@article{BuschingKrahe2013,
  author    = {Busching, Robert and Krah{\´e}, Barbara},
  title     = {Charging neutral cues with aggressive meaning through violent video game play},
  series = {Societies},
  volume    = {3},
  journal   = {Societies},
  number    = {4},
  publisher = {MDPI},
  address   = {Basel},
  issn      = {2075-4698},
  doi       = {10.3390/soc3040445},
  pages     = {445 -- 456},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {When playing violent video games, aggressive actions are performed against the background of an originally neutral environment, and associations are formed between cues related to violence and contextual features. This experiment examined the hypothesis that neutral contextual features of a virtual environment become associated with aggressive meaning and acquire the function of primes for aggressive cognitions. Seventy-six participants were assigned to one of two violent video game conditions that varied in context (ship vs. city environment) or a control condition. Afterwards, they completed a Lexical Decision Task to measure the accessibility of aggressive cognitions in which they were primed either with ship-related or city-related words. As predicted, participants who had played the violent game in the ship environment had shorter reaction times for aggressive words following the ship primes than the city primes, whereas participants in the city condition responded faster to the aggressive words following the city primes compared to the ship primes. No parallel effect was observed for the non-aggressive targets. The findings indicate that the associations between violent and neutral cognitions learned during violent game play facilitate the accessibility of aggressive cognitions.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{KraheMoellerKirwiletal.2011,
  author    = {Krah{\´e}, Barbara and Moeller, Ingrid and Kirwil, Lucyna and Huesmann, L. Rowell and Felber, Juliane and Berger, Anja},
  title     = {Desensitization to media violence links with habitual media violence exposure, aggressive cognitions, and aggressive behavior},
  series = {Journal of personality and social psychology},
  volume    = {100},
  journal   = {Journal of personality and social psychology},
  number    = {4},
  publisher = {American Psychological Association},
  address   = {Washington},
  issn      = {0022-3514},
  doi       = {10.1037/a0021711},
  pages     = {630 -- 646},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {This study examined the links between desensitization to violent media stimuli and habitual media violence exposure as a predictor and aggressive cognitions and behavior as outcome variables. Two weeks after completing measures of habitual media violence exposure, trait aggression, trait arousability, and normative beliefs about aggression, undergraduates (N = 303) saw a violent film clip and a sad or a funny comparison clip. Skin conductance level (SCL) was measured continuously, and ratings of anxious and pleasant arousal were obtained after each clip. Following the clips, participants completed a lexical decision task to measure accessibility of aggressive cognitions and a competitive reaction time task to measure aggressive behavior. Habitual media violence exposure correlated negatively with SCL during violent clips and positively with pleasant arousal, response times for aggressive words, and trait aggression, but it was unrelated to anxious arousal and aggressive responding during the reaction time task. In path analyses controlling for trait aggression, normative beliefs, and trait arousability, habitual media violence exposure predicted faster accessibility of aggressive cognitions, partly mediated by higher pleasant arousal. Unprovoked aggression during the reaction time task was predicted by lower anxious arousal. Neither habitual media violence usage nor anxious or pleasant arousal predicted provoked aggression during the laboratory task, and SCL was unrelated to aggressive cognitions and behavior. No relations were found between habitual media violence viewing and arousal in response to the sad and funny film clips, and arousal in response to the sad and funny clips did not predict aggressive cognitions or aggressive behavior on the laboratory task. This suggests that the observed desensitization effects are specific to violent content.},
  language  = {en}
}