Does Sexualization in Games Affect People?

How about checking out this research that's causing quite a stir: Does Sexualization in Games Affect People? According to new research published on the ScienceDirect , sexualization in games does not appear to harm players. The results indicate that playing video games does not lead to misogynistic views or detrimental mental health outcomes.

Therefore, female characters are often attractive and scantily clad in various games; however, some people have raised concerns that the sexualized representation of women has negative effects on players.

Sexualization in video games doesn't affect anyone, study claims

In summary, to better understand whether playing video games is associated with decreased player well-being or increased misogyny, the authors of the research used a statistical technique known as meta-analysis to systematically evaluate the results of previous studies.

Does Sexualization in Games Affect People?

"I've been studying the effects of video games on gamers for two decades , most of them on violence. I think most people have come to accept that there is no relationship between violent video games and aggression or violent crime," explained the study's author, Christopher J. Ferguson, a professor of psychology at Stetson University.

However, people still wonder a lot about sexualization and whether games make male gamers more sexist towards women or whether female gamers experience more body dissatisfaction and other well-being issues . It's a much smaller field of research than violence, so we were hoping to bring some clarity,” she added.

Ferguson and his research team conducted a meta-analysis of eighteen relevant studies. All studies included a measure of exposure to general or sexualized video games. Fifteen of the studies measured aggression against women or sexist attitudes, while ten studies measured outcomes related to depression, body image, or anxiety. But the researchers were unable to find a statistically significant relationship between video games and sexist attitudes or psychological well-being.

In general, the “moral panic” about video games and sexualization more or less follows the “closed-minded” pattern of the video game debate . Lots of hyperbole and moral outrage, but very little evidence that video games are causing any 'harm' to male or female gamers, he added.

As a purely 'public health' issue, this doesn't seem like a major concern. This doesn't mean people can't advocate for better representation of women in games. They just need to be careful not to make "harmful" claims that can be easily discredited, calling into question what could be reasonable advocacy targets. The researchers also assessed the quality of the studies, examining factors such as pre-registration, standardized measures, independent video game content ratings, and the use of control variables .

Conclusion about the study

The main caveat is simply that many of the studies are not very good. The good news is that high-quality studies were less likely to find evidence of negative effects than lower-quality studies. In some cases, academics likely contributed their personal moral views to the studies, albeit unintentionally. It is true that it is still a fairly small area of research, but this initial data has been so unsatisfactory that I'm not sure there's much to be gleaned from it,” he clarified.

Obviously, we go through these cycles of blaming the media for social problems. At least with fictional media, the evidence usually reveals that we are probably using the media as a scapegoat and that fiction rarely causes social problems. Again, to be fair, advocating for better representation of women in games can be a worthy cause, even if the games don't cause negative effects. I support these efforts, I just hope that advocates don't misrepresent the evidence as part of their efforts.

Comment what you think about this new study. Also, the featured image in this post is from the game Prison Princess by Qureate.

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Via: ScienceDirect and Kudasai