Previous research indicates that anger and aggressive behavior may increase with exposure to violence, particularly from playing violent video games. However, this literature is mixed with few studies examining individual differences that account for these inconsistencies. Therefore, we conducted a within-subjects experiment examining state anger in young adults after violent and nonviolent video game play. Importantly, we examined how individual differences involving levels of empathy, childhood emotional invalidation, anger traits, and sex may relate to state anger outcomes. Our results suggest that sex differences play a role in anger states after violent video game play. Specifically, only females showed increased levels of state anger. Lower empathy was a strong predictor of increased anger expression, and emotionally invalidating childhood environments was related to higher levels of trait anger. Implications from these results may include a possible buffering role that empathy and childhood emotional validation have in anger outcomes, while emphasizing the importance of examining individual differences and their outcomes resulting from playing violent video games.

先前的研究表明，愤怒和攻击性行为可能会随着接触暴力而增加，尤其是玩暴力视频游戏。然而，这些文献与一些研究导致这些不一致的个体差异的研究混合在一起。因此，我们进行了一项受试者内部实验，以检查年轻人在玩暴力和非暴力视频游戏后的愤怒状态。重要的是，我们研究了涉及同理心、童年情绪失效、愤怒特征和性别的个体差异如何与状态愤怒结果相关。我们的结果表明，性别差异在玩暴力视频游戏后的愤怒状态中发挥作用。具体来说，只有女性表现出更高的状态愤怒水平。较低的同理心是愤怒表达增加的有力预测因素，情绪上使童年环境无效与更高水平的特质愤怒有关。这些结果的含义可能包括同理心和童年情绪验证在愤怒结果中可能具有的缓冲作用，同时强调检查个体差异及其因玩暴力视频游戏而导致的结果的重要性。