Can violent video games make players more violent? Research has been conflicted, but it’d seem clear that no matter what such games wouldn’t make you nicer.

Yet that’s not necessarily so, according to a new study from the University of Buffalo. Researchers found that gamers who played as violent, underhanded bad guys might trigger the gamers themselves to be more morally sensitive.

As part of the study, participants were asked to play as one of two different characters: a terrorist or a United Nations peacekeeper. After playing the game, participants then were required to fill out a questionnaire designed to gauge how much guilt gamers felt.

Researchers discovered those who played as terrorists were more likely to feel guilty or morally conflicted by their actions in the game than those who played as peacekeepers—even when the terrorists and peacekeepers were asked to do the exact same deeds.

“An American who played a violent game as a terrorist likely would consider his avatar’s unjust and violent behavior—violations of the fairness/reciprocity and harm/care domains—to be more immoral than when he or she performed the same acts in the role of a UN peacekeeper,”  said study coauthor Matthew Grizzard. “The study found significant positive correlations between video-game guilt and the moral foundations violated during game play.” (Time)

Paul Asay has written for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for PluggedIn and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He recently collaborated with Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, on his book The Good Dad. He lives in Colorado Springs with wife, Wendy, and his two children. Follow him on Twitter.