A method of driving a plasma display panel for avoiding an erroneous discharge. The plasma display panel has display cells formed at respective intersections of row electrode pairs and a column electrode, wherein one field of a video signal is comprised of a plurality of sub-fields, and a reset period is provided prior to an addressing period of a starting sub-field. The method has a light emission load state detection stage for detecting a light emission load state of the plasma display panel according to the video signal in the preceding field, and a first stage in the reset period for applying the first row electrodes with a pulse of a first polarity which has an applied voltage value increased over time to reach a predetermined target potential, wherein the first stage includes controlling the target potential of the first polarity pulse according to the light emission load state.