Induced Aggressive Mood And

Induced Aggressive Mood and Explicit Memory MICHAEL J. LANG The purpose of these 2 studies is to examine whether an aggressive mood (induced by playing a violent video game) biases a person’s recall of aggressive and John Carroll University nonaggressive words. Study 1 examined the effects that violent video games have on the player and observer. Study 2 examined the effects of an induced aggressive mood on a person’s recall of a list of aggressive and nonaggressive words. In both studies, participants were randomly assigned to play a violent video game, which consisted of fighting a computer opponent using martial arts, or to play a nonviolent video game, which involved racing a high-performance car on a racetrack. Overall, in Study 1, the participants who were exposed to the violent video game had a greater feeling of aggression than the participants who were exposed to the nonviolent video game. Overall, in Study 2, the participants recalled significantly more aggressive words than nonaggressive words, but participants who played the violent video game did not recall significantly more aggressive words than those who played the nonviolent video game. OOD CONGRUENT MEMORY (MCM) REFERS TO unpleasant words, the unpleasant words just pop out the tendency of a person in a particular at them. Mmood to recall information that is congru- Research with depressed participants supports ent with that mood (Christianson, 1992; Mayer, Bower’s (1981) selective attention theory. Based on McCormick, & Strong, 1995; Watkins, Vache, Verney, the results of two studies, McDowall (1984) concluded Muller, & Mathews, 1996). For example, a person that depressed people do not have a problem recall- whose mood is depressed is more likely to recall in- ing pleasant words when presented with only pleas- formation with an unpleasant meaning than infor- ant words; however, when they are presented with mation that has a pleasant meaning. both pleasant and unpleasant words, they selectively Although extensive research has examined MCM, attend to mood-congruent material and recall more the bulk of it has involved depressed participants. For unpleasant words than pleasant words. example, studies show that depressed participants are Berkowitz (1973) looked for MCM with a differ- more likely to recall words that are congruent to their ent kind of mood, aggression. Elementary-age chil- mood (Denny & Hunt, 1992; Ruiz-Caballero & dren selected a word to finish an incomplete sentence Gonzalez, 1994; Watkins, Mathews, Williamson, & before and after they read a comic book. Children Fuller, 1992). either read a war comic (aggressive condition) or read Additional support for MCM has been shown by a neutral comic (nonaggressive condition). Berkowitz participants who were induced to be either sad or found that the children who read the war comic re- happy (Gilligan & Bower, 1983). These researchers trieved more aggressive words from memory to fin- found that participants whose moods were induced ish their incomplete sentences than the children who to be happy recalled more happy phrases than par- read the neutral comic. Bower (1981) also showed ticipants whose moods were induced to be sad. that angry participants recalled more aggressive words Bower (1981) proposed selective attention as an than participants with other moods. explanation for MCM and suggested that participants Researchers have reported MCM using explicit actively attend to information or material that is con- memory with depressed participants (Denny & Hunt, gruent to their moods. For example, when a person 1992; Ruiz-Caballero & Gonzalez, 1994; Watkins et with a depressed mood looks at a list of pleasant and al., 1992) and implicit memory with aggressive par- PSI CHI JOURNAL OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH Winter 1999 149 Copyright 1999 by Psi Chi, The National Honor Society in Psychology (Vol. 4, No. 4, 149–154 / ISSN 1089-4136). Faculty Supervisor: Janet D. Larson INDUCED AGGRESSIVE MOOD Lang ticipants (Berkowitz, 1973). MCM involving explicit high-performance race car on a racetrack. For this memory with participants in an aggressive mood has experiment the player only attempted to drive the not been examined. car at the highest speed possible in order to avoid Feelings of aggression may be induced by having any violent content of the video game. people play violent video games (Irwin & Gross, 1995; Measures. Participants completed two question- Schutte, Malouff, Post-Gorden, & Rodasta, 1988). Spe- naires. The first questionnaire assessed the participant’s cifically, Irwin and Gross (1995) found that children age, how long he had been playing video games, and who played a violent video game displayed signifi- how many hours a week he spent playing video games. cantly more physical aggression toward objects and a The State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI; confederate than did the