14 DAY TRIAL // University of Rochester investigators were recently able to determine that the feelings of aggression exhibited by children, teens, and adults who play violent games, including Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft, are not related to the content of the games directly, but rather to the feelings of frustration and failure that the players experience when they lose.
Previous studies have largely focused on how the content of violent video games affects players, concluding that a clear link exists between the two. The new research calls these results into question, by providing an alternative angle to analyze the issue from. This is one of the first studies ever to analyze the psychological experiences that occur during gaming, PsychCentral reports.
“Any player who has thrown down a remote control after losing an electronic game can relate to the intense feelings or anger failure can cause,” explains the lead author of the research, Rochester expert Andrew Przybylski, PhD. This type of behavior is commonly referred to as rage-quitting and is very widespread. The new study is detailed in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Motivational psychologist and study coauthor Richard Ryan draws a parallel to sports, where an entire team may lose a game due to a bad call by one or more of the players. Whenever the players feel as if they have no control over the outcome of the game, aggression arises. These results were obtained after the team analyzed the behavior of 300 gamers who played various games.
“If you press someone’s competencies, they’ll become more aggressive, and our effects held up whether the games were violent or not,” Ryan explains.