Intense acts of violence during video game play make daily life aggression appear innocuous: A new mechanism why violent video games increase aggression

Computer players often deny that playing violent video games makes them aggressive, which is in contrast to the findings of a recent comprehensive meta-analysis. The present research examines whether comparison processes between the players' intense acts of violence in a video game and their comparatively harmless aggressive behavior in daily life not only account for this apparent discrepancy but also underlie the effect of playing violent video games on aggressive behavior. In fact, two experiments reveal that playing a violent video game leads to a bias in the perception of what counts as aggressive, which in turn evokes aggressive behavior.