotional states conducive to disinhibition, desensitization, and facilitation – three well-established antecedent psychological conditions for aggression included in GAM and other models. Traditional theories about how violent media increase violent behavior center on three primary mechanisms: desensitization, disinhibition, and facilitation (Bandura, 2001; Tan, 1981, 1986). Each of these mechanisms is related to – or requires – certain psychological or emotional states. The theoretical functioning of each mechanism and the associated necessary conditions for them to play a role in the development of aggressive behavior follow.

Arousal and Desensitization Desensitization is theorized to play a role in the development of aggressive behavior by decreasing the levels of arousal experienced by media users in response to mediated violence. Many theoretical explanations for the link between violent video games and aggression focus on arousal as a contributing or causal factor (Anderson et al., 2009; Ballard & Wiest, 1996; Barlett & Rodeheffer, 2009; Calvert & Tan, 1994; Carnagey, Anderson, & Bushman, 2007; Cooper & Mackie, 1986; Fleming & Rickwood, 2001; M. Griffiths, 1996; M. D. Griffiths & Dancaster, 1995; Phillips et al., 1995). In particular, it has been suggested that, over time, exposure to video game violence decreases the arousal response, leading users to judge or perceive violent acts and actions as less violent or less aggressive because they are less arousing. Recent studies measuring electroencephalogram brain activity (Bartholow, Bushman, & Sestir, 2006; Engelhardt, Bartholow, Kerr, & Bushman, 2011), and functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans (Weber, Ritterfeld, & Mathiak, 2006) of violent video game players have detected brain response changes correlated to desensitization and aggression. In a 2012 Hogrefe Publishing

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first-person shooter study by Arriaga, Monteiro, and Esteves (2011), the results showed emotional desensitization measured by self-reported arousal and valence following violent game play. Krahe and Moller (Krahe et al., 2011) found desensitization to violent film content, as measured by decreased physiological arousal, among habitual users of violent media content (though this result did not link to their aggression measures). Arousal has historically been conceptualized in many different ways. Some researchers consider arousal to be a unitary energizing force (Cannon, 1915), while others view it as a dimension of emotional experience (Bradley, 2000; P. J. Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, & Hamm, 1993) that varies from calm to excited. Lacey (1967) and Zillmann (1982) conceptualized arousal as having three dimensions: cortical, behavioral, and physiological. In this study, we conceptualize arousal in three ways: first as a dimension of emotional response (emotional arousal), second, as physiological arousal or activation in the sympathetic nervous system, and third, a cortical dimension, indicated by the level of activation in the parasympathetic nervous system – which is activated during attention to an external stimulus (such as a video game). To do this we measure both heart rate (which is dually innervated by the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems) and skin conductance (which is enervated only by the sympathetic nervous system). Thus, skin conductance will be used to assess sympathetic nervous system activation or physiological arousal. Heart rate will be used, cautiously, as an indicator of attention or parasympathetic arousal. This is appropriate because although heart rate is under the dual control of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, research has shown that the parasympathetic response tends to dominate during media use. As a result, when a person is paying close attention to mediated stimuli (even arousing stimuli), heart rate slows (A. Lang, 1994). Thus, if a person is both physiologically aroused and paying close attention, they should have an equal skin conductance to, and a slower heart rate than, a person who is physiologically aroused but not paying close attention. There are several ways in which desensitization might be apparent in this data. First, it might be expected that over the course of game play the physiological data would show signs of decreased arousal. Secondly, we might expect there to be differences in both physiological and self-reported arousal between experienced and inexperienced game players.

Disinhibition Disinhibition is the pairing of positive feeling states (rewards) with aggressive behaviors, which lowers inhibitions toward performing aggressive acts. Theoretically, positive emotional responses function as intrinsic rewards for action. Thus, aggressive behavior is thought to be disinhibited when positive emotion is paired with aggressive behavior. Studies have found increases in positive emotional response following violent video game play, as measured by self-report in story-based games (Schneider, Lang, Shin, & Bradley 2004), by zygomatic and orbicularis Journal of Media Psychology 2012; Vol. 24(4):154–165

