Whether video game play affects social behavior is a topic of debate. Many argue that aggression and helping are affected by video game play, whereas this stance is disputed by others. The present research provides a meta-analytical test of the idea that depending on their content, video games do affect social outcomes. Data from 98 independent studies with 36,965 participants revealed that for both violent video games and prosocial video games, there was a significant association with social outcomes. Whereas violent video games increase aggression and aggression-related variables and decrease prosocial outcomes, prosocial video games have the opposite effects. These effects were reliable across experimental, correlational, and longitudinal studies, indicating that video game exposure causally affects social outcomes and that there are both short- and long-term effects.
*AdachiP. J. C.WilloughbyT. (2011). The effect of video game competition and violence on aggressive behavior: Which characteristic has the greatest influence?Psychology of Violence, 1, 259-274.
2.
AndersonC. A. (2004). An update on the effects of violent video games. Journal of Adolescence, 27, 113-122.
3.
AndersonC. A.BushmanB. J. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science, 12, 353-359.
4.
AndersonC. A.BushmanB. J. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27-51.
5.
*AndersonC. A.CarnageyN. L. (2009). Causal effects of violent sports video games on aggression: Is it competitiveness or violent content?Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 731-739.
6.
AndersonC. A.CarnageyN. L.FlanaganM.BenjaminA. J.EubanksJ.ValentineJ. (2004). Violent video games: Specific effects of violent content on aggressive thoughts and behavior. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 199-249.
7.
AndersonC.A.DillK.E. (2000). Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 772-790.
8.
AndersonC. A.FordC. M. (1986). Affect of the game player: Short term effects of highly and mildly aggressive video games. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 12, 390-402.
9.
AndersonC. A.GentileD. A.DillK. E. (2012). Prosocial, antisocial, and other effects of recreational video games. In SingerD. G.SingerJ. L. (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (2nd ed., pp. 249-272). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
10.
AndersonC. A.ShibuyaA.IhoriN.SwingE. L.BushmanB. J.SakamotoA.. . .SaleemM. (2010). Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in Eastern and Western countries. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 151-173.
11.
*ArriagaP.MonteiroM. B.EstevesF. (2011). Effects of playing violent computer games on emotional desensitization and aggressive behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 41, 1900-1925.
12.
*BallardM.VisserK.JocoyK. (2012). Social context and video game play: Impact on cardiovascular and affective responses. Mass Communication and Society, 15, 875-898.
13.
BanduraA. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
14.
*BarlettC. P.RodehefferC. (2009). Effects of realism on extended violent and nonviolent video game play on aggressive thoughts, feelings, and physiological arousal. Aggressive Behavior, 35, 213-224.
15.
BavelierD.DavidsonR. J. (2013). Brain training: Games to do you good. Nature, 494, 425-426.
16.
BenderJ.RothmundT.GollwitzerM. (2013). Biased estimation of violent video game effects on aggression: Contributing factors and boundary conditions. Societies, 3, 383-398.
17.
*BluemkeM.FriedrichM.ZumbachJ. (2010). The influence of violent and nonviolent computer games on implicit measures of aggressiveness. Aggressive Behavior, 36, 1-13.
18.
*BluemkeM.ZumbachJ. (2012). Assessing aggressiveness via reaction times online. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 6, Article 5.
19.
BorensteinM.HedgesL. V.HigginsJ. P. T.RothsteinH. R. (2005). Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (Version 2.2.048) [Computer software]. Englewood, NJ: Biostat.
20.
BorensteinM.HedgesL. V.HigginsJ. P. T.RothsteinH. R. (2009). Introduction to meta-analysis. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.
21.
*BöscheW. (2010). Violent video games prime both aggressive and positive cognitions. Journal of Media Psychology, 22, 139-146.
22.
*BowenH. J.SpaniolJ. (2011). Chronic exposure to violent video games is not associated with alterations of emotional memory. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25, 906-916.
23.
BuchmanD. D.FunkJ. B. (1996). Video and computer games in the ’90s: Children’s time commitment and game preference. Children Today, 24, 12-16.
24.
BuckleyK. E.AndersonC. A. (2006). A theoretical model of the effects and consequences of playing video games. In VordererP.BryantJ. (Eds.), Playing video games: Motives, responses, and consequences (pp. 363-378). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
25.
BushmanB. J.AndersonC. A. (2002). Violent video games and hostile expectations: A test of the general aggression model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1679-1686.
26.
