The psychologist also tried to determine whether the hypothetical link between violent video games and hostile attribution bias would be more present in a socially-vulnerable population. This term refers to people who, because of an accumulation of negative experiences, are more likely to have a negative perception of society. As a result, they may be more likely to exhibit aggressive and delinquent behaviour - delinquency is a topic that is close to the author’s heart - as compared to those who are better integrated into society.
 
Again, "very few studies have looked at hostile attribution bias in relation to a population's risk factor," observes Roxanne Toniutti. “Yet this could provide information about an important question: do video games promote aggressive behaviour only in the presence of other risk factors?" The goal of the research was therefore to see if playing violent games increased young people's hostile attribution bias by taking different variables into account: the time played or simply the act of playing, the content of the game (violent or not), and the player's level of social vulnerability. And she also examined the possible link between video game content and social vulnerability.

No blood, no dismemberment

It turns out that finding adolescents for the study was no easy matter. However, the graduate student was able to gather a sample of 43 boys (91% Belgian) from 4 schools, including two with students that were more socially vulnerable (schools with positive discrimination programmes). The group of highly socially-vulnerable boys (which was determined by a test given beforehand) was then randomly split into one group that played a violent video game, and another group that played a non-violent game (10 subjects in each sub-group). The same procedure was followed for the other group of children (12 and 11 subjects, respectively).

The young people already knew how to play these 2 video games: a fighting game (King Of Fighters XII), and a football game (FIFA: 10), for the violent and non-violent content, respectively. These games were selected according to the PEGI(1) ratings appropriate for their age. The violent game didn't show any blood or dismemberment, and the characters were drawn in manga style.

Before and after playing the game, all the students answered questions after looking at 8 vignettes that showed an equal number of instrumental and relational provocation scenes. 

And now, play!

What most surprised Roxanne Tonuitti about the results? "Though many studies claim the opposite, our study showed that the violent content had no effect on the children. In our case, there were no differences between the young people who played the violent video game and the ones who played the non-violent game. This observation is reassuring (for parents as well): it shows that a single variable is not enough to create this type of negative impact. It shows that the subject is not passive -he thinks about and interprets what he sees. The game doesn't imprint upon the child as if he were a blank page,” she says. 

Among the other interesting results: before playing the game, the hostile attribution bias test didn't show any differences between at-risk youth and the others. In fact, they all interpreted a peer's ambiguous behaviour in the same way, both in instrumental and relational terms. And after having played? A double whammy! In fact, all of the children had a more hostile perception of a peer's ambiguous intentions after playing a video game for only 15 minutes, no matter what the game was...

(1) PEGI - Pan European Game Information http://www.pegi.info