Effects of the video game exposure on prosocial behavior and prosocial motivation

Abstract

Research has provided that playing violent/prosocial video games decreases/increases prosocial behavior. However, investigation on the mechanism behind the behavioral changes has been relatively sparse. To address this research gap, a correlational study and an experimental study were conducted based on the General Learning Model (Buckley & Anderson, 2006). Study 1 (N = 96) was designed to examine the mediating effect of empathy in the effect of video game exposure on prosocial behavior by questionnaires. Violent video game exposure was found negatively associated with prosocial behavior, this relationship was mediated by empathy, and no significant result was found in prosocial video game exposure. In study 2 (N = 90), a pretest-posttest experiment was designed to examine the effect of video game exposure on prosocial motivation and prosocial behavior. Participants were required to play an assigned video game every day in a week. A simulated video game task and a prosocial implicit association test were used to measure prosocial behavior and prosocial motivation. The level of prosocial behavior and prosocial motivation were increased after the prosocial video game exposure, but this effect was not significant in the neutral and the violent gaming group. These results provide evidence that video game exposure can influence our prosocial behavior and our cognitive processing depending on the game content.