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oculi response (Ravaja, Turpeinen, Saari, Puttonen, & Keltikangas-Jarvinen, 2008), and by lexical decision tasks and self-report (Bçsche, 2010). Measuring emotion requires a theoretical approach. There are two competing groups of theories of emotion: dimensional and categorical. Dimensional theories view all emotions as occurring in multidimensional space (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957), often defined by the dimensions of emotional arousal (calm to excited) and valence (pleasant to unpleasant) (Bolls, Lang, & Potter, 2001; P. J. Lang et al., 1993). Dominance is sometimes used as a third emotional dimension (in control, to being controlled), although measurement reliability is often lower than that of the other two dimensions (M. M. Bradley & Lang, 1994). Dimensional theory focuses on emotion as it is being experienced by a person. The categorical view holds that emotions are based upon a primary and universal foundation of discrete emotions (Ekman, 1993), the most common of which are disgust, fear, anger, sadness, and joy. In the current study, we attempted to assess the emotional responses of game players, using both theoretical approaches. Following game play, we asked players to self-report on how they felt during differing stages of game play (hunting, fighting, and killing) using both categorical and dimensional measures. Dimensional reports were used to inform arousal, valence and dominance results. Categorical reports were used to compare how participants labeled their experience in order to examine whether these varied within levels of valence and arousal and across participant sex and levels of game experience. If the conditions exist that are necessary for disinhibition to occur, then players will report an experience of positive emotions while performing violent actions.

Facilitation Facilitation occurs because the media allow users to vicariously practice violent acts, which makes it easier, in the heat of the moment, to actually perform a learned aggressive action. In addition, certain types of violence are more likely to elicit facilitation compared with others. In particular, media violence that is rewarded or justified as selfdefense or vengeance is more likely to lead to facilitation (Tan, 1981). Clearly many video games feature this type of violence where a character must kill others to advance in the game, and failure to kill leads to the player’s virtual ‘‘death.’’ Similarly, the player’s score and level increase with each ‘‘kill,’’ thereby rewarding the violent action. It is failure to kill that is punished by the player’s own virtual demise. Thus it is expected that players will report high levels of motivation related to increasing their score, winning the game, and self-preservation.

Presence The concept of presence has risen in academic stature alongside technology advancements in television, video games, and immersive virtual reality environments. But Journal of Media Psychology 2012; Vol. 24(4):154–165

its precise definition and means of measure are not firmly established (Bailey, 2012; Biocca, Harms, & Burgoon, 2003; Wirth et al., 2007). For a definition relating to video games, presence involves embodiment (Biocca, 1997), perception of virtual objects as actual objects (Lee, 2004) and a perceived self-location in a mediated spatial environment involving either automatic or controlled cognitive resources (Wirth et al., 2007), or specifically, highly automatic resource allocation due to high appetitive activation (Bailey 2012; A. Lang, 2006). Scholars of violent video games have scrutinized the role of presence in the link to aggression (Eastin & Griffiths, 2006; Nowak, Krcmar, & Farrar, 2008; Persky & Blascovich, 2008). Certain media – in particular those that encourage the viewer to identify with the perpetrator, like television and video games – are thought to increase the likelihood of violent behavior. Many violent video games use three-dimensional graphics and first-person perspective to increase the players’ sense of being part of the action. Technologically advanced games have been shown to increase players’ sense of presence and feelings of involvement when compared with older games (Ivory & Kalyanaraman, 2007). In addition, because the player is the character in first-person games, and sees the world, not ‘‘themselves,’’ through their character’s eyes, participant identification with the aggressor is probably quite strong (Dill & Dill, 1998; Dominick, 1984). As game players identify more with their characters, they should feel more a part of the game and feel a greater sense of presence. Klimmt and Vorderer (2003) suggest video game interactivity provides feelings of control and power, which in turn entice players to prolong the state of presence during play. In this study, we examine whether game players’ sense of presence influences arousal, the experience of positive emotion, or their game play motivations. In summary, our study proposes that if violent video game players feel positive when committing violent acts during play, report that their motivations are related to self-protection and success, and show signs of decreased arousal across time, then we can conclude that the conditions necessary to result in desensitization, disinhibition, and facilitation exist during violent video game play.

Method To test these predictions, an experiment was designed in which participants played 10 min of a first-person shooter video game. Logically, because all parts of games do not require aggressive or violent behavior they should not elicit the same cognitive or physical responses. To the extent that different playing actions and events elicit different kinds of responses or provide different kinds of challenges, it is likely that users will experience differences in emotion, physiology, and cognition over the course of game play as a function of what is happening during the game. Another video game study, though not one using first-person shooters, has shown that specific game events do elicit correlated physiological responses of arousal and emotional 2012 Hogrefe Publishing


valence (Ravaja, Saari, Salminen, Laarni, & Kallinen, 2006). In the study reported here, game playing was segmented by the type of action being engaged in by the player. The game Quake II requires players to explore their environment to advance to higher levels. At the same time they must fight off opponents. Thus players engage in four regularly occurring activities. First, players explore the environment while looking for (or avoiding) opponents. We call this the ‘‘hunt’’ stage. Once an opponent has been spotted, players are briefly in what we call a ‘‘see’’ stage, where the opponent has been seen but not yet engaged. Although players may run away, this rarely happens. Instead this stage is usually followed by a ‘‘fight’’ stage. During this stage, players attempt to kill the opponent using some form of weapon, usually a gun, while the opponent tries to kill them. The fight stage ends when either the player or the opponent dies. In this study, we analyzed only the fight stages that end when the opponent is killed. Thus, the final stage is the ‘‘kill’’ stage. The first-person shooter is a genre of games in which the player’s character is not visible. Instead the player uses a computer screen to view what their character would see. In this sense, the player views what the character would see in the first person. These types of game are immediately recognizable by the appearance of a weapon pointing forward from the bottom of the screen. This genre should not be confused with shooter games, in which players use some type of a gun device to shoot objects on-screen. Although most action video games have some type of fighting, the fighting in the first-person shooter genre is one of the most distinctive in gaming.

