Attention Video Gamers — You're Being Racially Programmed: Violent Video Games Encourage Racist, Aggressive Attitudes Toward Blacks - Study

Violent Video Games Leave Teenagers Emotionally Aroused.

By Benjamin Fearnow
Violent video games encourage negative racial attitudes and thoughts, with white game players displaying stronger implicit and explicit aggressive attitudes toward blacks when they play as black characters.

A new study from researchers at The Ohio State University and the University of Michigan finds that white gamers who played as black avatars exhibited more racist sentiments, including connections made between blacks and weapons and photos of black people being linked to words such as “horrible” and “evil.”

“This is a very troubling finding,” the researchers write in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. “Our research suggests that people who play violent video games as violent black characters are more likely to believe that blacks are violent people,” writes a research team led by Grace Yang of the University of Michigan and Brad Bushman of the Ohio State University.

Read More