Abstract
The potential negative impact of sexualized video games on attitudes toward women is an important issue. Studies that have examined this issue are rare and contain a number of limitations. Therefore, it largely remains unclear whether sexualized video games can have an impact on attitudes toward women. This study examined the consequences of sexualized video game content and cognitive load (moderator) on rape victim blame and rape perpetrator blame (used as a proxy of rape myth acceptance), and whether the degree of humanness of the victim and of the perpetrator mediated these effects. Participants (N = 142) played a video game using sexualized or non-sexualized female characters. Cognitive load was manipulated by setting the difficulty level of the game to low or high. After gameplay, participants read a rape date story, and were then asked to judge the victim’s and the perpetrator’s degree of responsibility and humanness. Based on the General Aggression Model (GAM), it was hypothesized that playing the video game with a sexualized content would increase the responsibility assigned to the victim and diminish the responsibility assigned to the perpetrator. Further, degree of humanness of the victim and the perpetrator was expected to mediate this relation. The results were partially consistent with these predictions: Playing a video game containing sexualized female characters increased rape victim blame when cognitive load was high, but did not predict degree of humanness accorded to the victim. Concerning the perpetrator, video game sexualization did not influence responsibility, but partly influenced humanness. This study concludes that video games impact on attitudes toward women and this, in part, due to its interactive nature.
Highlights
Despite the increase attention to violence against women through movements such as “#MeeToo” or Amnesty’s “No is no” campaign, sexual violence remains a serious problem (Amnesty International, 2019)
We focused on video games as one possible contributing factor to the prevelance and believability of rape myths for several reasons
We focused on the impact of sexualized video game content on rape myth acceptance, and on the mediating effect of humanness
Summary
Despite the increase attention to violence against women through movements such as “#MeeToo” or Amnesty’s “No is no” campaign, sexual violence remains a serious problem (Amnesty International, 2019). According to a survey from the European Commission (2016), more than 1 out of 10 people in the European Union believe that sexual intercourse without consent may be justified in certain circumstances, for Impact Sexualization Video Games example, if the victim (generally a woman) is voluntarily going home with someone, if she was drunk or under the influence of drugs, if she was wearing revealing clothes, or if she did not say “no” clearly (European Commission, 2016) One explanation of this trivialization of sexual violence is based on several stereotypes surrounding it and often subsumed under what is called rape myth (Buddie and Miller, 2001). Such beliefs vary but can be grouped globally into four main categories (Mcmahon and Farmer, 2011): having the attitude that (1) the woman provoked her own rape (e.g., the outfit she wore was judged as too sexualized or she acted too suggestively), (2) the rape was not really a rape (e.g., the woman did not fight back enough or was unclear when refusing the sexual act), (3) men are not responsible for a rape (e.g., men cannot control their sexual needs or may have been too drunk to understand that it was a rape) and (4) women can lie about the rape (e.g., she lied to protect herself or as an act of revenge)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