Design This experiment employed a completely within-subjects Action (4) · Episode (6) factorial design. In addition, planned between-subjects comparisons were made using participant sex and game experience as factors. Participants played the game Quake II for approximately 10 min. The Action factor represents the four types of actions required to play Quake II: hunting, seeing, fighting, and killing. For the self-report data, all four levels of action are used. For the physiology data, this factor has only two levels, hunting and fighting. This is because these actions occur over time, unlike seeing and killing, which are momentary, fleeting actions that mark the end of the hunting stage and the end of the fighting stage, respectively. Physiological measures were recorded for each subject over their first six hunt/fight episodes during their approximately 10 min of play. The duration of an episode varied according to the ability of the player to achieve the kill moment. The six episodes make up the time factor from the first to the last hunt/fight pairing during game play.

Participants Participants were 38 students recruited from an undergraduate course in a Midwest university’s School of Education. 2012 Hogrefe Publishing

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They participated in the experiment for extra credit. There were 24 men and 14 women.

Experience The measure of game playing experience developed for this study used a three-item scale. All items used 10-point scales. The first item asked how frequently (1 = rarely, 10 = frequently) the participants had played similar games. Item 2 asked how hard it was to use the keyboard to play the game (1 = hard, 10 = easy). The third item asked how good the participants thought they were at the game (1 = poor, 10 = excellent). The reliability for the experience measure was a = .89. This resulted in a 10-point scale. Five and lower was defined as low experience, and > 5 was defined as high experience. This resulted in 20 players with high experience (M = 7.30, SD = 0.79) and 18 with low experience (M = 2.78, SD = 1.79). The two groups had significantly different experience levels, F(1, 36) = 97.81, p < .01.

Dependent Variables Physiological Arousal Physiological arousal was measured using skin conductance, an indicator of activation in the sympathetic nervous system (Hopkins & Fletcher, 1994). Skin conductance was analyzed separately for the hunt and fight segments. For each segment, the frequency of spontaneous skin conductance responses (SCRs) and the amplitude of the largest SCR were measured. To be counted and scored as an SCR, a minimum increase of 0.10 lS was required. Skin conductance was measured by placing two Beckman standard silver/silver chloride electrodes on the participant’s nondominant hand after washing the skin with distilled water to control hydration. The signal was passed to a Coulbourn skin conductance module that provides a constant measurement voltage of 0.5 V, and conductance was sampled and recorded 20 times/s during the hunt and fight stages. For analysis, the frequency of spontaneous SCRs and amplitude of the largest SCR were measured for each of the six episodes of hunting and fighting.

Physiological/Cortical Arousal – Attention Heart rate was measured to serve as an indicator of attention, in conjunction with our understanding of task demands and concurrently measured sympathetic nervous system activation. Heart rate is dually enervated by the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Heart rate decreases in response to parasympathetic activation – which is often associated with external attention tasks and increases in response to sympathetic arousal often associated with increased emotional or physical arousal. At any given time, heart rate is being influenced by both systems. Heart rate has been shown to decelerate during periods of attention Journal of Media Psychology 2012; Vol. 24(4):154–165

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to external media stimuli such as TV, radio, and Internet content (A. Lang, 1994). This is true even when stimuli are emotionally arousing (A. Lang, Newhagen, & Reeves, 1996). On the other hand, heart rate has also been shown to decelerate less or even to accelerate in response to sympathetic activation during media use. Therefore, changes in heart rate need to be interpreted in concurrence with a simultaneous measure of sympathetic activation and within the context of task demands. For this study, skin conductance was recorded as a measure of sympathetic activation. Within the game play task, the hunting stage was conceptualized as more externally oriented while the fighting stage was thought to require more sympathetic activation. Heart rate was recorded with a Coulbourn bioamplifier with a 60-Hz notch filters connected to two Beckman silver/silver chloride electrodes located on the participant’s forearms. Heart activity was recorded in milliseconds between beats, as determined by a Schmidt trigger, and later converted to beats per minute (bpm) using a weighted average algorithm. Data were averaged over the beginning, middle, and final segments of each hunting and fighting episode to allow examination of variation over time.

