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The Influences of Video Gaming on US Children's Moral

Reasoning About Violence

Article  in  Journal of Children and Media · May 2011

DOI: 10.1080/17482798.2011.558258

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The Influences of Video Gaming on

US Children's Moral Reasoning About
Violence
Edward T. Vieira & Marina Krcmar
Published online: 15 Apr 2011.

To cite this article: Edward T. Vieira & Marina Krcmar (2011) The Influences of Video Gaming on
US Children's Moral Reasoning About Violence, Journal of Children and Media, 5:02, 113-131, DOI:
10.1080/17482798.2011.558258

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 THE INFLUENCES OF VIDEO GAMING
ON US CHILDREN’S MORAL REASONING
ABOUT VIOLENCE

Edward T. Vieira and Marina Krcmar

Using the General Aggression Model as a framework, we surveyed children aged 7 –15 to examine
the effect of violent game play on their moral reasoning about violence. Variables examined were
age, gender, perspective-taking ability, and ability to sympathize. Using confirmatory factor
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analysis and structural equation modeling, we found that violent video gaming was negatively
related to perspective taking and ability to sympathize. Perspective taking and sympathy were
negatively related to perceptions of unjustified violence as acceptable. Age was negatively related
to the usage of violence as being right in some situations, and girls were positively associated with
perspective taking and ability to sympathize. Neither cognitive perspective taking nor affective
sympathy were related to perceptions of justified violence as being right.

KEYWORDS aggression; children; moral reasoning; perspective taking; sympathy; violent

video games

Introduction
Current research on the effects of violent video game play suggests that play
influences aggressive affect, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive delinquent behavior,
even after controlling for aggressive personality (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Smith et al., 2004).
Experimental work using contemporary games has found increases in aggression after play
(Anderson & Dill, 2000; Cicchirillo & Chory-Assad, 2005; Farrar, Krcmar, & Nowak, 2006).
In fact, large-scale meta-analyses support an effect of violent game play on aggression
(Anderson, 2004; Sherry, Desouza, Greenberg, & Lachlan, 2001).
Despite findings for the effect of game play on cognitions, affect, and behavior, little
is known about the influence of violent video game play on children’s moral reasoning
about violence. Whereas research has found that television violence exposure negatively
influences children’s moral judgments and moral reasoning skills (e.g. Krcmar & Valkenburg,
1999; Krcmar & Vieira, 2005; Rosenkoetter, Huston, & Wright, 1990), little is known about the
effect of game play on these same outcomes. Therefore, in the present study, we tested
children aged 7 –15 to examine the effect of violent game play on moral reasoning and we
examined any role that might be played by children’s age, gender, perspective taking
ability, and sympathizing ability.

Theoretical Overview
Several theoretical perspectives attempt to explain how exposure to media violence
can lead to outcomes such as aggressive behavior. The General Aggression Model (GAM;

Journal of Children and Media, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2011

ISSN 1748-2798 print/1748-2801 online/11/020113-131
q 2011 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/17482798.2011.558258
 114 EDWARD T. VIEIRA AND MARINA KRCMAR

Bushman & Anderson, 2002), which comprehensively integrates central elements from
several earlier aggression theories including social cognitive theory (Bandura, 2002), script
theory (Huesmann, 1986, 1998), cognitive-neoassociation theory (Berkowitz & Grych, 2000),
Geen’s affective aggression model (1990), and Zillmann’s (1983) excitation transfer model,
attempts to integrate existing knowledge and research on the learning, development,
instigation, and expression of aggression (Bushman & Anderson, 2002).
The GAM describes the learning of aggression as occurring in both the short and the
long term. In the present research, our focus is the long-term model of repeated exposure.
In its inception, the GAM indicates three routes to aggressive outcomes: cognitive, affective,
and arousal processes. It is via these three routes that aggression can be triggered. We
argue that although GAM addresses aggression, per se, there is reason to believe that moral
reasoning about aggression might also be influenced. Why might this be the case? In brief,
two of the paths that are thought to activate aggression, aggressive cognitions, and
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aggressive affect are also involved in the process of moral judgments and reasoning.
Whereas Kohlberg (1984) suggests that moral reasoning is a primarily cognitive process
made up of logical reasoning based on one’s developmental stage and environmental
experiences, Eisenberg and Morris (2001) suggest that moral reasoning also has an affective
component, mainly via empathy. Furthermore, aggressive behavior is likely to be
reciprocally related to individual judgments about the rightness of aggression in various
situations. Thus, it seems likely that GAM offers a framework of aggression that lends itself
to theoretical reasoning about moral reasoning: moral reasoning occurs via both affective
and cognitive routes, which are influenced by both developmental and environmental
factors.

