Effect of Video Games on Children's Aggressive Behavior and Pro-social Behavior: A Panel Study with Elementary School Students

This panel study examines whether video game use, exposure to specific on-screen content, and genre preference affect aggressive and pro-social behavior among Japanese fifth graders. Two surveys were administered roughly two to four months apart in late 2001 and early 2002, drawing on eight randomly selected public elementary schools across urban and regional areas, with 780 students (384 boys, 396 girls) included in the final analysis. The authors used cross-lagged structural equation modeling, controlling for sex and social desirability, to estimate directional relationships between Time 1 video game variables and Time 2 behavioral outcomes.

The findings show that boys used video games substantially more than girls and were more exposed to violent scenes, while girls were more likely to prefer non-violent genres. Violent game preference was negatively associated with pro-social behavior for all participants and boys, and greater weekday play predicted lower pro-social behavior among boys. Exposure to pro-social scenes was positively associated with pro-social behavior, while neither violent nor sexual scene exposure significantly predicted aggressive behavior. Notably, the study found no significant effect of video game use or violent content on aggression, which departs from several earlier correlational findings.

The authors interpret these results cautiously, suggesting that industry self-regulation such as ethics codes and age ratings may partly explain the absence of aggression effects, and that pro-social outcomes deserve equal attention in future research. Limitations include the measurement of scene exposure, which may not capture the contextual meaning of violence, and the relatively short survey interval, which the authors recommend extending. The study is limited to Japanese fifth graders, so generalization to other ages and cultural contexts requires further investigation.