Presence Participants reported how much they felt like they were part of the game using two semantic differential scales asking them how much they felt as if they were really there and how much they felt they were in a real place. Presence was measured at the end of the game and was assessed for the overall experience. The correlation between the two presence items was r = .75, p < .001. Motivation and Strategy To determine the role of self-defense, reward, and game success and whether related strategies were used while playing the game, participants rated six goals using 10point scales where 1 was not very important and 10 was very important. Participants rated their goals in terms of staying alive, overcoming the opponent, getting to the next level, exploring the environment, avoiding opponents, and seeking out opponents.

Apparatus Dimensional Emotional Response Emotional responses were measured by having people selfreport how they felt on three dimensions of emotion: emotional arousal, valence, and dominance (A. Lang, Dhillon, & Dong, 1995). Emotional arousal was measured with a self-report 10-point semantic differential anchored by ‘‘calm’’ and ‘‘aroused’’ (A. Lang, Sias, Chantrill, & Burek, 1995). Valence was measured using a 10-point semantic differential scale anchored by ‘‘happy’’ and ‘‘sad.’’ Dominance was measured using a 10-point semantic differential scale anchored by ‘‘in control’’ and ‘‘out of control.’’ Categorical Emotional Response The second measure asked participants to rate (for each type of action), how much they felt each of three pairs of specific emotions. This measure was developed for this study to examine the appraisal aspect of emotional response within a dimensional framework. We were interested in how the participant’s sex and experience might alter the valence but not the arousal of the emotional experience they chose. In each pair of emotions, one of the emotions has a relatively positive label while the other has a relatively negative level. The pairs were designed so that both members of the pair expressed somewhat similar locations on the arousal dimension of emotional space but opposite points on the valence dimension. The three pairs, with the more negative member stated first, were remorse and hope, dread and anticipation, and shock and surprise. Participants rated their experience of each emotion while hunting and while fighting on a 10-point scale where 1 corresponded to not feeling that emotion at all and 10 corresponded to feeling that emotion very strongly. Journal of Media Psychology 2012; Vol. 24(4):154–165

The experiment was controlled by a PC equipped with a Labmaster A/D D/A board. Participants played the game on the PC with a 19-inch monitor and surround sound speakers. The game was controlled using the keyboard. The experimenter watched the game player through a one-way mirror. The experimenter was able to see the game screen and the participant. The experimenter pushed a key whenever the action changed, and they circled on a code sheet the type of action. Hence, for each participant, the data segments were marked at each change of action, and the type of action change was coded. Thus there were two kinds of physiological data segments, hunt segments that ended when an opponent was seen and fight segments that ended when the opponent was killed.

Procedure Participants took part in the experiment one at a time. Participants were greeted, signed a consent form, and were seated in a comfortable chair. Electrodes were applied to the skin. Participants underwent a short training and practice period where they learned how to play the game and which controls to use. When participants were comfortable with the controls and the object of the game, they began. Participants played the game until they had played for 10 min or killed at least six opponents. At that time, participants would have proceeded through six sequential episodes of both hunting and fighting. Following play, participants completed the questionnaire. After completing the questionnaire, the electrodes were removed, participants were thanked and dismissed. Data were analyzed using univariate repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Effects sizes are reported 2012 Hogrefe Publishing


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using the more conservative statistic of epsilon-squared (e2), analogous to adjusted R2 (Keppel, 1982). Because this was an exploratory study, a Type I error rate (i.e., alpha) of .10 was adopted for reporting significance. This decision was made because it was judged that making a Type II error was more problematic than making a tentative conclusion as a result of a Type I error.

Results Desensitization Theoretically, if there is a state conducive to desensitization, then two things would be expected: first, that those with more gaming experience might show less arousal during game play, and second, that over time, for some game actions, arousal would decrease. On the other hand, if, as expected, conditions conducive to facilitation are occurring, we might expect to see somewhat greater arousal (associated with increased positive emotional experience) over time when actually performing violent actions (e.g., during the killing phase) but not during other game phases (e.g., the hunt phase). These predictions were assessed, as appropriate, for all three indicators of arousal, SCR (for sympathetic physiological arousal), heart rate (for attention associated with both sympathetic and parasympathetic physiological arousal), and self-reported emotional arousal. Skin Conductance To examine these predictions the skin conductance data were analyzed using an Experience (2) · Action (2) · Episode (6) repeated-measures analysis of variance. The predicted Action · Time interaction was significant, F(5, 135) = 2.65, p = .026, e2 = .05. Over the 10 min of game play, as users played, hunting (a nonviolent action) became less arousing, supporting the desensitization prediction, and fighting (the violent action) became more arousing, supporting facilitation (see Figure 1). However, there was no difference in skin conductance between experienced and inexperienced game players (F < 1). Heart Rate Heart rate data were averaged over the early, middle, and late stages of each episode and analyzed with an Action (2) · Episode (6) · Time (3) repeated-measures ANOVA. If decreasing sympathetic dominance were occurring, we would have expected to see a significant Action · Episode interaction, but we do not. Instead, we saw a significant main effect of action on heart rate, F(1, 25) = 13.38, p < .001, e2 = .32. Heart rate was slower while hunting (M = 82.02 bpm, SD = 17.92) than while fighting (M = 84.66 bpm, SD = 19.65), supporting the contention that participants may pay more external attention during the hunt than during the fight, and also that fighting is more 2012 Hogrefe Publishing

