Henning's research about stereotyping in Video Game

Children, Youth and Environm ents 19(1) , 2009

Do Stereotypic I m ages in Video Gam es Affect At t itudes and Behavior? Adolescent Perspect ives

Alexandra Henning Alaina Brenick Melanie Killen

Alexander OConnor Michael J. Collins University of Maryland

Citat ion: Henning, Alexandra, Alaina Brenick, Melanie Killen, Alexander OConnor, and Michael J. Collins (2009) . Do Stereotypic I mages in Video Gam es Affect At t itudes and Behavior? Adolescent Perspect ives. Children, Youth and Environm ents 19(1) : 170-196. Ret r ieved [ date] from ht tp: / / www.colorado.edu/ journals/ cye.

Abstract This study exam ined adolescents at t itudes about video gam es along with their self-reported play frequency. Ninth and eleventh grade students (N = 361) , approxim ately evenly divided by grade and gender, were surveyed about whether video gam es have stereotypic im ages, involve harm ful consequences or affect ones at t itudes, whether gam e playing should be regulated by parents or the governm ent , and whether gam e playing is a personal choice. Adolescents who played video gam es frequent ly showed decreased concern about the effects that gam es with negat ively stereotyped im ages m ay have on the players at t itudes com pared to adolescents who played gam es infrequent ly or not at all. With age, adolescents were m ore likely to view im ages as negat ive, but were also less likely to recognize stereotypic im ages of fem ales as harm ful and m ore likely to judge video-gam e playing as a personal choice. The paper discusses other findings in relat ion to research on adolescents social cognit ive judgm ents.

Keyw ords: adolescents, video gam es, stereotypes, developm ent , gender, m edia

2009 Children, Youth and Environm ents

Do Stereotypic I m ages in Video Gam es Affect At t itudes and Behavior? 171

I t is a well-known fact that today U.S. adolescents spend large am ounts of t im e playing video gam es (Anderson and Bushm an 2001) . A recent study found that , on average, eighth and ninth grade gir ls play video gam es about five hours a week, and boys at the sam e age play, on average, 13 hours a week (Gent ile et al. 2004) . Since m any of the popular video gam es are highly aggressive in content (Anderson and Bushm an 2001) , researchers have focused prim arily on m easuring the effects of playing violent video gam es on aggressive behavior. Docum ented effects of playing aggressive gam es included increased aggressive behavior and cognit ion (Anderson et al. 2004) , physiological desensit izat ion to real- life violence (Carnagey, Anderson and Bushm an 2007) , decreased sensit iv it y to happy facial expressions com pared to angry expressions (Kirsh and Mounts 2007) , lower em pathy (Funk et al. 2004) , decreased prosocial behavior (Anderson et al. 2004) , and decreased school perform ance (Gent ile et al. 2004) .

One of the less-well explored consequences of exposure to video gam es is the reinforcem ent of negat ive stereotypes, part icular ly gender stereotypes. I t has been dem onst rated that m ost video gam es contain negat ively stereotyped gender im ages (Dietz 1998; Dill et al. 2005) , such as port rayals of m ales in dom inant roles and as overly m asculine violent heroes, and of fem ales in subm issive, sexually exploit ive rolesas busty, brainless, vict im s of aggression (Provenzo 2000) . At the sam e t im e, lit t le research has been conducted to invest igate the specific effects that exposure to stereotypical and/ or violent content has on players at t itudes towards m ale and fem ale roles and character ist ics. Current ly, som e of the popular video gam es, such as Grand Theft Auto (GTA) , port ray and even reward sexualized violence towards wom en without em phasizing any negat ive consequences to the perpet rator. Previous research has shown that aggressive behavior increases when violence is perceived as norm at ive and socially approved (Vernberg, Jacobs, and Hershberger 1999) . Addit ionally, studies on exposure to aggressive im ages in the video gam es (Funk 2005) and to violent and sexually degrading depict ions of wom en in the m ovies (Anderson et al. 2003) suggest that desensit izat ion to the suffer ing of others and lower em pathy m ay result from a prolonged exposure to such im ages. Since m any of the popular video gam es today contain both stereotypical and aggressive content , it is likely that large am ounts of t im e spent playing video gam es in general, and aggressive video gam es in part icular, will have a negat ive effect on adolescents social cognit ive developm ent , desensit izing them to gender stereotypes and sexualized violence against wom en in society.