Cognitive Routes to Aggression

Experimental research has found that seeing a picture of a gun or weapon can prime
aggressive thoughts (Anderson, Anderson, & Deuser, 1996; Anderson, Benjamin, &
Bartholow, 1998). Similarly, playing violent video games can prime aggressive thoughts
(Anderson & Bushman, 2001; Farrar & Krcmar, 2006). Thus, negative outcomes can occur
because an individual, after exposure to violent stimuli, has primed aggressive thoughts,
making them more readily accessible. In the long-term, each exposure to a violent video
game is like another learning trial. Over time, these activated aggressive scripts become
more ingrained and more readily accessible. The creation of these aggressive knowledge
structures can change personality, making responses to environmental features more
aggressive (Anderson & Dill, 2000).

Affective Routes to Aggression

Playing violent video games can increase hostility over time (Anderson & Bushman,
2001, 2002). Repeated hostility associated with violent video gaming leads to the
development of aggressive knowledge structures thus facilitating an increase in aggressive
personality. Specifically, repeated exposure to violence resulting in repeated aggressive
affect may make affective aggression more likely as a response to frustrating or ambiguous
environmental stimuli (Carnagey, Anderson, & Bushman, 2007). Thus, repeated short-term
affective hostility can result in long-term affective aggressive responses.
 VIDEO GAMING AND MORAL REASONING 115

GAM and Moral Reasoning

Although GAM makes no predictions about moral reasoning concerning violence
as mediated by developmental factors, there is reason to believe that processes leading
from violent media exposure to moral reasoning about violence might be similar to
those leading to aggression. However, to address these parallels, it is important to
consider moral reasoning as a construct. Moral reasoning is the ability to make and
explain ethical choices (Eisenberg, 1986). Moral reasoning emerges from individuals’
internal construction of the social world based on experience and personal values
(Johnson, 1993; Reed, 1997). Neo-Kohlbergian theory (Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, & Thoma,
1999) suggests that moral knowledge structures should become more complex over time
as children develop and gain experience. As children learn about the perspectives of
others, their moral structures expand to incorporate those influences. Interaction with
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broader social environments encourage the development of even more elaborate

knowledge structures that reflect not only the needs and perspectives of those in their
immediate environment, but also the needs of society and those who they do not
necessarily know personally. Thus, moral reasoning is partly learned based on
personological and situational factors. Moreover, research on children’s reasoning
about violence has found that children distinguish between justified and unjustified
violence (Krcmar & Valkenburg, 1999).
The long-term GAM, which will be referred to as GAM henceforth, would suggest that
learning aggressive behaviors occurs through repeated exposure to violent stimuli
resulting in chronic accessibility of violent thoughts and chronic affective reactions.
Similarly, moral judgments might be influenced by exposure to media violence. In violent
video games, players take on a character. The character frequently employs violence to save
others or gain restitution for harm done so that the violence is understood to be justified
(Carnagey & Anderson, 2004) as opposed to gratuitous or violence for its own sake
(unjustified). Indeed, it is a necessary and inevitable part of the game. Furthermore, violence
is directly rewarded: the player wins points, is given extra weapons, or other game rewards
and can move up to the next level. Thus, through repeated violent game play, a player is
likely to learn to see violence as correct, justified, and inevitable, especially when it is
perceived as occurring for a particular (“warranted”) reason such as to protect others, for
restitution for harm done, or for revenge (Carnagey & Anderson, 2004; Krcmar & Vieira,
2005). Thus, according to the long-term GAM, violent video gaming effects are over time
and on attitudes and moral judgments. Therefore:
H1: Exposure to violent video games will be positively associated with perceptions that
justified violence is correct.
RQ1: What will be the relationship between exposure to violent video games and
perceptions of unjustified violence?

Video Game Play, Sympathy, and Perspective Taking

The GAM presents cognitive and affective routes to the learning of aggression, and,
by our extension, to moral reasoning about violence. To make a judgment about violence,
at least two skills are necessary. First, a child must be able to imagine the point-of-view of
both parties in the aggressive conflict. Second, he/she should be able to feel some
 116 EDWARD T. VIEIRA AND MARINA KRCMAR

