Blood and Violence: exploring the impact of gore in violent video games

Violence is a key element in video games and despite the extensive research in video game violence, there is still a debate on its psychophysiological effect. There is a lack of understanding on the elements of video game violence that influence aggression. The present pilot study examines the effect of blood and gore in a first-person shooter with participants playing in one of the two conditions, with or without blood and gore. To assess the effect of blood and gore, and thus violence, a number of elements were measured including physical arousal, individual differences, personality, and game experience. The results suggested that blood and gore had no effect on aggression-related associations and cognitive processes. The findings did suggest that previous game experience had a significant effect on increased physiological arousal when engaging in violent content featuring blood and gore. Furthermore, a personality trend emerged showing an effect on arousal and cognitive processes. As the study was preliminary, definitive conclusions cannot be drawn, however the findings warrant further investigation.