The Effects of Playing Violent Video Games on Aggressiveness and Normative Beliefs about Aggression

-Examination of Differences between CERO Ratings Based on Longitudinal Data of Junior High School Students-

Abstract

We conducted a two-wave longitudinal survey from 2008 through 2009 to examine differences in the effects of playing video games on aggressiveness and normative beliefs about aggression between content ratings given to the games by CERO. 1218 students of 12 public junior high schools located in Tokyo, Chiba, and Saitama participated in this survey. The results indicated that playing C-rated violent video games lowers normative beliefs about aggression among boys, but this effect was not found for playing non-violent video games or B-rated violent video games.