*BushmanB. J.AndersonC. A. (2009). Comfortably numb: Desensitizing effects of violent media on helping others. Psychological Science, 20, 273-277.
27.
*BushmanB. J.GibsonB. (2011). Violent video games cause an increase in aggression long after the game has been turned off. Social Psychological & Personality Science, 2, 29-32.
28.
BushmanB. J.RothsteinH. R.AndersonC. A. (2010). Much ado about something: Violent video game effects and a school of red herring: Reply to Ferguson and Kilburn (2010). Psychological Bulletin, 136, 182-187.
29.
*CharlesE. P.BakerC. M.HartmanK.EastonB. P.KreuzbergerC. (2013). Motion capture controls negate the violent video-game effect. Computers in Human Behavior, 29, 2519-2523.
30.
*ChittaroL.SioniR. (2012). Killing non-human animals in video games: A study on user experience and desensitization to violence aspects. Psychology Journal, 10, 215-243.
31.
*DeLisiM.VaughnM. G.GentileD. A.AndersonC. A.ShookJ. J. (2013). Violent video games, delinquency, and youth violence: New evidence. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 11, 132-142.
32.
DillK. E.GentileD. A.RichterW. A.DillJ. C. (2005). Violence, sex, age and race in popular video games: A content analysis. In ColeE.Henderson-DanielJ. (Eds.), Featuring females: Feminist analyses of media (pp. 115-130). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
33.
DodgeK. A.CrickN. R. (1990). Social information-processing bases of aggressive behavior in children. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16, 8-22.
34.
*EngelhardtC. R.BartholowB. D.KerrG. T.BushmanB. J. (2011). This is your brain on violent video games: Neural desensitization to violence predicts increased aggression following violent video game exposure. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 1033-1036.
35.
*EngelhardtC. R.BartholowB. D.SaultsJ. (2011). Violent and nonviolent video games differentially affect physical aggression for individuals high vs. low in dispositional anger. Aggressive Behavior, 37, 539-546.
36.
*EronL. D.HuesmannL. R. (1984). The relation of prosocial behavior to the development of aggression and psychopathology. Aggressive Behavior, 10, 201-211.
37.
*EspinosaE.ClementeM. (2013). Self-transcendence and self-oriented perspective as mediators between video game playing and aggressive behaviour in teenagers. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 23, 68-80.
38.
*EwoldsenD. R.EnoC. A.OkdieB. M.VelezJ. A.GuadagnoR. E.DeCosterJ. (2012). Effect of playing violent video games cooperatively or competitively on subsequent cooperative behavior. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15, 277-280.
39.
FergusonC. J. (2007a). Evidence of publication bias in video game violence effects literature: A meta-analytic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 12, 470-483.
40.
FergusonC. J. (2007b). The good, the bad and the ugly: A meta-analytical review of positive and negative effects of violent video games. Psychiatric Quarterly, 78, 309-316.
41.
FergusonC. J. (2010). Blazing angels or resident evil? Can violent video games be a force for good?Review of General Psychology, 14, 68-81.
42.
*FergusonC. J. (2011). Video games and youth violence: A prospective analysis in adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40, 377-391.
43.
*FergusonC. J.GarzaA. (2011). Call of (civic) duty: Action games and civic behavior in a large sample of youth. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 770-775.
44.
*FergusonC. J.GarzaA.JerabeckJ.RamosR.GalindoM. (2013). Not worth the fuss after all? Cross-sectional and prospective data on violent video game influences on aggression, visuospatial cognition and mathematics ability in a sample of youth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 42, 109-122.
45.
FergusonC. J.KilburnJ. (2009). The public health risks of media violence: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Pediatrics, 154, 759-763.
46.
FergusonC. J.KilburnJ. (2010). Much ado about nothing: The misestimation and overinterpretation of violent video game effects in eastern and western nations: Comment on Anderson et al. (2010). Psychological Bulletin, 136, 174-178.
47.
*FergusonC. J.OlsonC. K. (2014). Video game violence use among “vulnerable” populations: The impact of violent games on delinquency and bullying among children. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43, 127-136.
48.
*FergusonC. J.RuedaS. M. (2010). The Hitman study: Violent video game exposure effects on aggressive behavior, hostile feelings, and depression. European Psychologist, 15, 99-108.
49.
*FergusonC. J.San MiguelC.GarzaA.JerabeckJ. M. (2012). A longitudinal test of video game violence influences on dating and aggression: A 3-year longitudinal study of adolescents. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 46, 141-146.
