Acting like a Tough Guy: Violent-Sexist Video Games, Identification with Game Characters, Masculine Beliefs, & Empathy for Female Violence Victims

Abstract

Empathy—putting oneself in another’s shoes—has been described as the “social glue” that holds society together. This study investigates how exposure to sexist video games can decrease empathy for female violence victims. We hypothesized that playing violent-sexist video games would increase endorsement of masculine beliefs, especially among participants who highly identify with dominant and aggressive male game characters. We also hypothesized that the endorsement of masculine beliefs would reduce empathy toward female violence victims. Participants (N = 154) were randomly assigned to play a violent-sexist game, a violent-only game, or a non-violent game. After gameplay, measures of identification with the game character, traditional masculine beliefs, and empathy for female violence victims were assessed. We found that participants’ gender and their identification with the violent male video game character moderated the effects of the exposure to sexist-violent video games on masculine beliefs. Our results supported the prediction that playing violent-sexist video games increases masculine beliefs, which occurred for male (but not female) participants who were highly identified with the game character. Masculine beliefs, in turn, negatively predicted empathic feelings for female violence victims. Overall, our study shows who is most affected by the exposure to sexist-violent video games, and why the effects occur. (200 words)

Grand Theft Auto is a “Sandbox” Game, but There are Weapons, Criminals, and Prostitutes in the Sandbox: Response to Ferguson and Donnellan (2017)

“…As we reported in our original article (Gabbiadini et al 2016; p. 6), post-hoc comparisons indicated that the violentsexist games had higher violence ratings than the violenceonly games. Because it is crucial to disentangle violent content from sexual content, we included the violence ratings as a covariate (for a similar approach, see …”

“…Our work (see Gabbiadini et al 2016) is certainly not the first to suggest that violent sexist video games such as GTA can influence the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of players. In fact, a scientific consensus is beginning to emerge around the potentially harmful effects of sexist violent video games on players.…”

“…We agree with this point; however, working in a field setting with adolescents sets some limits over the experimenter's freedom. In our study (Gabbiadini et al 2016), the internal committee of the high school in which data were collected prevented us from using some items due to ethical reasons (see section on Masculine Beliefs Measure), gave us a 1-h time limit for each experimental session, and gave us only one week to collect all data. Moreover, other practical limits related to time management of each classroom at school did not allow us to assign participants to group conditions in a complete randomized way.…”

“…The original procedures described within received local ethical approval as described in Gabbiadini et al (2016).…”

“…In 2016, we published a study (Gabbiadini et al 2016) showing that playing the violent-sexist video game Grand Theft Auto (GTA) increases the endorsement of masculine beliefs, especially among male players who highly identify with violent male game characters. We also found that the endorsement of masculine beliefs, in turn, reduced the empathy toward female violence victims.…”