Abstract:

The research on the effects of video games focuses mainly on the violent video games and their harmful effects on adolescents. With the research going on as well as the emerging of the positive psychology, more and more researchers show interests in the positive effects of prosocial video games on the adolescents. Most of the research is based on the General Learning Model (GLM). According to this model, prosocial video games can influence adolescents’ prosocial behavior by affecting a person’s internal state, consisting of cognition, affect, and arousal that are related to the prosociety. Existing studies show that playing a prosocial video game increases helping behavior and reduces aggressive behavior. Various methods have been used to explore the psychological mechanism and the results are consistent with the GLM. In the future, it is necessary to examine the influence of several more factors such as gender, age and culture, and explore the mechanism from the cognitive neuroscience perspective.

Key words: prosocial, video game, prosocial behaviour