The Police Officer’s Dilemma

Correll and colleagues ( Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002 ) developed a first-person shooter task that simulates the police officer’s dilemma of whether to shoot or not a target that may present lethal danger. The present study examined the relationship between habitual violent video game play and responses in this shooting paradigm. Habitual violent video game play has been shown to increase the accessibility of aggressive thoughts. Previous research also demonstrated that action video game play has a positive impact on perceptual skills. Hence, it was hypothesized that players of violent video games would be more likely to mistakenly shoot a target and exhibit shorter reaction times in the shooting task. Results revealed that reaction times, but not error rates, were significantly associated with habitual violent video game play. These findings suggest that habitual violent video game play may have a positive impact on overall processing skills without limiting accuracy.