Do violent video games increase hostile attributional bias in young adolescents?
This research examines the use of violent video games on hostile attributional bias in a sample of young adolescents. A quasi experimental design was used, composed of 43 male young adolescents aged between 11 and 12 years (X age =11.3), coming from a highly societal vulnerability and a less societal vulnerability. Each sub-sample received two sorts of video game: one video containing violence (experimental group) and one non violent video game (control group). All the adolescents were previously tested on a measure of hostile attributional bias before the phase of experimentation (pre-test phase) and afterwards to the post-test. The results show that the content of the game and the societal vulnerability have no impact on the hostile attributional bias and the interpretation of ambiguous social situations. Nevertheless, there is a significantly more hostile interpretation during the post-test phase than during the pre-test phase, regardless the societal vulnerability or the experimental group (violent game vs non violent game). This research concludes with a discussion on the video game as a risk factor for hostile behaviour and for aggressive behaviour in general.