Extensive research findings indicate that in other form s of entertainm ent m edia, including m ovies, com m ercials and cartoons, gender stereotypes are pervasive (Beasley and Standley 2002; Davis 2003; Thom pson and Zerbinos 1997) . This m ay have negat ive consequences for childrens views of gender t rait s and roles, such as having m ore t radit ional job expectat ions for them selves and other people (Thom pson and Zerbinos 1997) . One of the part icular concerns about adolescent exposure to negat ive gender stereotypes, which are com m only displayed in video gam es, is that stereotypes are being form ed and t ransform ed during this period of developm ent (Ruble and Mart in 1998) . While gender stereotypes about play act ivit ies (e.g., dolls and t rucks) em erge as early as the preschool period (Killen et al. 2001) , gender stereotypes about adult gender roles and sexuality, in part icular,


are highly charged and com plicated topics during adolescence (Mart in 1996) . Thus, exposure to sexually exploit ive stereotypical port rayals of wom en in video gam es m ay negat ively affect social developm ent and social relat ions during adolescence. I n fact , adolescents who support decisions to exclude others from peer act ivit ies solely on the basis of gender often just ify their decisions by using stereotypes (Killen and Stangor 2001) . This indicates that the reinforcem ent of gender stereotypes is potent ially related to the approval of gender-based exclusion. Taking it a step further, social psychologists have dem onst rated that stereotypic expectat ions often lead to discr im inatory behavior and at t itudes in adulthood (Dovidio et al. 1996; Dovidio, Glick, and Rudm an 2005) . The concern is that the m ore accept ing children and adolescents becom e of the stereotypes, the m ore likely they are to engage in or accept stereotypic expectat ions that are presented as norm at ive in the m edia. Thus, while alm ost no research has invest igated whether adolescents are aware of gender stereotypes in video gam es (or how they evaluate such im ages) , the topic clearly warrants em pir ical at tent ion.

Most of the current work in the field has been guided by social psychological theories, and few studies have exam ined players evaluat ions of video gam e im ages from a developm ental viewpoint . One recent except ion is a study guided by a developm ental social-cognit ive fram ework that invest igated how young adults (college students) evaluate gender stereotypic im ages in video gam es (Brenick et al. 2007) . Brenick and colleagues interviewed college students about m oral (e.g., Does exposure to negat ive im ages in video gam es have harm ful consequences?) , social- convent ional (e.g., Who should decide whether gam es with gender stereotypical im ages are appropriate for adolescents to play: adolescents or authorit y figures, such as parents or governm ent?) , and personal (e.g., I s video gam e playing solely a personal choice? Does it affect others?) aspects of v ideo gam es. These categories of assessm ents stem from social- cognit ive dom ain research, which has dem onst rated that individuals ( from childhood to adulthood) use these categories of social reasoning when evaluat ing social issues. The categories refer to the m oral dom ain (equality, fairness, avoidance of harm ) , the social- convent ional dom ain ( t radit ions, authorit y regulat ions, custom s, convent ions) , and the personal dom ain ( individual prerogat ives, personal discret ion) .

Brenick et al. (2007) found that m ales and high- frequency video gam e players were less cr it ical of the stereotypic content of the gam es than were fem ales and low-frequency players. Further, frequent players were less likely to think that stereotypic port rayals m ay have negat ive effects on the players or that character port rayal should change if som e players are negat ively affected by it . Thus, they viewed video gam e playing m ore as a m at ter of personal choice, with players responsible for cont rolling their playing habits and gam e select ion, than as a social-convent ional issue, with society responsible for regulat ing video gam e content . Addit ionally, higher- frequency players were m ore likely to assert that parents should have less authority over what gam es their children can play, com pared to less frequent players. Whether these findings generalize to younger adolescents is not known, and yet , adolescents const itute the m ajority of video gam e players and consum ers. Further, these findings were docum ented in a study using face- to- face,


individually adm inistered interviews; whether the sam e pat tern would be revealed in a m ore anonym ous survey form at is not known. I n addit ion, the sam ple was fair ly sm all (N = 87) , and a larger sam ple would provide findings that are m ore generalizable.

