Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior: Potential Sex Differences

Evidence of the effects of playing violent video games on subsequent aggression has been mixed. This study examined how playing a violent video game affected levels of aggression displayed in a laboratory. A total of 43 undergraduate students (22 men and 21 women) were randomly assigned to play either a violent (Mortal Kombat) or nonviolent (PGA Tournament Golf) video game for 10 min. Then they competed with a confederate in a reaction time task that allowed for provocation and retaliation. Punishment levels set by participants for their opponents served as the measure of aggression. The results confirmed our hypothesis that playing the violent game would result in more aggression than would playing the nonviolent game. In addition, a Game × Sex interaction showed that this effect was larger for men than for women. Findings are discussed in light of potential differences in aggressive style between men and women.     

Trait Aggressiveness and Aggressive Behavior in the Context of Provocation and Inhibition

Aggressive behavior often occurs despite salient cues within the immediate environment that indicate aversive consequences will likely follow. Prior research has shown high trait aggressiveness to be related to sensitivity to situational provocation; however, little research has examined whether it is also related to insensitivity to situational inhibitors. This study examines the relationship between trait aggressiveness and aggressive behavior in a provocative context with, and without, an unambiguous inhibitory stimulus. Prior to experiencing provocation and being afforded the opportunity to retaliate, participants who varied in trait aggressiveness were explicitly given (or not given) an instruction that aggressive behavior might lead to aversive consequences and, thus, one should not behave aggressively. Findings revealed that without the instruction, those higher in trait aggressiveness exhibited steeper increases in aggressive responding as provocation increased. In the group that received the instruction, trait aggressiveness was unrelated to aggressive responding at all levels of provocation.     

Physical aggression as a function of perceived fighting ability and provocation: an experimental investigation

In three studies, Resource Holding Power (RHP) and provocation were manipulated in scenarios involving a young person in a bar with friends. In Study 1, teenage men reported lower likelihood of responding with physical aggression when insulted as levels of three RHP cues (size, allies and reputation) increased, effects that were accentuated by combinations of high-RHP cues; in the second part of this study, they consistently rated an insult to their girlfriend as the most provoking from a range of possible provocations, chosen on theoretical and empirical grounds. Study 2 replicated the results of the first part of Study 1 in samples of men and women in their twenties, although the effects were weaker at low levels of RHP. Study 3 combined a high- or low-provoking event, with low, medium or high RHP, and a wider range of response choices. As expected, direct aggression increased as provocation increased and RHP decreased. Delayed aggressive responses, including revenge fantasies, were highest in response to high provocation and high RHP. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical models of aggressive motivation.     

Appetitive and Defensive Arousal in Violent Video Games: Explaining Individual Differences in Attraction to and Effects of Video Games

Evidence surrounding the attraction to media violence is mixed and the effects of violent video game play on players varies across experimental participants. Differences in both may be explained by differences in experienced positive or negative arousal. This study utilizes the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP) and the motivation activation measure (MAM), which measures resting activation of the appetitive and aversive arousal systems, to explore the relationship between attraction to media violence, arousal, and aggression. In part 1, a questionnaire found that men and frequent players of violent games expected to enjoy violent games more than nonviolent games. In addition, participants whose scores on the MAM characterized them as risk takers (high scores on appetitive arousal and low scores on aversive arousal) indicated a stronger preference for violent games compared to the other three arousal types, which is in line with the LC4MP. In the experimental portion of the research, after playing a violent game, those participants characterized as risk avoidant (high on aversive arousal and low on appetitive arousal) were significantly less aggressive than all other arousal groups. Overall, results show that individual differences in the appetitive and aversive arousal systems can explain attraction to violent media. Furthermore, arousal resulting from violent video game play can be experienced as pleasant or aversive, and it is this experience of arousal that explains variations in aggressive responses to violent video games.     

Gender differences in aggression: The role of displaying facial emotional cues in a competitive situation

Prior studies have shown that facial emotion displays communicate emotional states and interpersonal intentions. This study addressed gender differences in aggression based on the facial emotional cues expressed from a fictional opponent. A modified version of the competitive reaction time task (CRTT) was used to measure aggression. Participants (N = 251), between 18 and 35 years of age, were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions of the fictional opponents’ facial emotional cue displayed during the CRTT: anger, sadness, neutral, or the absence of facial expression. After each trial, participants were asked to report their own feelings and to choose a level of noise to administer to their opponent. Finally, motives for aggression were assessed. Results showed that women were less aggressive than men when receiving emotional cues of sadness and anger from the sender. In contrast, no gender differences occurred when a neutral expression was displayed or in the absence of any expression. In addition, men displayed similar levels of aggression across the four conditions, whereas women were more aggressive in both neutral and no feedback conditions than in the sad and anger conditions. Instrumental motives contributed to explaining the overall gender differences in aggression. These results suggest important moderator and mediator factors of gender differences in aggressive behavior.     

