Acute exposure to difficult (but not violent) video games dysregulates cognitive control

•We examined the effects of game difficulty and game violence on cognitive control.•Game difficulty and game violence were orthogonally manipulated using custom games.•Game difficulty reduced cognitive control for people who found the games difficult.•Violent game content had no effect on post-game cognitive control.

Recent research has suggested that acute exposure to violent video games inhibits the capacity for self-control across neurological, cognitive, and behavioral domains. However, the games used in previous research to reach these conclusions often confound violence with other game features, such as game difficulty. Here, participants were randomly assigned to play one of four versions of a video game, wherein content (violent or not) and difficulty (easy or difficult) were orthogonally manipulated, prior to completing a cognitive control task. Results showed that playing a difficult video game produced decrements in cognitive control, but only if the game was perceived to be difficult, and that perceptions of game difficulty may mediate this relationship. Game content, by comparison, had no effect on cognitive control. Findings are discussed in terms of understanding effects of difficult games on cognitive processes that have important implications for social behavior.