Therefore, the aim of the study presented here was to invest igate the relat ionships between adolescents video gam e playing habits and their evaluat ions of video gam es. The project focused on evaluat ions of gender port rayals in gam es with theoret ically gender-neut ral roles and in gam es with negat ively stereotyped roles for m ales and fem ales. We chose different types of gam es to determ ine whether adolescents different iated between the gam es, considered gender port rayals in such gam es to be stereotypical, and whether they viewed these types of im ages as posit ively or negat ively influencing their behaviors and at t itudes about gender roles.

This project was unique in several ways. First , we invest igated adolescents social-cognit ive interpretat ions of video gam es by exam ining age- related and gender differences for two groups of part icipants, ninth and eleventh graders (14 and 17 years of age) , which has not been done before. Second, we analyzed how adolescents evaluated three types of video gam es, one that has been character ized as having few gender stereotypes, one that has been noted to have negat ive m ale gender stereotypes ( i.e., ext rem e aggression and physically enhanced body features) , and one that has been noted to have negat ive fem ale gender stereotypes ( i.e., sexually exploit ive body features and passive roles) . I n this way, we focused on the quality of video gam e content , not m erely the engagem ent in video gam e playing. Third, we drew on social-cognit ive developm ental theory to invest igate m ult iple aspects of how adolescents evaluate potent ially stereotypic gender roles. Fourth, we assessed adolescents video gam e playing habits (play frequency) in relat ion to their social-cognit ive interpretat ions of gam es.

Our analysis of adolescents play frequency in relat ion to their j udgm ents was based on research showing that young adults who played video gam es frequent ly were less cr it ical of the stereotypic gam e content than low- frequency players (Brenick et al. 2007) . However, it is im portant to em phasize here that our goal was not to dem onst rate causality, that is, that playing video gam es causes desensit izat ion to stereotypic im ages. I t m ay be that adolescents who readily accept gender stereotypes frequent ly play video gam es because they do not find the im ages to be disturbing. Likewise, adolescents who reject gender stereotypes m ay stay away from video gam es because of the negat ive content . Dem onst rat ing causality was not feasible with our design, and this type of relat ionship is very difficult to docum ent because it requires cont rolling for exposure to gam e playing outside of the experim ental context as well as cont rolling for num erous other factors that m ay also cont r ibute to increased desensit izat ion. I nstead, the goal in this study was to docum ent the relat ionship between gam e playing and m ult iple social-cognit ive m easures of adolescents evaluat ions of stereotypes. Based on our findings, future studies could be system at ically designed to m ore direct ly exam ine whether gam e-playing results in negat ive social at t itudes, and possible causal relat ionships.


One of our m ain hypotheses was that part icipants would different iate between the gam es that had stereotypic and non-stereotypic gender im ages on the basis that previous research has shown that young adults view exaggerated physical features and at t r ibutes, such as aggression and sexuality, as associated with stereotypic gender roles (Brenick et al. 2007) . I n addit ion, based on previous research (Killen et al. 2002) , we expected that the older part icipants would view stereotypic im ages m ore negat ively than the younger ones.