THE MYTH OF FEMALE PASSIVITY: THIRTY YEARS OF REVELATIONS ABOUT FEMALE AGGRESSION

This article reviews an extensive program of research that has examined gender differences in aggressive behavior. Early research in the aggression laboratory that was designed to explain why females were nonaggressive actually revealed that females did respond to provocation and that they could not accurately be depicted as passive individuals. Subsequent studies that examined both indirect and direct aggression revealed that women were at least as likely as men to employ indirect aggressive strategies and that the nature of relationship is a better determinant of aggressive action than gender. Directly relevant to the theme of this volume, the later research revealed that males and females reported equally high levels of direct aggression in interaction with romantic partners.     

When Is Believing “Seeing”? Hostile Attribution Bias as a Function of Self‐Reported Aggression1

Repeated exposure to adverse advents (e.g., risky driving) was thought to increase expectations for the recurrence of the event. Community‐based drivers (130 men, 133 women) were given scenarios depicting everyday road events that could be construed as benign, ambiguous, or malign by the degree of perceived provocation. Differences between levels of gender, ethnicity, age, aggressiveness, and provocation were measured by attributions of intent, hostility, and anger. Results showed that, overall, drivers accurately perceived provocation conditions. Hostile attributional biases were not evident among the sample as a whole, but were dependent on level of aggressiveness and provocation. Analysis of self‐reported driving behavior showed that young, aggressive majority group drivers who experience greater aggression on the road also were more likely to take more risks while driving. Controlling for miles driven, gender differences were not found.     

Effects of Prolonged Exposure to Gratuitous Media Violence on Provoked and Unprovoked Hostile Behavior1

On 4 consecutive days, respondents were exposed to gratuitously violent or nonviolent intact feature films. They rated the entertainment value of these films. One day after exposure to the last film of the series, respondents participated in ostensibly unrelated research on emotion recognition. As they performed a test, they were neutrally or abusively treated by a research assistant. Thereafter, they were put in a position to harm this assistant. Both provocation and exposure to violent films were found to foster markedly increased hostile behavior. These effects were noninteractive. Moreover, these effects were uniform for respondent gender. Compared to men, women exhibited less hostility overall, however. The findings thus show that prolonged exposure to gratuitously violent films is capable (a) of escalating hostile behavior in provoked men and women, and (b) perhaps more importantly, of instigating such behavior in unprovoked men and women.     

Gender and projective imagination of threat in achievement and affiliation situations

In a study by Pollak and Gilligan (1982) where fantasies of violence were seen as indicative of perception of danger, women responded with more violent imagery to situations of achievement, whereas men responded with more violent imagery to affiliation situations. This indicates gender differences in motivational needs, which corresponds to modern gender development theories (e.g., Chodorow, 1978). In the present studies, the hypotheses that women fear achievement situations whereas men fear situations of affiliation were tested on Swedish samples totaling 44 men and 47 women. In Study 1, the hypothesis that violent imagery correlates with affiliation themes in the stories written by men was partly supported, whereas the hypothesis that violent imagery would be highly correlated with achievement themes in the stories written by women was not confirmed. In Study 2, no support was obtained for the hypotheses. In sum, contrary to previous studies, no substantial support was obtained for the hypothesis that women connect violent imagery with achievement situations, whereas some evidence was found for the hypothesis that men construe danger as arising from affiliation situations. The greater incidence of violence in men’s fantasy reported in previous studies was not supported in either of the two studies. The results are discussed in the context of cross-cultural differences.     