sympathy or imagine some sympathy towards each party. Only at this point can a moral
judgment be appropriately made.
Perspective taking is the ability to place oneself in the position of another person and
then access knowledge structures to assist in understanding that individual in the context
of that person’s situation (Eisenberg, 2002). Although perspective taking includes the ability
to empathize, it is more complex (Hoffman, 2000); it is the ability to perceive others in a
cognitively abstract way or form a multidimensional perspective including the broader
environment (Sakamoto, 1994).
The ability to imagine the point of view of another can be conceptualized as an
individual personality difference variable that is influenced by a number of social factors.
For instance, children whose families stress consequences to the victim when the child has
hurt someone are more likely to demonstrate better perspective taking in subsequent
interactions (Stewart & Marvin, 1984). This ability to imagine the point of view of another
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and to access other higher order social emotional knowledge structures will influence
children’s moral reasoning about certain kinds of violence and aggression through a more
complex process of understanding.
How might video games affect cognitive perspective taking? Whether the game is
structured in first-person or third-person play, the gamer is often the aggressive actor in
various game situations. These situations are known as performer sequences (Cerulo, 1998),
where violent sequences occur from the perspective of the person who commits the act.
Cerulo argues that these performer sequences emphasize the necessity of the violent act by
offering only the point of view of the perpetrator, where the character is using violence to
remedy a situation, and consequently, deemphasize the victim’s point of view. Thus, in a
video game, players are encouraged to see only one point of view—that of the violent
perpetrator. More importantly, this sense of single view point is enhanced because it is the
perspective of the player.
In violent video games, the one-sided perspective of the first person is privileged.
Furthermore, other perspectives, such as that of the victim or other players, are discouraged
because the target of violence is often perceived as an object, without substance, and is
dehumanized (Lugo, 2006). It is possible, therefore, that this one-sided format in gaming
may hinder development of more complex moral knowledge structures by suppressing
children’s tendency to engage in perspective taking (Eisenberg, 1986), or by not providing
them with instances of multiple perspectives (the victim, the victim’s family) (Krcmar &
Vieira, 2005). However, this privileging of the aggressor’s perspective does not by itself
influence moral reasoning. Other aspects of violent video games are likely to do so as well.
For example, aggression in many video games occurs frequently, thus making perspective
taking of the victim less likely. Furthermore, there is a lack of authority figures in video
games to instruct the child to take other perspectives. Thus, it is not the violence alone but
the characteristics of violent video games that may influence perspective taking. In the
proposed model, exposure to media violence negatively affects perspective taking, the
primary cognitive mechanism for moral reasoning. More specifically, violent video gaming
should positively affect moral reasoning about justified violence, where violence occurs to
protect others (Krcmar & Vieira, 2005). In the case of unjustified violence, perspective taking
might impact moral reasoning because social norms against random violence are strong
and relatively invariant. It may be that from a very young age children are taught that
gratuitous (unjustified) violence is clearly wrong. Therefore,
 VIDEO GAMING AND MORAL REASONING 117

H2: There will be a negative effect of violent game play on children’s perspective taking.
H3: Decreased perspective taking will lead to the perception of justified violence as
correct.
RQ2: What will be the effect of perspective taking on perceptions of unjustified violence?

In addition to cognitive perspective taking, GAM would suggest that affective variables
influence learning outcomes. In the case of moral reasoning, we would expect sympathy to
be related to moral judgments about violence. Sympathy is defined as feeling sorrow for
another (Clark, 1987; Ruusuvuori, 2005). One would have to place oneself in the other’s
position in order to feel sorrow for that person. Previous research has found that exposure to
violent media content reduces the ability to sympathize with victims (Carnagey & Anderson,
2004; Carnagey et al., 2007). Similar then, to the results of the effects of violent television on
sympathy, we would expect exposure to violent video games to dampen sympathy toward
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victims. How might this occur? Two factors may dampen sympathetic responses to victims
after exposure to media violence. First, in the case of media violence, the violence is most
often shown from the perspective of the aggressor (Cerulo, 1998), thus making it more likely
that our identification and perspective slanted toward the aggressor and not the victim.
Second, repeated exposure to media violence has been found to result in desensitization, or
an attenuated emotional response to that violence (Zillmann & Weaver, 1999). Taken
together, we would assume that repeat exposure to media violence would result in
dampened affective sympathetic responses to victims of violence. Therefore:
H4: Violent game play will be negatively associated with sympathy.

Furthermore, consistent with GAM, via this affective route of sympathy, we would
anticipate a decrease in sympathy to be associated with a concomitant increase in
perceptions of violence as correct. This would occur quite simply because exposure to
media violence in general has been found to be associated with a decreased tendency to
feel empathy for victims (e.g. Funk, Baldacci, Pasold, & Baumgardner, 2004; Gentile, Lynch,
Linder, & Walsh, 2004), and we would expect a similar outcome for the effect of video game
violence. Thus, when affective responses such as sympathy are dampened, it is probable
that this decrease in sympathy for the victim would lead children to see violence as less
harmful, less problematic, and therefore, more acceptable. Thus:
H5: There will be a negative relationship between sympathy and perceptions of violence
such that less sympathy will be associated with perceptions of violence as more
correct.

In addition, past research has found a significant relationship between sympathy and
perspective taking where individuals who are better able to perspective take are more likely
to feel sympathy toward others (Batson, 1991). Thus:
H6: There will be a positive relationship between children’s perspective taking and their
ability to sympathize.