Further, we predicted that , with age, adolescents would be m ore likely to view gam e playing as a personal choice. Older adolescents would be m ore likely to oppose authority regulat ion of video gam es because they are less likely than younger adolescents to accept parental authority over their lives (Sm etana and Turiel 2003) and are m ore likely to view their free- t im e act ivit ies as under their personal jur isdict ion (Sm etana 1988; 2006; Sm etana and Asquith 1994) . However, we also predicted that this judgm ent would interact with the type of gam e such that endorsem ent of personal (adolescent ) jur isdict ion over video gam es would be st ronger for gam es without stereotypic im ages than for the gam es with stereotypic gender im ages. We expected that the gam es with potent ially negat ive im ages would require m ore com plex social-cognit ive evaluat ion. That is, gam es with negat ive im ages, which could potent ially cause harm to others, would require part icipants to consider an addit ional, m oral, dim ension of reasoning when evaluat ing such gam es. I n cont rast , adolescents would be m ore likely to evaluate gam es without stereotypes using only one, personal, social- cognit ive dim ension, which is reserved for the acts that involve consequences solely for the self (e.g., nicknam es or hair length; see Nucci 2001) .

Addit ionally, based on research showing that frequent exposure to negat ive im ages often leads to desensit izat ion (Anderson et al. 2003; Carnegy et al. 2007; Funk 2005) , we expected that frequent players would be less likely to acknowledge that (1) there are stereotyped gender im ages in the gam es; (2) there is a potent ial that stereotypical character port rayals m ay have a negat ive influence on players, for exam ple, on their at t itudes towards m ales and fem ales in real life; (3) there is a possibilit y that adolescent players m ay not be m ature enough to understand that som e video gam es contain im ages inappropriate for them ; and (4) that they would display less concern for others who m ay be offended by gender port rayal of the characters. Last ly, we expected that (5) adolescents who played frequent ly would be m ore likely to oppose the idea of parental and/ or governm ental regulat ion of video gam es com pared to those who played less frequent ly or not at all.

Because of the consistent reports of gender differences with regards to the am ount of video gam e playing (Gent ile et al. 2004) , we expected to find that overall, m ales play video gam es m ore often than fem ales. We also expected that fem ales would view stereotyped representat ions of wom en in video gam es m ore negat ively com pared to m ale part icipants, based on previous findings of such differences in young adults (Brenick et al. 2007) . At the sam e t im e, we predicted that playing habits would be m easurably related to evaluat ions of video gam es beyond what can be explained by gender differences alone.


Method

Part icipants Part icipants (N = 361) were ninth- and eleventh-grade adolescents: 167 fem ales (65 ninth graders; 102 eleventh graders) and 194 m ales (112 ninth graders; 82 eleventh graders) . The m ean age of the ninth grade m ales was 15.32 years and fem ales was 14.51 years, and the m ean age of the eleventh grade m ales was 17.33 years and fem ales was 16.77 years. The sam ple was 57 percent European-Am erican, 17 percent Afr ican-Am erican, 13 percent Asian-Am erican, 4 percent Lat in-Am erican, and 8 percdent biracial or other. All students were from m iddle- to high- incom e fam ilies, and were enrolled in six high schools in the Washington, D.C. m et ropolitan area. The sam ple for the study reflected the dem ographics of the m et ropolitan region, including the ethnicit y and socioeconom ic status breakdown.

Survey and Procedures The assessm ent m easure developed for this study, Social Evaluat ions of Video Gam es Survey for High School Students, was designed to assess adolescents at t itudes towards and evaluat ions of gender stereotypes in video gam es as well as their video gam e playing habits. The form at and content of the survey were based on an in-depth interview conducted with college students and were refined through num erous pilot adm inist rat ions (Brenick et al. 2007) . We adm inistered the survey to groups of part icipants at their respect ive schools in one- t im e 25-m inute sessions.

I n the survey, part icipants were asked to evaluate three types of video gam es: (1) gender-neut ral (Surfing) , (2) m ale-stereotyped (Terror ist Hunt ) and (3) fem ale-stereotyped (Ext rem e Golf) . We refer to the gam es as stereotyped on the basis of previous research docum ent ing these types of gam es as reflect ing stereotypes (Dill et al. 2005; Funk 2005) . However, whether adolescents viewed the im ages as stereotypic was an em pir ical quest ion, one which required docum entat ion and invest igat ion.