Gender differences in the negative affective priming of aggressive behavior

The negative affective priming of aggression was examined across different aversive contexts (general stress exposure and frustration) with a laboratory aggression paradigm that measured the intensity of shocks participants delivered to a putative employee. Participants' emotional responses were gauged via startle eyeblink reactions and self-report mood ratings. Aside from gender differences in overall aggression, men but not women exposed to general stress showed significant increases in aggression across blocks. However, frustration produced increases in aggression in both genders. Although both genders showed robust startle increases during stress, startle activation was related to increases in aggression in men and decreases in aggression in women. These findings suggest that general stress and experiences of negative emotion trigger physical aggressive responses more strongly in men than in women.     

Effects of psychopathy traits on unprovoked aggression

Research has demonstrated that risk of violent behavior is high in individuals who display psychopathic traits. However, prediction of general aggression, and in particular unprovoked aggression, in nonforensic men who possess such traits has received little experimental attention to date. This study examined the role of psychopathic traits in the prediction of unprovoked aggression in a nonforensic sample. One hundred and five men completed the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scales and competed in a sham aggression paradigm. These men were identified as unprovoked aggressors, provoked aggressors, and provoked nonaggressors contingent on their responses to the experimental paradigm. Findings indicated that men with high levels of psychopathic traits had a 30% greater probability of becoming aggressive in the absence of provocation relative to those with lower psychopathic traits. Results also indicated that unprovoked aggressors evinced more general aggression when provocation was initiated. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of trait-based risk factors in the prediction of seemingly random, unprovoked aggression.     

On the Association of Sex and Violence In the Fantasy Production of College Students*

ABSTRACT: This paper investigates whether there is an association between sexual imagery and violent imagery in stories produced in response to ambiguous Thematic Apperception Test stimuli. In addition, two commonsense assumptions about sex and violence are examined: (a) do men have more sexual imagery than women? and (b) assuming men are more aggressive than women, do they produce fantasies with more violent themes? Thematic Apperception Test protocols administered to 80 college students as part of a study conducted at Syracuse University in the late 1950s were examined using two scoring systems—one for sexual imagery and one for violent imagery. An association between sex and violence was found for men only. The conventional wisdom that all men ever think about is sex was undermined by the finding that men and women do not differ in the production of sexual imagery. In terms of production of violent imagery, men and women also do not differ. The fact that females are less aggressive than men in overt behavior may be a function of social and cultural forces which operate differentially on men and women.     

Method choice, intent, and gender in completed suicide

Women who commit suicide use less violent methods, such as drugs and carbon monoxide poisoning, than do men, who more often use violent methods such as guns and hanging. Theories that attempt to explain this finding focus on gender differences in suicidal intent, socialization, emotions, interpersonal relationships, orientation and access to methods, and neurobiological factors. Data from a psychological autopsy study were used to test the theory that women who commit suicide use less violent means because they are less intent on dying. Although women were significantly less likely to use a violent method than men, there was no difference in the lethality of their suicidal intent.     

The Effect of Music‐Induced Mood on Aggressive Affect,Cognition, and Behavior1

Two studies explored the role of pleasant music in buffering the adverse effects of provocation. In the first study, 111 participants listened to aversive, pleasant, or no music before receiving a provocation and completing a measure of aggressive behavior. Participants exposed to pleasant music reported more positive mood. Those in the aversive music condition reported more negative mood than did those in the no‐music control condition. The more positive the music‐induced mood, the less anger was experienced and aggressive behavior was shown after provocation. In Study 2 (N = 142), listening to pleasant music reduced anger following provocation, compared to aversive music and a no‐music control condition. Pleasant music also increased response latencies in recognizing aggressive words after provocation.     

Startle modulation in non-incarcerated men and women with psychopathic traits

Past research has demonstrated that individuals with psychopathic characteristics are under-responsive to aversive stimuli, however, much of this work has failed to include non-incarcerated samples, or to examine gender differences in this relationship. Additionally, few studies have examined the role of specific personality characteristics, as they relate to both psychopathic behavior and emotional responsiveness. The current study assessed emotional modulation of the startle response in a community sample of 108 men and women (99 with usable startle data) during perception of emotion-laden photographs. Consistent with previous work, men reporting high levels of psychopathy failed to show the typical increase in the startle response when exposed to aversive photographs, but only when responses were elicited relatively early in picture viewing (i.e., 2.0 s as compared to 4.5 s post-photograph onset). Additionally, both genders showed a significant effect of harm avoidance and anxiety on modulation of the startle response, such that individuals reporting low levels of each trait failed to show significant responses to aversive photographs. These results suggest that while deficits in emotional processing extend to non-incarcerated samples, the relationship may be influenced by additional factors including gender, personality, and attributes related to incarceration.     

