Over the past thirty years, research situated in many individual sub-domains of psychology has investigated the potential impact of video game play on behavior. Interestingly, although researchers in the various sub-fields are (presumably) versed in the results of the published research, there nonetheless remain significant individual differences in opinion across researchers regarding what exactly the given literatures “say.” Previous work has suggested that some individual difference factors, such as prior gaming experience, can account for some of this variance. The current study expands this work by examining several additional individual difference factors including field of study (e.g., whether one primarily studies links between video games and aggression, cognitive skill, or well-being) and video game knowledge.

Both types of individual differences were associated with differences in belief regarding the state of the literature. In particular, video game knowledge was negatively associated with the belief that video games can lead to addiction and cause aggression and violence, and higher knowledge scores were positively associated with a belief that games can model prosocial behavior. Results are presented in a larger discussion of how researchers’ primary domains of knowledge influence the study of technology of effects, such as those from video game play.

在过去的三十年中，心理学的许多子领域中的研究调查了视频游戏对行为的潜在影响。有趣的是，尽管（大概）精通各个子领域的研究人员的研究成果，但是在研究人员之间，对于给定文献的确切说法，个人之间仍然存在重大分歧。先前的工作表明，某些个体差异因素（例如先前的游戏体验）可以解释这种差异。当前的研究通过检查几个额外的个体差异因素（包括研究领域（例如，是否主要研究视频游戏与侵略性，认知技能或幸福感之间的联系）和视频游戏知识）来扩展这项工作。

两种类型的个体差异都与关于文学状态的信念差异相关。尤其是，视频游戏知识与认为视频游戏会导致成瘾并引起侵略和暴力的信念负相关，而更高的知识得分与认为游戏可以模仿亲社会行为的信念正相关。在有关研究人员的主要知识领域如何影响效果技术研究（例如来自视频游戏的效果）的更大讨论中介绍了结果。