We presented part icipants with a br ief writ ten descript ion of the content and purpose of each gam e. Extensive pilot test ing indicated that adolescents were fam iliar with these different genres of video gam es, and we found that the vast m ajor ity of the part icipants readily ident ified the video gam es based on their br ief descript ions. I n a previous study with college students, screen shots of these exact gam es were shown to young adults (Brenick et al. 2007) . However, even though all gam es were rated T (approved for players 13 years of age and older) by the Entertainm ent Software Rat ing Board, a decision was m ade against using screen shots of the actual gam es in the adolescent study to ensure a large and representat ive sam ple. Our concern was that som e parents m ay not have approved of their adolescents part icipat ion in a study that would involve exposure to violent and/ or sexualized im ages.

The Surfing gam e descr ipt ion was as follows: This sect ion asks quest ions about a video gam e that involves surfing through waves. The goal is to stay on top of the board while surfing the largest waves im aginable, earning points for the difficulty and creat ivit y of the t r icks you com plete. Typical screen shots from the gam e would


be as follows: Screen Shot 1: A m ale surfer and a fem ale surfer are shown in full body wetsuits balancing on surfboards on a large wave. Screen Shot 2: A m ale surfer and a fem ale surfer are shown in full body wetsuits doing t r icks on a surfboard.

The Terror ist Hunt gam e descript ion was: This sect ion asks about a video gam e in which you have to obtain vital intelligence, find terror ists, and elim inate them at all costs, including killing, shoot ing, and m aim ing. You are on the hunt to dest roy all potent ial terror ists at any m eans. Typical screen shots from the gam e would be as follows: Screen Shot 1: A m ale character is shown holding a m achine gun, shoot ing and killing another character, head on. Screen Shot 2: A m ale character is shown holding a m achine gun to the head of another character that he is holding in a headlock.

Finally, the descript ion of the third gam e, Ext rem e Golf, was the following: This sect ion asks about a video gam e in which scant ily clad wom en are playing rounds of golf. The characters include rappers, ex-cons, and st r ippers. The wom en are shown in t ight tops, short shorts and m ini-skir ts and are dancing on the green. Typical screen shots from the gam e would be as follows: Screen Shot 1: A fem ale character in a m ini skir t and t ight top is shown bending over to put down her golf ball. Screen Shot 2: A fem ale character in a t ight halter top is shown swinging around the flag pole of the hole m arker to celebrate a good shot .

Male characters in the Terror ist Hunt gam e were exam ples of stereotypes because they were violent and aggressive. I n the Ext rem e Golf, fem ale characters were exam ples of stereotypes in that they were shown act ing provocat ively with exaggerated body parts and thus were depicted as sexualized objects. The characters in the Surfing gam e were not stereotypedthe surfers were port rayed fully clothed in wetsuits and without exaggerated body parts; m ale and fem ale characters were able to perform the sam e t r icks with equal skill.

All descript ions were based on the actual gam es available on the m arket ; however, the real nam es of the gam es were not used to avoid influencing part icipants opinions. These gam es were selected due to their popular ity at the t im e of the inst rum ent developm ent as well as the inclusion of the stereotyped and non-stereotyped m ale and fem ale m ain characters. The order of presentat ion was the sam e for all part icipants and was designed to present the non-stereotypical im ages first , followed by the gam es with stereotyped im ages to avoid pr im ing a negat ive viewpoint . The neut ral gam e served as baseline for evaluat ion of part icipants reasoning about the stereotyped gam es.

For each gam e, we adm inistered the evaluat ive quest ions organized by topic. The four m ain social-cognit ive assessm ents and were: (1) Gender of players ( Who plays this type of gam e [ m ales, fem ales, or both] and why? ) , (2) Evaluat ion of gender stereotypes ( Do m ale/ fem ale stereotypes exist in this gam e? I f so, what are the stereotypes? ) , (3) I nfluences of video gam e playing on players behaviors, at t itudes, and judgm ents ( Do adolescents change their at t itudes about m ales/ fem ales in real life based on what they see in video gam es? ) , and (4)


Authority j ur isdict ion ( Who should decide what video gam es are appropriate for adolescents? ) . Quest ions were answered with Likert - type scale or forced-choice responses.

