Congressional Record on Violent Media

Extracted 02MAR2013 from http://beta.congress.gov/congressional-record/2013/02/26/house-section/articl... Almost all of the research on violent video games has been conducted using single-player video games. But players often play with others. In a pair of studies conducted in our lab, participants were tested in pairs with an ostensible partner of the same sex (actually a confederate). Participants in the cooperative condition were instructed to work together with their partner to get as many points as possible by killing enemies and staying alive. Participants in the competitive condition were instructed to try and kill their partner more times than their partner killed them. Participants in the control condition played the game in the single player mode. After gameplay, participants competed with their ostensible partner on a task in which the winner could blast the loser with loud, unpleasant noise through headphones. In both studies, participants in the cooperative condition were less aggressive than participants in the other conditions.