Date of Award

12-2005

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Psychology

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

Each year, interactive technology becomes more and more advanced, offering more lifelike environments, immersive experiences, and realistic situations. Additionally, the videogame industry has over doubled in size in less than ten years, now rivaling the box office industry. However, technological advances have quickly outpaced our understanding of the effects of certain types of adult content on the game player. To date, the majority of the research on the topic was conducted before the games themselves were technologically advanced enough to draw meaningful conclusions; the few studies conducted in the last few years, while offering promising methodological advancements from previous work, still have several shortcomings, mostly in their choice of dependent measures. The purposes of the present investigation were to build off of the small research base related to effects of violent video games on behavior and physiology, as well as utilize several different types of dependent measures not used in other studies. Results demonstrated virtually no physiological, behavioral, or attitudinal difference between the group that played the nonviolent game, compared to the group that played the violent game. Implications of these findings, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.

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