Men who target women: specificity of target, generality of aggressive behavior

Two studies examined the effects of individual differences identified by the Confluence Model of aggression against women [Malamuth Linz, Hevey et al., 1995] and the General Aggression Model [GAM: Anderson and Carnagey, 2004] as predictors of male-on-female aggression. Study 1, a correlational study, found that hostile masculinity predicts self-reported sexual aggression independently of nonsexual aggression against women, and is itself predicted by proneness to general hostility, masculine gender role stress, and violent attitudes toward women. Furthermore, hostility toward women independently predicted sexual and nonsexual aggression against women, above the effects of general attitudes toward violence and general levels of hostility and aggression. Study 2, an experimental study, found that under high provocation, high hostility toward women predicted increases in male nonsexual aggression against women and slight decreases in male aggression against men. This effect remained significant even after controlling for general attitudes toward violence and for general levels of hostility and aggression, indicating that males who are highly hostile toward women specifically target women and that their aggression toward women generalizes beyond sexual aggression. The findings are discussed in terms of a model that integrates the Confluence Model with GAM.     

Gender stereotypes and power: Perceptions of the roles in violent marriages

Men are generally observed to exercise more power than women within the marriage relationship. One way of expressing such power is through the roles in violent marriages, in which the man is usually the more powerful, violent person and the woman is the less powerful, abused person. This research tested the hypothesis that roles differing in power can explain why men are believed to be high in agency and women to be high in communion. Agency involves both positive traits (self-assertiveness) and negative traits (motivated to master and subjugate others); communion involves positive traits (accommodation and concern for others) as well as negative traits (excessive selflessness and vulnerability). College students rated stimulus persons on the gender stereotyped traits. In one condition, the husband was described as violent towards his wife, and in another condition, the traditional power relationship was reversed and the wife was described as violent towards her husband. On both the positive and negative traits, violent women and men were perceived as high in agency and low in communion. Abused men and women were seen as high in positive communion and low in positive agency, although the abused woman was lower in positive agency than her male counterpart. For abused women and men, the hypothesized results were found for negative agency, but not all of the expected findings were obtained for negative communion. The sex differences that were found could be explained by differences in the perceived physical aggression inflicted by violent men and women.Portions of this paper were presented at the 1991 annual meetings of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York, and the Association for Women in Psychology, Hartford, CT. I would like to express my appreciation to Carl F. Wiedemann for his statistical advice.     

Gender Differences in Implicit Processing of Sexual Stimuli

The present studies investigated whether men and women differ in cognitive–motivational processing of sexual stimuli in order to better understand the commonly observed gender differences in sexual outcome variables. Because these processes often operate without conscious control, we focused specifically on automatic stimulus processing. Using a series of implicit tasks, we measured inhibition, attentional orientation, appraisal and approach‐avoidance motivation regarding sexually explicit stimuli in male and female students. Results showed that men were more strongly motivated to approach sexual stimuli than women and were better able to inhibit sexual information as to prevent activation of the sexual response. With regard to attentional orientation, men were more easily drawn by sexual cues than women, yet only when the cues were presented long enough to allow more elaborative processing. No gender differences were found in the implicit evaluation of sexual information, although men and women did differ at the level of self‐reported sexual evaluations. Our results indicate the importance of incorporating information‐processing mechanisms and emotion regulation strategies into the conceptualization of the sexual response and promote further research on the specificity, robustness, predictive validity and malleability of the cognitive–motivational processes underlying sexual arousal. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Perceptual mechanisms that characterize gender differences in decoding women's sexual intent

Men and women often disagree about the meaning of women's nonverbal cues, particularly those conveying dating-relevant information. Men perceive more sexual intent in women's behavior than women perceive or report intending to convey. Although this finding has been attributed to gender differences in the threshold for labeling ambiguous cues as sexual in nature, little research has been conducted to determine etiology. Using a model that differentiates perceptual sensitivity from decisional bias, we found no evidence that men have lenient thresholds for perceiving women's nonverbal behavior as indicating sexual interest. Rather, gender differences were captured by a relative perceptual insensitivity among men. Just as in previous studies, men were more likely than women to misperceive friendliness as sexual interest, but they also were quite likely to misperceive sexual interest as friendliness. The results point to the promise of computational models of perception in increasing the understanding of clinically relevant social processes.