This article situates the general aggression model within the social structure of gameplay. Testing a mediated model of play, group gaming is examined in order to demonstrate how certain gameplay situations can promote hostile expectation bias or the tendency to predict how others would think, feel and act aggressively during social conflict. Demonstrating the casual structure inherent within complex gameplay, this study presents a needed step forward in the gaming literature. The mediated model presented departs from the typically examined direct effect model. Further, completing the model, this study suggests that when state hostility is heightened, hostile expectation bias increases.
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