Playing with Death: The Potential for Violent Video Games to Induce Mortality Salience

MORTALITY SALIENCE AND VIDEO GAMES 2 Mortality salience, the realization of the inevitability of death, creates intense psychological terror within humans. Terror Management Theory posits that particular behavioral patterns, such as establishing and defending a worldview, reduce this terror (Greenberg et al., 1990). Behaviors due to mortality salience are strikingly similar to behaviors seen with violent video games. Violent video games may induce mortality salience in video game players, thus some of the outcomes of violent video games may be in part due to mortality salience. This paper will provide an explanation of mortality salience and Terror Management Theory, investigate behavioral patterns surrounding mortality salience and violent video games, propose a study exploring if violent video games can induce mortality salience, and discuss implications of mortality salience within violent video games. Playing with Death: The Potential for Violent Video Games to Induce Mortality Salience MORTALITY SALIENCE AND VIDEO GAMES 3 Death surrounds us, from what we hear in the news to the leaves falling from the trees in autumn; but how do thoughts about death affect us? People can become aware of their own mortality by thinking about death, a phenomenon called mortality salience. Cognitive abilities such as self-awareness and abstract thought allow humans to experience mortality salience. Mortality salience, when coupled with instinctual self-preservation common to all animals, can create intense psychological anxiety and terror (Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010). Ernest Becker accurately describes this fear: “The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity – activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man” (Becker, 1973, p. ix.). This and the many other writings of Ernest Becker inspired Terror Management Theory, a psychological theory that attempts to predict and explain human reactions to the intense terror caused by mortality salience (Burke et al., 2010). According to Terror Management Theory, proximal and distal defenses manage and keep the anxiety caused by mortality salience largely unconscious. These defenses include a buffering mechanism consisting of a cultural worldview and self-esteem (Hayes, Schimel, Arndt, & Faucher, 2010). Mortality salience is established in many ways, ranging from media exposure as in the case of 9/11 (Landau et al., 2004) to subliminal messaging (Arndt, Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1997). Many violent video games, including the top two selling games of 2013, “Grand Theft Auto V” and “Call of Duty: Ghosts”, have notable instances of violence, especially killing and murder (ESA, 2014). Interestingly, many of the same effects of mortality salience, such as increased intergroup bias and increased aggression, are also seen in participants after playing a violent video game (Greitemeyer, 2013). Violent video games may induce mortality salience in video game players, thus some of the outcomes of violent video games may be in part due to human responses to mortality salience. MORTALITY SALIENCE AND VIDEO GAMES 4