50.
*FischerJ.AydinN.KastenmüllerA.FreyD.FischerP. (2012). The delinquent media effect: Delinquency-reinforcing video games increase player’s attitudinal and behavioral inclination toward delinquent behavior. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 1, 201-205.
51.
*FischerP.KastenmüllerA.GreitemeyerT. (2010). Media violence and the self: The impact of personalized gaming characters in aggressive video games on aggressive behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 192-195.
52.
*FraserA. M.Padilla-WalkerL. M.CoyneS. M.NelsonL. J.StockdaleL. A. (2012). Associations between violent video gaming, empathic concern, and prosocial behavior toward strangers, friends, and family members. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41, 636-649.
53.
*GabbiadiniA.AndrighettoL.VolpatoC. (2012). Brief report: Does exposure to violent video games increase moral disengagement among adolescents?Journal of Adolescence, 35, 1403-1406.
54.
GentileD. A. (2009). Pathological video-game use among youth ages 8 to 18: A national study. Psychological Science, 20, 594-602.
55.
*GentileD. A.AndersonC. A.YukawaS.IhoriN.SaleemM.MingL.. . .SakamotoA. (2009). The effects of prosocial video games on prosocial behaviors: International evidence from correlational, longitudinal, and experimental studies. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 752-763.
56.
*GentileD. A.CoyneS.WalshD. A. (2011). Media violence, physical aggression, and relational aggression in school age children: A short-term longitudinal study. Aggressive Behavior, 37, 193-206.
57.
GentileD. A.GrovesC.GentileJ. R. (2013). The general learning model: Unveiling the learning potential from video games. In BlumbergF. C. (Ed.), Learning by playing: Frontiers of video gaming in education (pp. 121-142). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
58.
*GitterS. A.EwellP. J.GuadagnoR. E.StillmanT. F.BaumeisterR. (2013). Virtually justifiable homicide: The effects of prosocial contexts on the link between violent video games, aggression, and prosocial and hostile cognition. Aggressive Behavior, 39, 346-354.
59.
GreitemeyerT. (2011). Effects of prosocial media on social behavior: When and why does media exposure affect helping and aggression. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 251-255.
60.
*GreitemeyerT. (2013). Playing video games cooperatively increases empathic concern. Social Psychology, 44, 408-413.
61.
*GreitemeyerT. (2014a). Intense acts of violence during video game play make daily life aggression appear innocuous: A new mechanism why violent video games increase aggression. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 50, 52-56.
62.
*GreitemeyerT. (2014b). Playing violent video games increases intergroup bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 70-78.
63.
*GreitemeyerT.AgtheM.TurnerR.GschwendtnerC. (2012). Acting prosocially reduces retaliation: Effects of prosocial video games on aggressive behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 235-242.
64.
*GreitemeyerT.CoxC. (2013). There’s no “I” in team: Effects of cooperative video games on cooperative behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 224-228.
65.
*GreitemeyerT.McLatchieN. (2011). Denying humanness to others: A newly discovered mechanism by which violent video games increase aggressive behavior. Psychological Science, 22, 659-665.
66.
*GreitemeyerT.OsswaldS. (2009). Prosocial video games reduce aggressive cognitions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 896-900.
67.
*GreitemeyerT.OsswaldS. (2010). Effects of prosocial video games on prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 211-221.
68.
*GreitemeyerT.OsswaldS. (2011). Playing prosocial video games increases the accessibility of prosocial thoughts. The Journal of Social Psychology, 151, 121-128.
69.
*GreitemeyerT.OsswaldS.BrauerM. (2010). Playing prosocial video games increases empathy and decreases schadenfreude. Emotion, 10, 796-802.
70.
*GreitemeyerT.Traut-MattauschE.OsswaldS. (2012). How to ameliorate negative effects of violent video games on cooperation: Play it cooperatively in a team. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 1465-1470.
71.
*GunterW. D.DalyK. (2012). Causal or spurious: Using propensity score matching to detangle the relationship between violent video games and violent behavior. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 1348-1355.
72.
*HartmannT.VordererP. (2010). It’s okay to shoot a character: Moral disengagement in violent video games. Journal of Communication, 60, 94-119.
73.
*HasanY.BègueL.BushmanB. J. (2012). Viewing the world through “blood-red tinted glasses”: The hostile expectation bias mediates the link between violent video game exposure and aggression. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 953-956.