The survey concluded with quest ions regarding personal gam e usage and preferences. Part icipants were asked to report how often they played video gam es and to select what types of gam es they played m ost often from a list of 11 gam e categories: act ion, m usic, first -person shooter, adventure puzzle, sports, ext rem e sports, racing, st rategy, fight ing, and role-playing gam es. All of the prospect ive survey takers were presented with a short descript ion of the study, inform ed of the confident ial, anonym ous, and voluntary nature of the study and debriefed following the assessm ent .

Measures

Predictors Three predictor variables were used: play frequency, gender, and grade (ninth or eleventh) . Part icipants were asked to rate how often they played video gam es on a scale anchored from 0 to 3, where 0 = Never; 1 = Rarely, 1 or 2 t im es a m onth; 2 = Som et im es, 1 or 2 t im es a week; 3 = Often, 3 or m ore t im es a week. This four-point scale was sim ilar to scales used in previous research, such as the five-point scales used by Colwell and Payne (2000) or by Gent ile and Gent ile (2008) , which generally captured the range from never to daily. The scale used in the current study did not include a daily anchor because the study did not focus so m uch on a sm all m inority of problem at ic players who display obsessive, or even addict ive, interest in video gam e playing. I nstead, we were m ore interested in an average adolescent s evaluat ions of gender stereotyped characters in video gam es, regardless of how often he or she played them . Therefore, broadly captur ing a group of adolescent players who m ay be exposed to video gam es relat ively frequent ly, three or m ore t im es a week, was deem ed sufficient . For m ult inom ial regression analyses, the play frequency var iable was t reated as categorical.

Outcom es Dependent m easures were ten evaluat ive social-cognit ive assessm ents asked for each gam e separately that assessed part icipants reasoning about the stereotyped im ages or gam es containing stereotyped im ages. These quest ions encom passed various aspects of part icipants reasoning and direct ly corresponded to the five m ain hypotheses out lined earlier for play frequency: (1) presence of stereotyped gender im ages in the gam es ( Are there stereotypes in this gam e? I f so, are they posit ive? Negat ive? ) , (2) potent ial that stereotypical character port rayals m ay have a negat ive influence on players, for exam ple, on their at t itudes towards m ales and fem ales in real life ( Can playing this gam e have harm ful consequences for the players? Do you think adolescents change their at t itudes about m ales and fem ales based on what they see in the gam es? ) , (3) possibilit y that adolescent players m ay not be m ature enough to understand that som e video gam es contain im ages inappropriate for them ( Are adolescents m ature enough to choose which gam es are all r ight for them to play? ) , (4) concern for others who m ay be offended by gender port rayal of the characters ( I s it OK to keep playing the gam e if a fr iend is


upset about how the characters are port rayed? ) , and (5) at t itude towards parental and/ or governm ental regulat ion of video gam es ( Who should decide which gam es are all r ight for adolescents to play? Should governm ent cont rol which gam es are appropriate for teenagers? Would it be OK for anyone to play a gam e like this if there were no rat ing system ? ) .

Data Analysis The three predictor variables and their interact ion term s were regressed in a stepwise m ethod on the ten outcom e m easures described above, separately for each gam e. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used for item s m easured with Likert scales, and logist ic and m ult inom ial logist ic regression m ethods were used for binary (yes/ no) and m ult iple choice item s, respect ively. For m ult inom ial logist ic regression, the three-way interact ion term was dropped to create m ore parsim onious m odels. 1 Addit ionally, repeated m easures ANOVA analyses [ 4 (Play Frequency) X 2 (Gender of Part icipant ) X 3 (Gam e Type: Surfer , Terror ist Hunt , Ext rem e Golf) , with repeated m easures on the last factor] were conducted for som e of the quest ions to assess whether part icipants evaluat ions varied across the types of gam es. Follow-up tests were conducted with t tests with Bonferroni adjustm ent for m ult iple com parisons. All reported findings are significant at the p < .05 level, unless otherwise specified.

