Video game-induced aggressive thoughts among middle-childhood males: The influence of type of game participation and type of opponent

• Main Authors: Carlos, Anna Christine, Pascual, Heidi
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2001
• Subjects: Video games—Psychological aspects, Aggressiveness in children; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/4213
• Institution: De La Salle University

Children nowadays are exposed to all sorts of media from the famous television to the internet. Besides the exposure comes the easy access to these forms of media which carries all sorts themes. The more popular mode of media at present is the computer and computer games. Most computer games contain violence in their themes as the goal for victory is to be achieved. Children, especially those in their middle childhood, being exposed to these sorts of media and their violent contents, easily inculcate these violent contents that they see. The variable measured in this study is the child's post game aggressive thoughts. The independent variables of this study are the modes of game participation (observant and player) and the types of opponent (computer and human). The researchers used Counter-strike as the violent game and Tetris as the non-violent game for the control group. The researchers wanted to see the following: (1) the effects of playing violent video games on boy's post game aggressive thoughts, (2) the effects of type of participation on boy's post game aggressive thoughts and (3) the effects of type of opponent on boys' post game aggressive thoughts. The Aggressive Thoughts Questionnaire devised by the researchers was used to measure the participant's aggressive thoughts. 100 boys aged 6-12 participated in this experiment. A quantitative analysis was used to assess the results of the experiment. The experiment showed a significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental conditions and the control groups have significantly different mean scores. The four experimental conditions aggressive thoughts scores are significantly higher than that of the control group except for the condition where the boy observes a player play against a computer opponent. The study was able to prove that having human opponents triggered greater aggressive thoughts than that of computer opponents. It however did not show any significant difference in the aggressive thoughts of boys who played and observed the violent game being played as the mean aggressive scores of these 2 conditions did not differ significantly. Those with human opponents, however, had significantly higher mean aggressive scores than those with computer opponents. The mean aggressive scores of players with a human opponent revealed to be significantly higher than players with computer opponents. While those observers of players with human opponents had significantly higher mean aggressive scores than those observers of players with computer opponents.