Violent video gaming and moral reasoning in adolescents: is there an association?

Abstract

In this study of 109 adolescents from the eighth grade of seven public elementary schools in Canada, the relationship between adolescents’ violent video game playing patterns, habits and attitudes, and their levels of moral reasoning was investigated. The results suggested that playing violent video games in general was a very popular activity among the adolescents. The results demonstrated the significant negative relationship between adolescents’ amount of time playing violent video games during the day and their sociomoral maturity based on their scores on The Sociomoral Reflection Measure. The findings are put into the educational and the context of normal development, and suggestions are given for parents, for educators and for future violent video game research.

Keywords:

• adolescence
• violent video games
• moral reasoning
• education