74.
*HasanY.BègueL.BushmanB. J. (2013). Violent video games stress people out and make them more aggressive. Aggressive Behavior, 39, 64-70.
75.
HigginsJ. P. T.GreenS. (2011). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions Version 5.1.0. The Cochrane Collaboration. Available from www.cochrane-handbook.org
76.
*HollingdaleJ.GreitemeyerT. (2013). The changing face of aggression: The effect of personalized avatars in a violent video game on levels of aggressive behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43, 1862-1868.
77.
*HoltzP.AppelM. (2011). Internet use and video gaming predict problem behavior in early adolescence. Journal of Adolescence, 34, 49-58.
78.
HuesmannL. R. (1986). Psychological processes promoting the relation between exposure to media violence and aggressive behavior by the viewer. Journal of Social Issues, 42, 125-139.
79.
HuesmannL. R. (2010). Nailing the coffin shut on doubts that violent video games stimulate aggression—Comment on Anderson et al. (2010). Psychological Bulletin, 136, 179-181.
80.
HuesmannL. R.DubowE. F.YangG. (2013). Why it is hard to believe that media violence causes aggression. In DillK. E. (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of media psychology (pp. 159-171). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
81.
HunterJ. E.SchmidtF. L. (2000). Fixed effects vs. random effects meta-analysis models: Implications for cumulative knowledge in psychology. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 8, 275-293.
82.
*IvarssonM.AndersonM.ÅkerstedtT.LindbladF. (2011). Playing a violent television game affects heart rate variability: Corrigendum. Acta Paediatrica, 100, 1283.
83.
JerabeckJ. M.FergusonC. J. (2013). The influence of solitary and cooperative violent video game play on aggressive and prosocial behavior. Computers in Human Behavior, 26, 2573-2578.
84.
*JinS. (2011). “My avatar behaves well and this feels right”: Ideal and ought selves in video gaming. Social Behavior and Personality, 39, 1175-1182.
85.
*KoglinU.WitthöftJ.PetermannF. (2009). Gewalthaltige Computerspiele und aggressives Verhalten im Jugendalter [Violent video games and aggressive behavior in adolescence]. Psychologische Rundschau, 60, 163-172.
86.
*KrahéB.BuschingR.MöllerI. (2012). Media violence use and aggression among German adolescents: Associations and trajectories of change in a three-wave longitudinal study. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 1, 152-166.
87.
*KrahéB.MöllerI. (2010). Longitudinal effects of media violence on aggression and empathy among German adolescents. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 31, 401-409.
88.
*KrahéB.MöllerI. (2011). Links between self-reported media violence exposure and teacher ratings of aggression and prosocial behavior among German adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 34, 279-287.
89.
*KrcmarM.FarrarK. (2009). Retaliatory aggression and the effects of point of view and blood in violent video games. Mass Communication & Society, 12, 115-138.
90.
*KrcmarM.FarrarK.McGloinR. (2011). The effects of video game realism on attention, retention and aggressive outcomes. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 432-439.
91.
*KrcmarM.LachlanK. (2009). Aggressive outcomes and video game play: The role of length of play and the mechanism at work. Media Psychology, 12, 249-267.
92.
*LeeK.PengW.KleinJ. (2010). Will the experience of playing a violent role in a video game influence people’s judgments of violent crimes?Computers in Human Behavior, 26, 1019-1023.
93.
*LemmensJ. S.ValkenburgP. M.PeterJ. (2011). The effects of pathological gaming on aggressive behavior. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40, 38-47.
LenhartA.KahneJ.MiddaughE.MacgillA. R.EvansC.VitakJ. (2008). Teens, video games, and civics (Report No. 202-415-4500). Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project.
96.
*LiD.ChooH.KhooA.LiauA. (2012). Effects of digital game play among young Singaporean gamers: A two-wave longitudinal study. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 5, 1-15.
97.
*LinJ. H. (2013). Identification matters: A moderated mediation model of media interactivity, character identification, and video game violence on aggression. Journal of Communication, 63, 682-702.
98.
*MarkeyP. M.SchererK. (2009). An examination of psychoticism and motion capture controls as moderators of the effects of violent video games. Computers in Human Behavior, 25, 407-411.
99.
*MöllerI.KrahéB. (2009). Exposure to violent video games and aggression in German adolescents: A longitudinal analysis. Aggressive Behavior, 35, 75-89.
100.
