Aggression
Some scholars believe that behaviors like aggression may be partially learned by watching and imitating people's behavior, while other researchers have concluded that the media may have some small effects on aggression. There is also research questioning this view. For instance, a long-term outcome study of youth found no long-term relationship between playing violent video games and youth violence or bullying. One study suggested there is a smaller effect of violent video games on aggression than has been found with television violence on aggression. This effect is positively associated with type of game violence and negatively associated to time spent playing the games. The author concluded that insufficient evidence exists to link video game violence with aggression. However, another study suggested links to aggressive behavior.
Attribution bias
Research has also indicated that children can develop hostile attribution bias by engaging in aggression in the context of a video game. In a 1998 study, participants played either a very violent or non-violent video game and were then asked to read several hypothetical stories where a peer's intent was ambiguous. For example, participants may read about their peer hitting someone in the head with a ball, but it is unclear whether or not the peer did this intentionally or not. Participants then responded to questions about their peer's intent (e.g., "Do you think your peer hit someone with the ball on purpose?"). The children who played the violent video game, as compared to participants who played the nonviolent game, were more likely to say that their peer harmed someone on purpose. This finding provided evidence that just playing a violent video game could cause children to develop a short-term hostile attribution bias.