Some effects of sexist video games on self-masculinity associations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Across two experimental studies, we investigated the short-term effect of video games with sexist content (i.e,. representing women as sexual objects and men as hyper-masculine) on women’s objectification . We examine whether identifying with a masculine character who objectified women can increase implicit association of self with masculinity, which in turn would increase objectification of women. Participants (n study 1 = 69 (32 men, mean age = 20.83), n study 2 = 119 (61 men, mean age = 20.09)) played either a sexist or non-sexist video game. We measured subsequently implicit association of self with masculinity, women’s objectification (measured with two different measurements in Study1 and 2) and identification with video game character. Results showed that greater identification with video game character predicted stronger association between self-concept and masculinity but not with women’s objectification. Thus, it seems that identification with video game character may play an important role in video games’ influence.