Figure 1. Frequency of spontaneous skin conductance responses as a function of action and episode.

Figure 2. Heart rate over time as a function of game action within each individual episode. arousing than hunting. Similarly, the Action · Time interaction was significant, F(2, 50) = 5.69, p < .01, e2 = .15 (Figure 2). This interaction showed that over the course of the hunting episodes heart rate decreased – indicative of an increase in attention – and that over the course of a fighting episode heart rate increased – indicative of increased arousal. However, this within-episode pattern did not change over the 10-min course of game play and likely reflected task demands. Hunting is an externally vigilant task, which likely activates the parasympathetic nervous system more than the sympathetic nervous system, resulting in the increasingly slower heart rate over time; in addition, the skin conductance results showed that hunting was less arousing over time, decreasing the sympathetic contribution to heart rate. On the other hand, fighting was seen to increase arousal (SCRs) over time and was a less externally attentive task – thus, we saw faster heart rates probably both as a result of less external attention and more sympathetic arousal.

Self-Reported Arousal The main effect of game action was also significant on selfreported emotional arousal, F(3, 102) = 12.00, p < .001, Journal of Media Psychology 2012; Vol. 24(4):154–165

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Table 1. Self-reported arousal, valence, and dominance as a function of action Arousal Game stage Hunt See Fight Kill

M

SD a

5.70 7.49b 7.33b 5.39a

2.60 2.23 2.55 3.05

Valence M

SD a

5.78 6.56a 6.23a 7.74b

2.25 1.93 2.60 1.46

Table 2. Comparison of high- and low-experience game players’ responses on self-report measures

Dominance M a

4.92 4.35a 4.29a 2.22b

High experience

SD

Measure

2.71 2.19 2.50 1.42

Arousal* Dominance* Valence** Presence

Notes. Measures are from 10-point semantic differentials: For Arousal: 1 = calm, 10 = aroused; for Valence: 1 = sad, 10 = happy; and for Dominance: 1 = in control, 10 = out of control. a,bMeans in the same column sharing the same superscript letters are not significantly different.

e2 = .23 (Table 1). Participants reported the greatest emotional arousal when seeing the opponent, followed by fighting, then hunting, and finally killing (Table 1). Post hoc analysis showed that hunting and killing were significantly less emotionally arousing than seeing and fighting. Although the participants found the fighting itself arousing, the act of killing generated the least self-reported emotional arousal. The Sex · Action interaction was not significant, F(3, 90) = .56, p = .46. In addition, as expected, experienced game players reported feeling less aroused, F(1, 30) = 4.91, p = .034, e2 = .10 than less experienced game players, as would be predicted if desensitization had occurred (Table 2). These effects did not vary as a function of action or sex (Fs < 1).

Disinhibition: The Pairing of Positive Emotion and Violent Action Here the prediction is that game players will report feeling positive emotions while engaged in violent actions. These predictions were assessed by examining the self-reported dimensional and categorical emotion measures.

Low experience

M

SD

M

SD

5.70 3.34 7.00 4.92

1.76 1.59 0.99 2.30

7.12 4.42 6.40 5.50

2.04 1.45 1.76 2.95

Notes. Measures are from 10-point semantic differentials: For Arousal: 1 = calm, 10 = aroused; for Valence: 1 = sad, 10 = happy; and for Dominance: 1 = in control, 10 = out of control. The Presence measure was the average of two measures: 1 = low presence, and 10 = high presence. *p < .05; **p < .10.

e2 = .04. Men reported feeling more positive during every stage, with the most pronounced difference for the fight stage. In addition, experienced game players reported feeling more positive, F(1, 31) = 3.21, p = .083, e2 = .06, than inexperienced game players. The third measure of dimensional emotion was selfreported dominance, and it also was significantly affected by game stage, F(3, 96) = 12.58, p < .001, e2 = .26 (Table 1). Overall, participants felt in control while playing the game. Post hoc pairwise analysis showed that participants felt significantly more in control when they killed their opponents than when hunting, seeing, or fighting. Although the killing stage led to the greatest feelings of dominance, the fighting stage was the second lowest, suggesting that the outcome of the struggle was somewhat in doubt for these game players. Men and women reported similar dominance scores, F(1, 32) = 1.31, p = .26, and the sex by action interaction was not significant, F(3, 90) = .18, p = .91 (Table 3). Not surprisingly, players with more experience reported feeling more dominant than less experienced players, F(1, 32) = 4.22, p = .048, e2 = .09 across game stages (Table 2).