children who played the Spielberger, 1988) was used to measure participants’ nonviolent video game. Schutte et al. (1988) found feeling of aggression. The state anger scale that as- that children who played a violent video game were sesses how a person is feeling at the time they are more aggressive afterwards than children who played filling out the questionnaire was used for this study. a nonviolent video game. Despite minimal research Coefficient alpha reliability for this sample of 40 men on the effects of observing a video game, researchers was .76. A comparison sample of 44 college age male are interested in the effects of observing television participants was used to gather normative data on the on aggression. Boyatzis, Matillo, and Nesbitt (1995) STAXI for students at this institution. and Harris (1992) found that observing violent tele- Procedure. Half of the participants were ran- vision can increase aggression in the viewer. Because domly assigned to play or observe a violent video observing video games is similar to observing televi- game, whereas the remainder of the participants were sion, researchers can extrapolate potential hypoth- randomly assigned to play or observe a nonviolent eses with regard to observing video games from stud- video game. Participants were run in pairs, so the ies of the effects of watching television. Because most order in which they arrived determined which par- video games are for one player, there is often some- ticipant played or observed the video game. Upon one observing the video game being played. arrival the participants filled out the first questionnaire. Participants in the player condition then played Experiment 1 the video game for 8 min while participants in the In order to test the hypothesis that an aggressive observer condition observed the video game being mood can effect memory, a study was conducted to played. If the participant in the player condition was examine video games’ potential for inducing an ag- unfamiliar with the video game, he was given a 2 min gressive mood in male college students who played practice session. During this practice session the ob- them or observed them being played. It was expected server also watched the video game being played. that the participants who were exposed to a violent Prior to playing the video game for 8 min, both the video game would have a greater feeling of aggres- player and the observer were told they could talk sion than the participants who were exposed to a freely but that the observer could not touch the con- nonviolent video game. It was further predicted that trol pad. At the end of the 8 min of play the partici- participants who played the violent video game would pants completed the STAXI. have a greater feeling of aggression than participants who observed the violent video game. Results Three one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) Method were performed to examine differences between the Participants. Forty male students between the four experimental conditions with respect to age, ages of 18 and 22 (M = 19.5) from a midwestern uni- hours spent each week playing video games, and the versity participated. Participants were members of an number of years playing video games (see Table 1 for introductory psychology class and received credit for means). Age, F(3, 36) = 1.46, p = .24, hours spent play- their participation. ing video games, F(3, 36) = 2.71, p = .06, or years Apparatus. A Sony Playstation connected to a 19- playing video games, F(3, 36) = .57, p = .64, were not inch (48-cm) color television monitor was used to play significantly different between conditions. the video games. Two different high-action video A 2 × 2 (Type of Video Game × Involvement) games were used for this experiment. The violent ANOVA was performed to test the hypothesis there video game was Namco’s Tekken 2 (1996), in which would be an effect for type of video game on the feel- the player fights a computer opponent using martial ing of aggression. Table 2 shows the cell means and arts. The nonviolent video game was Electronic Arts’ standard deviations for each condition. There was a Need for Speed II (1997), in which the player races a main effect for type of video game, F(1, 36) = 12.80, 150 PSI CHI JOURNAL OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH Winter 1999 Copyright 1999 by Psi Chi, The National Honor Society in Psychology (Vol. 4, No. 4, 149–154 / ISSN 1089-4136). INDUCED AGGRESSIVE MOOD Lang TABLE 1 Descriptive Statistics of the Participants: Experiment 1 Mean Hours spent each week Average years playing age playing video games video games Play violent 19.60 7.10 10.90 Video game (1.17) (5.00) (3.57) Observe violent 19.70 4.90 8.90 Video game (0.95) (5.95) (3.87) Play nonviolent 18.90 2.15 9.90 Video game (0.88) (2.77) (3.63) Observe nonviolent 19.80 2.80 8.90 Video game (1.23) (2.40) (4.84) Note.

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