Age of Child and Gender Differences

Research on perspective taking has found a clear, positive relationship between the
age of the child and perspective-taking ability, making this ability one of the hallmarks of
 118 EDWARD T. VIEIRA AND MARINA KRCMAR

child development (Piaget, 1965). Additional research has found that boys spend more time
playing, and play more violent video games compared to girls (Roe & Muijs, 1998;
Sakamoto, 1994). Boys also prefer more realistic human violent games (Funk, Buchman, &
Germann, 2000). This suggests that greater time spent playing violent video games places
boys at greater risk for aggressive thoughts and behaviors (Gentile et al., 2004). At an early
age, girls demonstrate more complex moral judgments, although these differences
vanished in late adolescence (Basinger, Gibbs, & Fuller, 1995). In one study, girls
communicated more care-related and ethical ideal expressions in their moral judgments
(Garmon, Basinger, Gregg, & Gibbs, 1996). Another study reported that girls rated physical
and relational aggression as more harmful compared to boys (Bierwirth, 2006; Murray-
Close, Crick, & Galotti, 2006). Other research has linked females’ advanced moral reasoning
to greater ability to empathize and sympathize (Ryan, David, & Reynolds, 2004; Tangney &
Dearing, 2002).
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These findings suggest that girls possess greater abilities to take others’ perspective
and sympathize with others, allowing for the development of advanced moral reasoning
where justified and unjustified violence are perceived as wrong. Thus:
H7: There will be a positive relationship between age and perspective taking.
H8: Girls will see unjustified and justified violence as more wrong than boys.

Method
Sample and Procedures
The sample consisted of 166 children from twenty-nine schools in the Boston and
southern New Hampshire areas. All students in the participating schools were invited to
complete the survey. There were fifty-six (34%) girls and 110 (66%) boys. The children’s ages
ranged from 7 to 15 and the mean age was 11 years, 7 months.
Children completed an online questionnaire during class time. The questionnaire
included thirty-four Likert-scale questions. There were also a number of open-ended
questions requiring short answers. During data collection, the researcher or school teachers
were available to answer questions.

Measures
Dangerous play score. Gamers’ exposure to violent video games was
operationalized using a dangerous play score, which consisted of two components:
violent content and amount of playtime. Violent content was measured by having
children list their top three favorite video games. Using the Entertainment Software Rating
Board Ratings (ESRB, 2006), these games were then scored C (early childhood) ¼ 1;
E (everyone) ¼ 2; E 10 þ (everyone 10 and older) ¼ 3; T (teen) ¼ 4; and M (mature) ¼ 5.
Some examples of violent video games are Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Counter Strike,
Mortal Kombat Deception, World of Warcraft, and Day of Reckoning. Playtime was
operationalized with two questions that asked participants how many hours they spent
playing video games during the week and on weekends. The dangerous play score was
calculated as the game ESRB rating reported multiplied by the average number of hours
played per week.
 VIDEO GAMING AND MORAL REASONING 119

Perspective taking. Five hypothetical perspective-taking stories were adopted from

Krcmar and Vieira (2005), which reported reliability at .72. Children were asked ten open-
ended questions, which required short responses.

Sympathy. Sympathy was operationalized by a four-item scale developed

specifically for this study. Responses were anchored in a five-point scale ranging from
1 ¼ “strongly disagree” to 5 ¼ “strongly agree.” See Table 1.

Moral reasoning about justified and unjustified violence. The Moral Interpretation of
Interpersonal Violence scale (MIIV; Krcmar & Valkenburg, 1999) was used to measure moral
reasoning about violence. Children read and responded to four stories that had been
validated in previous research with reliabilities assessed at .55 –.80 for justified violence and
.54 –.70 for unjustified violence (Krcmar & Vieira, 2005).
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In each story, a scenario was described where the main character used violence
to solve the problem. Of the stories, two were intended to show unjustified violence,
whereas the other two stories involved justified violence—that is, violence used to
protect another person or as restitution for harm done. Of the four violent scenarios,
two situations involved relatively minor physical aggression; whereas the other two

TABLE 1
Confirmatory factor analyses of perspective taking and sensitivity scales
Ability to General Perspective
Items Sympathize Taking
1. I get upset when I see someone get hurt. .73
2. Seeing someone crying makes me feel sad. .72
3. It makes me sad seeing someone alone in a group. .67
4. I get upset when I see an animal get hurt. .64
5. You get a new bike for your birthday. Your friend wants to .82
borrow it. What do you think?
6. Regarding item 5, what does your friend think? .77
7. You visit your grandmother after school and do not finish .75
homework. What do parents think?
8. You try to swat a bee on your friend. Teacher sees you. .70
What do you think?
9. You visit your grandmother after school and do not finish .69
homework. What does teacher think?
10. Your friend Chris in front gets your apple pie. He loves .68
apple pie too. What does he think?
11. You and friend both play soccer for different teams. You .68
win. What do you think?
Chi square .39 16.51
Degrees of freedom 2 14
p-value .83 .28
Root mean square residual .00 .03
Comparative fit index .99 .96
Cronbach’s alpha .78 .87