Dimensional Emotion Categorical Analysis The dimensional emotion self-report measures were analyzed with an Action (4) · Sex (2) · Experience (2) mixed univariate ANOVA. Game Action had significant effects on self-reported valence, F(3, 93) = 22.92, p < .001, e2 = .19 (Table 1). All four game stages were rated as positive experiences with means above the middle point of the scale. Game players felt the most positive during the killing stage and the least positive during the hunting stage. Fighting and seeing fell in the middle. Post hoc differences using least significant difference reveal that killing was rated as significantly more positive than the other three actions. In addition, hunting was rated as being less positive (p = .056) than either seeing or fighting. Men also self-reported feeling more positive than women overall, F(1, 31) = 3.41, p = .074, e2 = .07, and this interacted with action, F(3, 90) = 2.11, p = .10, Journal of Media Psychology 2012; Vol. 24(4):154–165

To examine the categorical emotion data an Action (4) · Valence (2) · Reps (3) · Sex (2) · Experience (2) mixed ANOVA was run on the categorical emotions ratings data. The valence factor has two levels negative and positive. The reps factor was made up of the three pairs of adjectives. There was a significant Action main effect, F(3, 90) = 9.39, p < .001, e2 = .25. Here hunting, seeing, and fighting all scored similarly across categorical emotions, Mhunt = 4.01 (SD = 0.29), Msee = 4.16 (SD = 0.30), Mfight = 4.03 (SD = 0.34), while killing was much less emotional (Mkill = 2.91, SD = 0.29). In addition, there was a pronounced Valence effect, F(1, 30) = 27.95, p < .001, e2 = .36, with participants reporting much stronger positive, Mpositive = 4.68, SD = 0.30, compared with negative, Mnegative = 2.88, SD = 0.33, emotions. 2012 Hogrefe Publishing


Table 3. Comparison of Male and Female Self-Responses to Arousal, Dominance, Valence, and Presence Measures Women Measure Arousal Dominance Valence* Presence**

Men

M

SD

M

SD

6.62 4.33 5.89 4.07

1.67 1.26 1.97 2.34

6.34 3.68 6.86 5.88

2.22 1.73 1.09 2.59

Notes. Measures are from 10-point semantic differentials: For Arousal: 1 = calm, 10 = aroused; for Valence: 1 = sad, 10 = happy; for Dominance: 1 = in control, 10 = out of control. The Presence measure was the average of three measures, 1 = low presence, and 10 = high presence. *p < .10; **p < .05.

Facilitation Facilitation is caused primarily by the opportunity to practice violent actions, an opportunity which first-person shooters provide aplenty. However, theory also suggests that facilitation is more likely when actions are framed in terms of self-defense or game-playing success (seeking rewards such as points or levels) rather than in other terms (such as exploring or avoiding fighting). To test this hypothesis, the motivational data was submitted to a Game/Explore (2) · Repetitions (3) · Sex (2) · Experience (2) ANOVA. Here the motivations thought to be in line with facilitation were playing to stay alive, to overcome all opponents, and to get to the next level. The motivations that would least lead to facilitation were exploring the environment, avoiding the opponent, and seeking out opponents. There was a main effect for the Game/Explore factor, F(1, 36) = 11.50, p < .001, e2 = .24. Participants rated the exploring factors as more important, Mexplore = 4.87, SD = 0.30, than game-related motivations, Mgame = 3.47, SD = 0.42.

Presence Finally, it was suggested that all of these effects might be influenced by the sense of presence. Analysis of the presence data shows that men reported feeling a greater sense of presence than did women, F(1, 36) = 4.58, p = .04, e2 = .09 (Table 3). Experience did not affect the sense of presence, despite its significant effects on self-reported emotional experience, F(1, 36) = .46, p = .50. Interestingly, there were effects of presence on the skin conductance frequency data, F(1, 27) = 4.68, p = .04, e2 = .12, and on the self-report arousal data, F(1, 34) = 3.17, p = .08, e2 = .06. Players who felt a strong sense of presence also experienced more physiological (Mphysio = 1.02, SD = 0.70) and self-reported (Mself-report = 7.00, SD = 1.90) arousal than those who felt less present (Mphysio = 0.57, SD = 0.37; Mself-report = 5.84, SD = 2.01). 2012 Hogrefe Publishing

