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A new study at Ontario’s Brock University has turned the old adage, “playing violent video games causes violence,” on its head. A paper published in the American Psychological Association’s journal Psychology of Violence entitled, “The Effect of Video Game Competition and Violence on Aggressive Behavior: Which Characteristic Has the Greatest Influence,” concluded that it was the competitive nature of a video game that led to aggressive behavior, and not the level of violence.

Researchers Paul Adachi and Teena Willoughby conducted two experiments. The first involved 42 test subjects playing either the violent action game Conan or the nonviolent racing game Fuel. Participants rated the games similar on competitiveness, difficulty, and pace of action, so the only difference was the level of violence. Test subjects’ post-gaming aggressiveness was measured by which of four hot sauces they would serve to another participant – the hotter the sauce, the more aggressive they were. (Yes, hot sauce – remember, they’re Canadians, so giving the test subjects guns, bazookas or nukes is a wee bit frowned upon.)

The researchers found no difference in aggressiveness between the two groups of gamers. They write, “The results suggest that the violent content alone was not sufficient to produce elevations in aggressive behavior compared with a nonviolent video game.” (more…)