Violent Video Games and Reciprocity: The Attenuating Effects of Cooperative Game Play on Subsequent Aggression

Numerous studies have shown that playing violent video games alone increases subsequent aggression. However, social game play is becoming more popular than solo game play, and research suggests cooperative game play is beneficial for players. The current studies explore the effects of cooperative game play on player’s subsequent aggressive behaviors toward video game partners (Experiment 1) and non-video game partners (Experiment 2), while providing a discussion of possible theories applicable to social video game play. Cooperative games resulted in less aggression between video game partners (Experiment 1) and between non-video game partners (Experiment 2) than did competitive or stand-alone games. Interestingly, cooperative game play and no-game play produced similar levels of aggression (Experiment 1), whereas competitive and solo game play produced similar levels of aggression (Experiment 2). These findings are consistent with the theory of bounded generalized reciprocity. Playing violent games cooperatively can offset the aggressionincreasing effects of violent video games. 1Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA 2University of Innsbruck, Tyrol, Austria 3University of Arizona, Tucson, USA 4The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA 5VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Corresponding Author: John A. Velez, Department of Journalism and Electronic Media, College of Media & Communication, Texas Tech University, Box 43082, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA. Email: [email protected] 552519 CRXXXX10.1177/0093650214552519Communication ResearchVelez et al. research-article2014 at University of Portsmouth on August 10, 2015 crx.sagepub.com Downloaded from 2 Communication Research