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Discussion This study was guided by the notion that understanding intragame emotions and physiological responses is crucial to understanding the ultimate behavioral effects of video games. The results showed that physiological and emotional responses during violent video game play varied in response to the type of action required by the game, and were not much affected by the sex and experience of the player. Overall, players felt positive, aroused, in control, present, and dominant while playing a video game. Further, both self-reported and physiological arousal declined over time for violent game actions, and self-reported arousal declined as a function of experience. In other words, firstperson shooter games do appear to elicit the psychological and emotional states conducive to disinhibition and desensitization. Interestingly, although first-person shooters clearly do provide the opportunity to practice violent acts, and therefore the primary condition for facilitation to occur, players did not self-report motivations related to self-preservation and winning the game, which would be theorized to increase that effect. Both usage (motivation to play) and in-game (motivation for game action) motivation patterns have been studied extensively by game scholars. For violent video games, results report enjoyment, competition, challenge, and social interaction (Jansz & Tanis, 2007); for massively multiplayer online role-playing games, they report achievement, social interaction, and immersion (Yee, 2006); and for various other games, they report game-related self-efficacy and enjoyment (Klimmt, Hartmann, & Frey, 2007; Trepte & Reinecke, 2011) and fantasy and sense of control (Jansz, Avis, & Vosmeer, 2010). A number of theories have suggested developmental motivations. Jansz (2005) theorizes that adolescent males in search of an identity play violent video games to experience emotional growth in private, including both positive and negative emotions. Similarly, Klimmt and colleagues suggest video game play offers identification with character attributes and the ability to construct one’s self-concept (Klimmt, Hefner, & Vorderer, 2009). Individual differences implicate a vast range of motivations for game use. The present study limited the focus to in-game motivation for reward and self-preservation in a first-person shooter game by self-report measure.

Action Matters Of particular interest here, however, is that the actual action of the character matters. As one would expect, people exhibit different emotions and states of arousal in real-life hunting and fighting, and such changes also occur during the mediated experience of video games. When looking at the fight stage itself, one notices that combat is highly arousing but leads to reports of being less in control. The valence data suggest that this uncertainty of control is less well liked. The killing stage, conversely, is less arousing, but it is marked by high feelings of control and more positive valence. This would suggest that there is not one single Journal of Media Psychology 2012; Vol. 24(4):154–165

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psychological/physiological/emotional state elicited by the act of playing video games. Instead, it is the specific actions performed during the game that influence the pattern of physiological and emotional responses elicited at a given time. Likely successful games elicit feelings of positive emotion, control, and presence. However, those responses could easily be paired with different actions or different motivations for performing the actions. In the first-person shooter study by Ravaja et al. (2008), facial muscle measures showed a decrease in positive affect, and there was an increase in skin arousal measures during wounding and killing of an opponent, but an increase in positive affect and arousal during wounding or death of one’s own player. In that study, players did not desensitize over time, and emotional responses were counter to what one would expect from similar real-life violence. Klimmt, Rizzo, Vorderer, Koch, and Fischer (2009) found that suspense, based in negatively valenced hope and fear, produced enjoyment in a first-person shooter game. These findings are in line with those reported here. During the fighting, there is arousal, suspense, less control, and less positive affect. Once the opponent has been vanquished, arousal declines and control and positive emotion increase.

Sex of Participant and Experience From the literature, one would expect men to report more positive valence than women. Lucas and Sherry (2004) reported that men like shooter and fighter games significantly more than women; and in Wood, Griffiths, and Chappell (2004), significantly more males (71%) preferred shooting things compared with females (45%). However, both of these studies result from survey data and reflect offline judgments of liking for types of games, not online experiences of playing a game. This study also found that men felt more positive while playing these games than women did and that they felt more positive for each of the specific actions (hunt, see, fight, and kill). Further, since there were no differences between men and women in terms of strategies employed during play, it is difficult to assign these differences to the participants having different goals during play – such as exploration versus game success (Miller, Chaika, & Groppe, 1996; Schott & Horrell, 2000; Taylor, 2003). Yet there were no sex differences with regard to these or any other strategic approaches to the games. Lucas and Sherry (2004) found challenge (‘‘very rewarding to get to the next level’’) to be a clearly topranked motivation in video game play for both men and women (though rated higher by men). But in Yee (2006), male multiplayer online gamers were significantly more motivated by achievement (advancement and competition) than the female players. Though quite a different genre from the present study’s first-person shooter game, the Jansz et al. (2010) Sims2 gender and play patterns study found that men scored higher than women on the challenge motive, but no sex differences were found for enjoyment and control. Interestingly, no differences in strategies were found based on experience either, suggesting that the speJournal of Media Psychology 2012; Vol. 24(4):154–165