Note: Confirmatory factor analysis was used with generalized least squares estimation. Factor loadings are
standardized beta weights. Responses were anchored in a 7-point scale ranging from 1 ¼ “low
values” to 5 ¼ “high values.” N ¼ 166. Some items are truncated. Perspective-taking items were
open-ended and coded as follows: 0 ¼ “no answer,” 1 ¼ “some perspective taking,” 2 ¼ “good
perspective taking,” and 3 ¼ “meta perspective taking.”
 120 EDWARD T. VIEIRA AND MARINA KRCMAR

situations involved hospitalization of the victim. After the story was read, the participant
answered five-point scale questions concerning whether the violence was wrong or right.
See Table 2.
The control items were age, gender, and name of school. Most questions were
anchored in five-point Likert-type scales, and the perspective-taking questions were
opened-ended and coded by two independent judges for intercoder reliability. There were
no nested data effects by school. Data screening revealed normal distribution.

Analysis
The primary analyses are confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation
modeling (SEM).
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Measurement model. The first two choices instead of top three were selected for
the dangerous play score because GLM repeated measures analysis revealed that the third
choice (M ¼ 2.90, SD ¼ 1.18, p , .05) was not similar to the first two selections concerning
violent and mature content. Thus, there was no difference between first (M ¼ 3.15,
SD ¼ 1.32, p ¼ .940) and second choices of (M ¼ 3.14, SD ¼ 1.23, p ¼ .940) most played
games. The ESRB rating content variable is the simple mean of the first and second
choice video games. The dangerous play score distribution was as follows: M ¼ 77.29

TABLE 2
Confirmatory two-factor analysis of children’s perceptions of justified and unjustified moral
reasoning about violence
Child’s Perceptions Child’s Perceptions
Items of Justified Violence of Unjustified Violence
1. Gang members demand money and a drink .77
from Phil’s grandparents. Phil beats gangster
so that he’s in the hospital. Was Phil right,
wrong, or in middle?
2. Man grabs Paul’s sister’s purse and runs. Paul .58
gets him, kicks him, and retrieves purse. Was
Paul right, wrong, or in middle?
3. Barry’s neighbor accidentally parks close to .73
his car. Barry beats the neighbor so that he’s
in the hospital. Was Barry right, wrong, or in
middle?
4. Jeff asked Frank why he lied to him. Frank .51
gets angry and kicks Jeff several times. Was
Frank right, wrong, or in middle?

Chi square 2.66 —

Degrees of freedom 1 —
p-value .10 —
Root mean square residual .03 —
Comparative fit index .96 —
Cronbach’s alpha .61 .54

Note: Confirmatory factor analysis was used with generalized least squares estimation. Factor loadings are
standardized beta weights. Responses were anchored in a 7-point scale ranging from 1 ¼ “very
wrong” to 5 ¼ “very right.” N ¼ 166. Some items are truncated.
 VIDEO GAMING AND MORAL REASONING 121

(SD ¼ 76.76); median ¼ 54.00; and range 1 –435, which suggests that some respondents
spent little time playing video games.
Two coders rated ten open-ended perspective taking items. The Cohen Kappa as
a measure of intercoder reliability was assessed at .81, which demonstrates excellent
interrater agreement (Landis & Koch, 1977). The average of both coders was used.
A CFA was then conducted using AMOS 7.0 (Arbuckle, 2006). CFA loadings for all
factors ranged from .51 to .82, demonstrating desirable convergent validity. The fit indices
were excellent: p-values were .10– .83; root mean square residuals (RMSRs) ¼ .00 –.08;
comparative fit index (CFI) ¼ .96 –.99. Tables 1 and 2 represent the factor structures.
Reliabilities were mostly desirable, with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from .54 to .87.
According to a number of researchers in this area (Bearden & Netemeyer, 1999; Dowson,
Barber, & McIverney, 2003; Edmonds, Garratt, Haines, & Blair, 2005; Kline, 1998; Lan &
Lanthier, 2003; Prawat, Grissom, & Parish, 1979), Cronbach’s alpha scores of approximately
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.60 or higher for developmental scales are acceptable. The next point addresses low
reliability. Factor correlations ranged from .02 to .39. Table 3 represents the zero-order
correlations, which demonstrated excellent discriminant validity.

Correction for attenuation. Reliability assessment examines the degree of

measurement error in observing the relations among measures, but does not address the
relationships among the constructs (Charles, 2005; Schmidt & Hunter, 1996, 1999). In the
case of this study’s moral reasoning scales, there appears to be random response error.
The moral reasoning scales require reading the various moral scenarios; processing and
critically examining the story; and then deciding whether the hypothetical action is
acceptable, and to what degree. It is a relatively complex process for a child, who is prone to
variations in attention, mental efficiency, and momentary distractions. Correcting for
attenuation removes measurement error associated with these threats to reliability and
allows for a more accurate examination of relations by correcting reliability distortions.
The respecified model was corrected for attenuation owing to measurement error related to
the sample size and age-related factors noted earlier (Carmines & Zeller, 1979; Kline, 1998).

