The Coalition for Independent Ratings Services

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New Study Suggests Video Game Competition, Not Violence, the Root of Aggression
News

MR900422487A study published recently in the jounal Psychology of Violence suggests that it's the competitive nature of some video games--not its violent content--that leads to aggression.

The research included two experiments;  first, 42 college students who played either the violence-packed game Conan or the competitive racing game Fuel. After playing, the Hot Sauce paradigm was used:

"The Hot Sauce Par- adigm (Lieberman et al., 1999) was used to measure overt aggressive behavior. Participants were asked to prepare some hot sauce for an- other participant to drink who does not like hot sauce (note that there actually was no other participant). Participants were asked to choose the intensity of hot sauce (ranging from 1(least hot) to 4 (most hot) and the amount, knowing that the other participant had to drink whatever amount was in the cup."

The second experiment involved 60 students and four video games--two violent and two non-violent. One of each category was more competitive than the other in that category. Those who played the more competitive games chose hotter sauces.

The full text of the experiment can be seen here.
 
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