THE NEXUS BETWEEN VIOLENT VIDEO GAME PLAYING AND AGGRESSION AMONG EMERGING ADULTS AT UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA

Abstract

The study explored the relationship between violent video game playing and aggression among emerging adults (18 to 25 years) at University Utara Malaysia. There is still discourse in academia on asserting whether there is a connection between playing violent video games and aggression or not. The main objective of the study was to establish if a link exists between violent video games play and aggression. It was also in the interest of the study to establish gender differences in aggression levels, time spent playing violent video games and type of violent video game preference. A quantitative research design was adopted for the study and inferential and descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. Aggression level was measured using the Bryant and Smith (2001) Aggression Questionnaire and exposure to violent video games was obtained using the Habitual Video Game Violence (HVGV) exposure score. The sample size was 377 (236 males and 121 females). Of importance, the study substantiated the existence of a link between violent video games and aggression in emerging adults at Universiti Utara Malaysia and also important to note is that the study showed there are no gender differences in violent video game play and aggression levels. Future studies can replicate the same study in various tertiary institutions within Malaysia to assertion the findings of the current study.