*MöllerI.KrahéB.BuschingR. (2013). Mediengewaltkonsum und aggressives Verhalten: Ein längsschnittlicher Vergleich von Jugendlichen mit und ohne Migrationshintergrund [Consumption of media violence and aggressive behavior: A longitudinal study of German adolescents with and without migration background]. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie, 45, 121-130.
101.
*MöllerI.KrahéB.BuschingR.KrauseC. (2012). Efficacy of an intervention to reduce the use of media violence and aggression: An experimental evaluation with adolescents in Germany. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41, 105-120.
102.
*ProkarymM. (2012). The effect of video games on aggressive behavior (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of Texas at Arlington.
103.
ProtS.AndersonC. A. (2013). Research methods, design, and statistics in media psychology. In DillK. (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of media psychology (pp. 109-136). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
104.
*ProtS.GentileD. A.AndersonC. A.SuzukiK.SwingE.LimK. M.. . .LamB. C. P. (in press). Long-term relations between prosocial media use, empathy, and prosocial behavior. Psychological Science. Advance online publication.
105.
*RosenbergR. S.BaughmanS. L.BailensonJ. N. (2013). Virtual superheroes: Using superpowers in virtual reality to encourage prosocial behavior. PLoS ONE, 8, 1-9.
106.
*SaleemM.AndersonC. A. (2013). Arabs as terrorists: Effects of stereotypes within violent contexts on attitudes, perceptions, and affect. Psychology of Violence, 3, 84-99.
107.
*SaleemM.AndersonC. A.GentileD. A. (2012a). Effects of prosocial, neutral, and violent video games on college students’ affect. Aggressive Behavior, 38, 263-271.
108.
*SaleemM.AndersonC. A.GentileD. A. (2012b). Effects of prosocial, neutral, and violent video games on children’s helpful and hurtful behaviors. Aggressive Behavior, 38, 281-287.
109.
*SestirM. A.BartholowB. D. (2010). Violent and nonviolent video games produce opposing effects on aggressive and prosocial outcomes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 934-942.
110.
*ShaferD. M. (2012). Causes of state hostility and enjoyment in player versus player and player versus environment video games. Journal of Communication, 62, 719-737.
111.
SherryJ. L. (2001). The effects of violent video games on aggression: A meta-analysis. Human Communication Research, 27, 409-431.
112.
StrasburgerV. C.WilsonB. J.JordanA. B. (2013). Children, adolescents, and the media (3rd ed.). London, England: SAGE.
113.
*TengS.ChongG.SiewA.SkoricM. M. (2011). Grand Theft Auto IV comes to Singapore: Effects of repeated exposure to violent video games on aggression. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14, 597-602.
114.
*ThomasK. D.LevantR. F. (2012). Does the endorsement of traditional masculinity ideology moderate the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression?The Journal of Men’s Studies, 20, 47-56.
115.
UnsworthG.DevillyG.WardT. (2007). The effect of playing violent videogames on adolescents: Should parents be quaking in their boots?Psychology, Crime & Law, 13, 383-394.
116.
*ValadezJ. J.FergusonC. J. (2012). Just a game after all: Violent video game exposure and time spent playing effects on hostile feelings, depression, and visuospatial cognition. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 608-616.
117.
*VieiraE. T.Jr. (in press). The relationship among girls’ prosocial video gaming, perspective-taking, sympathy, and thoughts about violence. Communication Research. Advance online publication.
118.
*von SalischM.VogelgesangJ.KristenA.OpplC. (2011). Preference for violent electronic games and aggressive behavior among children: The beginning of the downward spiral?Media Psychology, 14, 233-258.
119.
*WhitakerJ. L.BushmanB. J. (2012). “Remain calm. Be kind.” Effects of relaxing video games on aggressive and prosocial behavior. Social Psychological & Personality Science, 3, 88-92.
120.
*WilloughbyT.AdachiP. C.GoodM. (2012). A longitudinal study of the association between violent video game play and aggression among adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 48, 1044-1057.
121.
*ZhenS.XieH.ZhangW.WangS.LiD. (2011). Exposure to violent computer games and Chinese adolescents’ physical aggression: The role of beliefs about aggression, hostile expectations, and empathy. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 1675-1687.
122.
ZillmannD. (1983). Transfer of excitation in emotional behavior. In CacioppoJ. T.PettyR. E. (Eds.), Social psychophysiology: A sourcebook (pp. 215-240). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