cific game may play a larger role in defining successful strategies than individual differences such as sex and experience. Interestingly, the present study found that men and women did differ in terms of self-reported sense of presence. Regardless of video playing experience, men felt a much greater sense of presence than women did. This may mean that violent video games are a more real medium for men than for women, which may explain both why they felt more positive and perhaps why men play violent games more. Notably, of 751 respondents to an online first-person shooter game survey, 99% were male (Jansz & Tanis, 2007), suggesting that, left to their own devices, women either do not play these types of games or do not answer the surveys. This greater sense of presence might also make men more likely to become aggressive in response to video game playing than women. On the flip side, however, Nowak et al. (2008) found that more experienced players reported higher levels of presence, and that males felt less presence than females. It is also meaningful to note that in the physiological arousal data, men appear to become desensitized over the episodes of game playing, while women become more aroused as they progress through fighting episodes. Arriaga and colleagues (2006) reported increased arousal (skin conductance) for women and decreased arousal for men during a 4-min violent game session, but no difference in selfreport of excitement by sex. They also found no sex differences in the enjoyment of the games played. Some support for desensitization also exists in the finding that more experienced game players report feeling less aroused than less experienced game players. Since the male game players in this study happened to have somewhat more experience than the female game players, this finding may reflect desensitization on the part of the more experienced male players.

Link to Aggression Violent video games have been a topic of concern because people fear that they will lead to aggressive behavior. The results in this study suggest that there is indeed reason for concern. First of all, television violence research indicates that justified violence leads to more aggressive behavior (Berkowitz & Geen, 1966; Berkowitz & Rawlings, 1963). The violence in the stimulus game was justified in defense of the character. Of particular concern is that the act of killing one’s opponents led to the highest ratings of positive valence, the highest levels of arousal, and feeling the most in control. This means that frequent game players are linking a positive arousing physiological and experiential state with the first-person act of killing. This is exactly the experience that theory suggests should disinhibit and facilitate future aggression. In addition, the link between presence and arousal amplifies the cause for concern. As players felt more present, their physiological arousal data suggest the scenarios encountered by their character were engaging the players’ actual sympathetic nervous system and a so-called fight-or-flight 2012 Hogrefe Publishing


response. This violence was extremely ‘‘real’’ for some of the participants, both cognitively and physiologically. Overall, video games are a positive, dominant, arousing experience for players. This is true for both men and women. The differences between men and women are differences in degree not in kind.

Further Study The results of this study suggest that game playing happens on a moment-to-moment, real-time basis. To understand the playing experience, researchers must understand and control for intrastimulus characteristics. Seeking a direct link between video game playing frequency and aggressive behavior is likely too simplistic. Variations in games and the actions they require are likely to mask any direct effect, and probably contribute to findings like those in which Sherry (2001) found such a small aggregate effect size for the relationship between game playing and aggression. As with all experiments, there were limitations to this study. First, the sample contained more men than women (as does the actual population of first-person shooter gamers), but the small number of women means that we should be cautious in generalizing these results. More women and replication of results would stabilize conclusions. This study used just one video game. Although it was selected because it was a first-person shooter, which was thought to lead to the greatest involvement, presence, and empathy with the character, future studies should look at intrastimulus changes across games and across genres. Given the results of this study, it seems that a continued focus on understanding changes over time in emotion and cognition during game play could help to increase our understanding of the link between game experience and aggression-related outcomes.

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Date of acceptance: October 16, 2012

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Annie Lang (PhD, University of Wisconsin at Madison) is Distinguished Professor of Telecommunications and Cognitive Science at Indiana University. She studies mediated message processing. She is a former editor of Media Psychology, a fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA), and recipient of the ICA’s Steven H. Chaffee career productivity award. Annie Lang Indiana University Department of Telecommunications 1229 E. 7th Street Bloomington, IN 47405-5501 USA Tel. +1 812 855-5824 Samuel D. Bradley (PhD, Indiana University, Bloomington) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Advertising at Texas Tech University. His research centers on the dynamic, finite cognitive processes involved in understanding media messages in real-time.

Edward F. Schneider (PhD) is an assistant professor in visual communication at the University of South Florida School of Information, and a coordinating faculty member in the School of Mass Communication. His research focuses on data visualization, user behavior in virtual environments, and comic books as visual communication.

Sojung Claire Kim (PhD, University of Wisconsin at Madison) is an assistant professor in the School of Communication at High Point University. Her research interests lie in intersections of health communication, new interactive media, and social marketing. Her recent work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of ComputerMediated Communication, New Media & Society, and Patient Education and Counseling. Sharon Mayell (MA, University of Southern California) received a BA in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and an MA in communications from the Annenberg School for Communication (USC). She currently works as lab manager and research associate at the Institute for Communication Research Department of Telecommunications, Indiana University at Bloomington..

Journal of Media Psychology 2012; Vol. 24(4):154–165