Structural model. The hypotheses were examined through structural equation

modeling. Figure 1 represents the tested hypothesized process. The model was corrected
for attenuation because of low reliability associated with the moral reasoning measures.
The model did not fit the data well, x2 ¼ 115.20, df ¼ 9, p , .00, RMSEA ¼ .27, CFI ¼ .57. As
noted, there was a chi-square significant difference between the model and data and fit
measures were undesirable. Index scores of $ .90 are acceptable (Kline, 1998) and RMSEA
scores of $ .05 are desirable (Cudeck & Browne, 1992).
To understand this process better, theoretically driven modification indexes were
adopted. Figure 2 represents the respecified process. The model was corrected for attenuation.
The model fit the data well, x2 ¼ 8.29, df ¼ 8, p ¼ .41, RMSEA ¼ .02, CFI ¼ .99.

Results
Hypothesis 1 predicted that exposure to violent video games would be positively
associated with perceptions of justified violence as correct. A small significant positive
effect was discovered between children playing violent video games and perceptions of
some types of violence as being acceptable, b ¼ .14, p , .05. Research Question 1 asked
 Downloaded by [Wake Forest University] at 06:03 31 October 2014

122

TABLE 3
Zero-order correlations of variables determining children’s moral reasoning about violence
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Gamers’ age (in years) 11.92 2.30 1.00
2. Gender — — .05 1.00
EDWARD T. VIEIRA AND MARINA KRCMAR

3. Dangerous Play Score 77.29 76.76 .12 .39* 1.00

4. Ability to perspective taking 1.52 0.50 .20* 2.32* 2.12 1.00
5. Ability to sympathy 3.69 0.75 2.09 2.35* 2.26* .29* 1.00
6. Perceptions of “justified” violence 3.25 1.01 – .09 .08 .18* .22* 2.24* 1.00
7. Perceptions of unjustified violence 1.29 0.62 .02 .21* .13* 2.32* 2.33* .34* 1.00

Note: *p # .05. Significance tests are based on N ¼ 166. Gamer’s age is in years. Dangerous Play Score consists of the ESRB rating by reported hours/week of gaming.
 VIDEO GAMING AND MORAL REASONING 123

Gaming Personological Moral

Behavior Variables Reasoning
About
Violence

.17

Participant
Age

.23

–.23
Perspective-
Justified
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Taking
Violence
Ability
–.16 –.33

Dangerous .32
Play Score
–.25
Ability –.28
Unjustified
to
Violence
Sympathize –.37

.02

.02

Gender
–.16

FIGURE 1
Tested hypothesized model for determining the effects of family and video gaming models on
children’s moral reasoning about violence. Maximum likelihood estimation was used. Path
coefficients are standardized beta weights, x2 ¼ 115.20, df ¼ 9, p ¼ .00, RMSEA ¼ .23,
CFI ¼ .57. The broken lines represent nonsignificant paths at p . .05. Scales were anchored
in a 7-point Likert scale from 1 ¼ low to 5 ¼ high. Coding: girls ¼ 0 and boys ¼ 1. N ¼ 166.

what the relationship would be, if any, between exposure to violent video games and
perceptions of unjustified violence. No relationship was found.
Hypothesis 2 predicted that there would be a negative effect of violent game play on
children’s perspective taking. No relationship was found. Hypothesis 3 predicted that
decreased perspective taking would lead to the perception of justified violence as correct.
No relationship was found. Research Question 2 asked what effect perspective taking
would have on perceptions of unjustified violence. Low levels of perspective taking were
found to be predictive of children perceiving unjustified violence as an acceptable
behavior, b ¼ –.34, p , .001. Hypothesis 4 predicted that violent game play would be
negatively associated with sympathy. This hypothesis was supported, b ¼ –.14, p , .05.
 124 EDWARD T. VIEIRA AND MARINA KRCMAR

Gaming Personological Moral

Behavior Variables Reasoning
About
Violence

.14

Participant
Age –.15

.10 .23 –.14

Perspective-
Justified
Taking
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Violence
Ability
–.34
Dangerous
.28
Play Score
.58

–.14
Ability to Unjustified
Sympathize Violence
–.38
.39 –.35

–.24

Gender

FIGURE 2
Respecified model for determining the effects of family and video gaming models on children’s
moral reasoning about violence. Maximum likelihood estimation was used. Path coefficients
are standardized beta weights, x2 ¼ 8.29, df ¼ 8, p ¼ .41, RMSEA ¼ .02, CFI ¼ .99.
The broken line represents a nonsignificant path at p . .05. Scales were anchored in a
5-point Likert scale from 1 ¼ low to 5 ¼ high. Coding: girls ¼ 0 and boys ¼ 1. N ¼ 166.

