A recent multi-year study of German gamers might cast doubt on the idea that sexist content in video games can affect sexist attitudes in gamers. But the researchers behind the study caution that their findings shouldn’t be oversimplified.
“There are often discrepancies between what a study actually found and how people interpret it,” the two lead researchers, Johannes Breuer and Rachel Kowert told me in an e-mail interview this week after I contacted them about their 824-person study which compared gamers’ and non-gamers’ responses to a trio of questions about women’s place in society over the course of two years.
“We found that the amount of overall video game use at time 1 was not predictive of sexist attitudes/beliefs about gender roles at time 2 (i.e., 2 years later) and that (sexist) beliefs about gender roles at time 1 were equally not predictive of video game use at time 2 (for sample of German players aged 14 and older).
“Some people seem to think that this is proof that sexism is not an issue in games and gaming culture, which is something that we neither found, nor say (nor examined, really) in our study.”
The researchers would go on to tell me that they think sexism in gaming is still a potential problem in terms of excluding female gamers, influencing thoughts about body image and other factors. They also suggested that people might overestimate the impact that games have on people while underestimating the impact that gamers may have on each other.
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So what to make of this new study and how it fits into these arguments? I e-mailed Breuer and Kowert to get their take. This is what we discussed:
Stephen Totilo, Kotaku: What arguments would you say the study is debunking?
Rachel Kowert (Dept. of Communication, University of Munster) and Johannes Breuer (Dept of Psychology, University of Cologne): We would be careful in saying that the study debunks any arguments. It provides some evidence that there are no broad cultivation effects of games, meaning that video games alone do not make anyone (more) sexist (in terms of endorsing traditional gender roles; see also our comment about the quote above).
Totilo: What arguments is it not debunking?
Kowert and Breuer: Again, we would probably not say “debunk” here. However, we want to make clear that our study does not show that sexism is not an issue in/for games and gaming culture. There are many content analyses of popular games that show that female characters are underrepresented or presented in an overly sexualized manner and there is also ample evidence that many players, particularly female, have experienced sexism in their interactions with other players.
Totilo: What impact do you think sexism in games actually has on gamers?
Kowert and Breuer: At the very least, we would say that it can be off-putting to many players (especially female players) and, therefore, can cause exclusion. While sexist game content can sometimes just be ignored or players can choose to turn to other games, personal experiences with sexual harassment or strong (sexist) insults by other players can have a serious negative impact on players, such as emotional distress. Over time, it can also drive players away from certain games or gaming altogether.
Totilo: Maybe even more fundamentally, what actually do you even consider to be examples of sexism in games?
Kowert and Breuer: As we said before, there are two main levels on which sexism can happen: in the content of a game (e.g., hypersexualized representations of female characters, such as the infamous “jiggle physics” in Ninja Gaiden) and in the interactions with other players. The latter can be expressed in various ways, such as exclusion, active discrimination, and/or active harassment (such as those documented on the aforementioned websites; e.g., Fat, Ugly, & Slutty)
Totilo: What do you make of people who are comparing both the arguments and studies regarding the impact of video game violence on gamers to research about the depiction of women in video games on gamers? Are they the same thing? Fundamentally different?
Kowert and Breuer: We would say that there are parallels here: In both cases, people seem to overestimate the effects of video game content. There are other, much more influential factors that impact aggression and sexism - most notably, family and peer influences.
We would also say that for any kind of media effects research (e.g., sexism, violence/aggression, etc) we should be starting to focus on the interactions between players rather than the content of the games themselves. That is something that has already begun for research on aggression with studies, e.g., looking at differences between cooperative and competitive play (there is a really good article by ICA Game Studies Interest Group Chair James D. Ivory (Virginia Tech) about the need to focus more on interactions between players).
Totilo: Do you plan to do more research on this topic? And, if so, what are you planning?
Kowert and Breuer: This article came out of a larger panel study on the uses and effects of digital games in Germany, which ended in December 2014. Since then, the members of the team have moved on to new projects and jobs. As such, there is not much more that can be done in terms of this particular dataset and sample. Although, we have composed a theoretical article discussing the potential cyclical nature of sexism and exclusion in video games content and culture, which should be published in an edited volume later this year/early next year.
We are also currently running a somewhat related project - a cross-cultural experimental study with partners from the US, Germany, and the Netherlands, assessing players’ evaluation of “problematic” content in games (namely, violent and sexual content). The assumption here is that there are cultural differences in how violent and sexual content are perceived and evaluated and that personal moral views also play an important role in this process.
