Games, Hormones, and "Dark" Personalities

Does playing violent video games make us more aggressive? And how do your dark personality traits fit into the picture? Today's study highlights how violent video games, hormones, dark personality traits, and aggression (don't) act together. Enjoy the read.

Many common video games (VGs) you can find out there in the infinite space of the internet have some sort of violent content, giving rise to the debate of their potential impact on health. On the one hand, violent video games (VVG) can be beneficial and improve mental health, work-related recovery (relaxing), motivation, and elicit positive emotions. On the other hand, VVGs may increase stress levels and aggression.

However, the studies showing a link between VVGs and aggression are heavily debated. Some suggest that the effect is small at best and depends on game characteristics and interpersonal differences (it's different for each individual). One of those is a personality pattern such as the Dark Tetrad (i.e., Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, and everyday sadism).

"... Dark Tetrad personality is associated with a lack of empathy and increased aggressive behavior..." [1]

Those who have higher Dark Tetrade scores (e.g., everyday sadism and narcissism) were found to prefer playing more VVGs and found to have increased cortisol and testosterone levels. Specifically, there seems to be a positive correlation between cortisol and psychopathy, as well as Machiavellianism with both narcissism and testosterone.

With regard to the debate as to whether VVGs heighten stress levels (i.e., cortisol) that then leads to increased aggression: Some researchers argue that this connection exists and may stem from VVGs provoking a fight-or-flight behavior. This would make sense when considering that VGs are super immersive, meaning we feel afraid, angry, etc. when we play a character in a game.

Today's study brings all these things together: They were interested in the link between playing violent video games vs. non-violent video games, the effect on hormones (cortisol and testosterone), and whether these changes in hormonal levels increase implicit aggressive cognition. On top of that, they checked whether Dark Tetrad personality traits influenced the mentioned relationships above.

The experiment included 54 men playing Uncharted 4: A Thief's End for 25 min. The VVG group had to escape from prison, killing NPCs with automatic weapons. In addition, graphics displayed blood when shooting or being shot. The non-violent VG group played a different passage of the game that mostly required the player to salvage lost cargo from a river and talk to NPCs. No violence, no blood. Before, after finishing playing, and another 20 min. after that, cortisol was tested.

☺️ "Mean" People Enjoy Doing Mean Things (in Video Games) to Relax.

Contrary to what the researchers thought they would find, cortisol (your stress hormone) decreased for participants playing a VVG. Those who played the soft (non-violent) passage of the game had higher stress levels than those playing VVG.

Furthermore, only Machiavellianism (characterized by manipulativeness, lack of empathy, and calculated focus on self-interest) moderated the effect on cortisol change, meaning it influenced the direction and strength of the effect. Specifically, those in the non-violent group with higher Machiavellianism scores were more stressed after playing, compared to before. But why?

"Participants who tend to assert more control based on their personality characteristics (i.e., those with higher scores in Machiavellianism) and who were given the opportunity to do so in the violent game condition could fulfill their need for control and domination." [1]

In other words, VVG provides an environment for those higher in Machiavellianism to show dominance and have control over the environment (game), which reduces their negative feelings (stress). Also, individuals with higher Machiavellianism scores use aggression as a tool to satisfy their needs and achieve their goal of exerting power, and the aggressive gameplay may enable this.

Regarding the link of playing VVG or hormonal change to aggressive cognition: no effect was found. So, neither testosterone, cortisol, nor playing a VVG had an effect on aggressive cognition. The researchers sum up their findings by saying:

"In summary, however, the present findings... show that VVG engagement is not linked to increased aggression and indicate that it could even have positive effects on players." [1]

Thanks for reading, and have a great week. Best,

Christian 🙂

References

[1] Wagener et al., 2024