Children playing more violent video games were associated with a decreasing ability to
sympathize with others.
Hypothesis 5 predicted that there would be a negative relationship between
sympathy and perceptions of violence such that less sympathy would be associated with
perceptions of violence as being more correct. This was partially supported. The ability to
sympathize predicted the acceptance of unjustified violence, b ¼ –.38, p , .001; however,
no relationship was found between sympathy and perceptions of justified violence.
Hypothesis 6 predicted that there would be a positive relationship between
children’s perspective taking and their ability to sympathize. Perspective taking was found
to predict the ability to sympathize, b ¼ .28, p , .001. Hypothesis 7 predicted that older
children would possess greater perspective taking ability. As expected, as children age,
 VIDEO GAMING AND MORAL REASONING 125

their ability to understand others’ perspectives expands, b ¼ .23, p , .001. Hypothesis 8

predicted that girls would score higher on unjustified and justified violence as wrong
compared to boys. This was not supported. However, the respecified model suggests new
theoretically sound relationships. First, gender influences moral reasoning about violence
through the mediators. Gender predicted perspective-taking ability, b ¼ – .35, p , .001,
and ability to sympathize, b ¼ –.24, p , .001. Boys appeared to play more violent video
games, b ¼ .39, p , .001. Additionally, younger participants tended to sympathize more,
b ¼ –.14, p , .05, and perceive some violence as justified, b ¼ – .15, p , .05. Although not
significant, older children tended to spend more time playing violent video games. Last, as
one might expect, respondents who found unjustified violence as acceptable, also thought
that justified was acceptable, b ¼ .58, p , .001.
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Discussion
This study supports the General Model of Aggression (CAM) for long-term effects;
however, we examined moral reasoning as an outcome rather than aggression. Although it
is clear that this study did not offer a direct test of the GAM because we did not measure
aggression, per se, we argued that the GAM might also offer a framework for studying the
effect of violent video games on moral reasoning. Specifically, we used the GAM because
we predicted that (1) repeat exposure to violent video games could help establish
consistently aggressive schema for moral behavior and (2) these schema could be
established via both cognitive and affective processes. As suggested by Anderson and Dill
(2000), violent video gaming provides a complete environment for learning about violence
through desensitizing the young gamer and facilitating the development of desensitizing
aggressive knowledge structures and scripts such as hostility, and, in this case, less
advanced perspective taking and less sympathy toward victims in general. These cognitive
and affective processes ultimately result in perceptions of justified and unjustified violence
as more right.

Summary of Findings
Many of the hypotheses developed to test a model consistent with GAM were
supported. First, playing violent video games was significantly negatively related to both
cognitive perspective taking and sympathy. Although these two variables were significantly
related to one another and related to child age, the variables are conceptually distinct as
one relates to the cognitive ability to imagine the point of another; whereas the other
measures an affective response toward victims. We argued that, through somewhat
different modeling processes, both would be affected by violent video game play.
Both perspective taking and sympathy were negatively related to perceptions of unjustified
violence, as we predicted. However, although age was negatively related to perceptions of
justified violence as more right, neither cognitive perspective taking nor affective sympathy
were related to perceptions of justified violence as right, a point we will return to later.
The model explained 35% of the variance in moral reasoning about unjustified
violence and 40% of the variance in reasoning about justified violence. The effects on
children’s moral reasoning about unjustified violence were as expected. The model also
explained 36% of the variance in sympathy, which was more than that of perspective
taking. Although the two are different constructs, they are related in a number of ways.
 126 EDWARD T. VIEIRA AND MARINA KRCMAR

Perspective taking requires cognitive knowledge structures to function well and increases
with age. Sympathy requires some level of perspective taking to operate. The ability to
sympathize is primarily an affective condition consisting of affective knowledge structures
and, as this research suggests, plays an important role in the process of moral reasoning.
A number of gender differences were discovered. Girls had greater perspective taking
and ability to sympathize. Perhaps this occurred because girls’ gaming habits contribute to
these cognitive and affective variations. Moreover, social conditioning, the family
environment, and stereotypical considerations reinforce traditional roles in how girls and
boys should think, feel, and behave.

