ABSTRACT
The link between violent content in digital games and aggression is one of the most controversial topics in media effects research. Numerous studies have been conducted to answer the one decisive question: Does playing violent digital games result in socially inacceptable expressions of aggressive behavior? Despite the large body of cross-sectional correlational and experimental studies and meta-analyses that have been conducted to answer this question, the results diverge so much that the interpretation and contextualization of the effects’ magnitude alone still causes heated and, at times, polemic debates among scholars (Grimes, Anderson, and Bergen, 2008). Particularly the real-life implications of the findings are heavily discussed (see Bushman, Rothstein, and Anderson, 2010 vs. Ferguson and Kilburn, 2010).
