PSY Q 21B BROCHE Eve N°20402036 Résumé de l’article : Excessive Computer Game Playing: Evidence for Addiction and Aggression?

Video Games are more and more present in adult’s and teenager’s everyday’s life. Recent scientific studies qualified excess of video games as an addicition. This article deals with the possible relationship between addiction to video games and aggressive behaviors. Video games can bring positive effects, but excess is associated with addiction criterias (salience, craving, mood modification or increasing playing activities). It is supposed that gaming can increase the aggressive potential in real life. Furthermore, it has been stated that violent video games can help in developping violent thoughts, behaviors, and hostile emotions. But today, the relationship between aggressive behavior and excess of video game can’t be proven by reliable datas. The study in this article has been conduced in order to prove this relationship and to inquire about the addictive potential of video games. The sample of the study is 7069 gamers (94% male, average age : 21,11 years, SD : 6,35) who answered two different online questionnaires about their playing habits in which variables about aggressive behaviors and violent attitudes were associated. The statistical results showed that 11.9% of the players were considered as pathological after an addiction criterias analysis. Results put the focus on the fact that playing video games can be the origin of an addiction related to cognitive behaviors, like finding personal benefits while playing or managing stress. These disfunctionnal behaviors, on the long term, do maintain addictive behaviors that should be considered as excessive behaviors in therapy. The addictive potential of video games should be taken into consideration regarding prevention and intervention. On another hand, the study showed that the potential relationship between addiction to video games and violent behaviors is weak, the “game excess”