Theoretical Implications
Although this study did not directly test the GAM, we utilized an extension of the
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GAM model to explore how cognitive and affective processes could influence problematic
outcomes beyond aggression. For example, in this case aggression can occur in the short
term because cognitive schema are primed by aggressive inputs such as violent video
game play (Anderson et al., 2004) and can occur because environmental cues can
encourage hostile affective responses (Anderson & Dill, 2000). These short-term effects thus
mediate aggression. However, long-term effects occur as well. Through repeated exposure
to these environmental stimuli, aggressive cognitions can be chronically primed and hostile
affects can be a ready response, thus resulting in a more trait-like aggression.
Like aggression, moral reasoning can be thought of as a short-term outcome, with
moral judgments being influenced by immediate past experiences and environmental cues
(Krcmar & Curtis, 2003). Specifically, immediate previous exposure to aggressive television
models can make it more likely that children perceive violence as right in some cases
(Krcmar & Curtis, 2003). However, repeated exposure to television violence has also been
found to affect children’s long-term moral reasoning (Rosenkoetter et al., 1990) and moral
development (Krcmar & Vieira, 2005).
How might this occur? As the GAM model suggests, both affective and cognitive
processes are likely at work. Although perspective taking has been demonstrated to be a
developmental phenomenon with children improving their ability to see the point of view
of others as they age (Piaget, 1965), perspective taking is also a skill that is encouraged or
dampened by various environmental cues. Both violent television and violent video games
tend to privilege the point of view of the violent actor (Cerulo, 1998) rather than present
multiple perspectives. Furthermore, through repeat exposure to violence in which the
point of view of the perpetrator is privileged and in which no sanctions for violence exist
perspective taking, especially for the victim, may be dampened. This type of repeated
violence may limit children’s ability to see multiple points of view in an aggressive
interaction. Instead, they may be more likely to remain in their egocentric perspectives.
Thus, through negative effects on cognitive perspective taking, playing violent video games
may have a negative influence on moral reasoning about justified violence. Similarly,
violent video games do not encourage affective sympathy for the victim. Pain to others is
largely minimized or ignored. Thus, moral reasoning about unjustified violence is hampered
and children are likely to perceive it as more right.
However, recall that in the initial model, effects from violent game play, via cognitive
and affective routes to violence occurred for both justified and unjustified violence.
However, after correcting for attenuation, effects occurred only for unjustified violence.
 VIDEO GAMING AND MORAL REASONING 127

Perhaps the reason for this is that once corrections were made due to age-related
measurement issues (e.g. short attention span), age emerged as a more relevant predictor.
In the case of justified violence (violence in retaliation to harm done or for protection), older
children saw this as less right. Their increased ability to see both the point of view of the
perpetrator and the victim may have encouraged them to understand that retaliation
may not be correct because aggressive interactions are often complex, with blame difficult
to clearly assign. However, interestingly, as age emerged as a more significant predictor in
perceptions of justified violence, so too did the effect of video game play—unmediated
by cognitive and affective processes. Thus, although GAM would argue that moral
reasoning may also be influenced by cognition and affect, it can also be influenced directly
by game play. Those who play more violent video games perceive violence in the name of
retaliation and self-protection as more justified, much like the view of violence presented in
video games.
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Limitations and Future Research

This study faced a number of challenges. First, some research has found that sheer
amount of playtime has negative effects on aggression, even apart from any effects of
violent content. Research on playtime and related factors such as Mahood’s (2006) work on
gaming frustration suggests that work on amount of time spent in play must be investigated.
If frustration resulting from game play, whether the game is violent or only challenging, is the
ultimate mechanism that influences aggression, then models such as the GAM investigated
here would be called into question. Clearly, additional work is needed in this area as well.
Second, an additional limitation is the low reliabilities of some of the scales. Although
low reliabilities in the current data may indeed result from children’s problems with
attention and comprehension, this does not eliminate the potentially unknown effects of
low reliability. Additional work is needed to investigate ways to improve scales and the
reliability of scales when working with very young children.
Third, the sample size is somewhat small. Therefore, the lack of direct effects may be in
part due to low power, and not to meaningful differences between moral reasoning about
justified and unjustified aggression. In addition, given the large age range, it seems like a
very small sample for testing age-correlated effects reliably. Given these issues, the findings
should be interpreted with caution, and additional research with both larger samples and a
larger number of participants in each age bracket should be conducted.
Fourth, there was some concern regarding the method of calculating violent game
exposure. Devising interesting and valid ways of calculating exposure to violent video
games is a valuable pursuit and one that researchers should continue to investigate.
Specifically, children might be asked about more than three favorite games (and, in our
case, only the top two reported games played were in the analysis). Children’s ratings
and/or expert ratings, rather than ESRB categories, might be a more effective manner used
to assess the level of violence in video games.
Last, the current study utilizes the GAM, a theory that, in its inception, dealt with
aggression, not with moral reasoning. Although there is reason to believe that the two
concepts are related (and indeed research has both argued for a conceptual relationship and
found a statistical relationship between the two; e.g. Krcmar & Valkenburg, 1999), additional
research is needed to determine the extent to which GAM is an appropriate model to use
when considering the effects of moral reasoning, rather than behavioral violence per se.
 128 EDWARD T. VIEIRA AND MARINA KRCMAR

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Edward T. Vieira, Jr., PhD is an associate professor of Communication at Simmons

College. He earned his doctorate from the University of Connecticut. E-mail:
edward.vieira@simmons.edu
Marina Krcmar, PhD is an associate professor of Communication at Wake Forest University,
PO Box 7347, Winston-Salem, NC. She earned her doctorate from the University of
Wisconsin. E-mail: Krcmarm@wfu.edu

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