Results

Descript ive Analyses

Gender At t r ibut ions about Gam e Playing When asked, Who plays this type of gam e? (1 = m ales, 2 = fem ales, 3 = both) , part icipants described the gender-neut ral (GN) gam e as played by both m ales and fem ales (M = 2.37, SD = .92) m ore often than m ale- and fem ale-stereotyped (MS and FS) gam es, (M = 1.28, SD = .69 and M = 1.49, SD = .85) [ t (357) = 19.298, p < .001, and t (355) = 13.736, p < .001] . Further, when asked Why? am ong seven possible choices (violence, sexual appearance of characters, sports, socializat ion of players, lack of stereotypes, ident ificat ion with gender of characters, cognit ive com plexity, and gam e playing as an act ivit y in itself) , 41 percent of part icipants selected no stereotypes for GN gam e, which was the m ost frequent ly used just ificat ion [ M = .41, SD = .49; m in t (358) = 6.664, p < .001] . For MS and FS gam es, the m ost frequent just ificat ions respect ively were violence (M = .74, SD = .43) and sexual appearance (M = .54, SD = .48) [ m in t (359) = 24.510, p < .001 and m in t (360) = 12.163, p < .001] . These findings provide evidence that adolescents different iated between the three types of video gam es along stereotypic categories. Moreover, they ascribed the at t r ibute of violence to the

1 For the evaluat ive quest ion, Are adolescents m ature enough to choose which games are

all r ight for them to play? asked for the female-stereotyped game, the gender by play frequency interact ion term was dropped as well to ensure proper model convergence.


gam e categorized by pr ior studies as reflect ing negat ive m ale stereotypes, and the at t r ibute of sexual appearance to the gam e reflect ing negat ive fem ale stereotypes. Further, these data confirm that , despite the absence of the screen shots, verbal descript ions of the gam es contained adequate inform at ion about the content of the gam es for part icipants to different iate between the character port rayals in gam es categorized as depict ing non-stereotypic and stereotypic gender roles.

Play Frequency and Gam e Preference Descript ive stat ist ics for play frequency by gender and grade are provided in Table 1. Pairwise com parisons yielded significant gender and age differences with respect to the am ount of v ideo gam e playing. The m ean rat ings (0 = never, 1 = rarely, 2= som et im es, and 3 = often) for usage revealed that boys (M = 2.03, SD = .95) and adolescents in ninth grade (M = 1.80, SD = 1.06) reported higher frequency of video gam e play then gir ls (M = .81, SD = .91) and adolescents in eleventh grade (M = 1.13, SD = 1.07) , respect ively [ t (356) = 12.384, p < .001, and t (357) = 5.959, p < .001] . The age t rend was the sam e for both genders: ninth-grade boys (M = 2.27, SD = .80) reported playing video gam es significant ly m ore often than eleventh-grade boys (M = 1.71, SD = 1.04) [ t (190) = 4.239, p < .001] . Sim ilar ly, ninth-grade gir ls (M = 1.03, SD = .97) played gam es m ore frequent ly than gir ls in eleventh grade (M = .68, SD = .85) [ t (165) = 2.493, p < .01] . Thus, with age, adolescents frequency of gam e playing decreased.

Table 1 . Mean video gam e play frequency by gender and grade

Gender Grade Play Frequency

N Never Rarely Som et im es Often 65 M 0.35 0.35 0.20 0.09 9 th

SD 0.48 0.48 0.40 0.29 102 M 0.52 0.33 0.10 0.05 Females

11 th SD 0.50 0.47 0.30 0.22

167 M 0.46 0.34 0.14 0.07 Total SD 0.50 0.48 0.35 0.25

112 M 0.03 0.13 0.37 0.46 9 th SD 0.16 0.34 0.48 0.50

82 M 0.12 0.37 0.20 0.32 Males 11 th SD 0.33 0.48 0.40 0.47

194 M 0.07 0.23 0.29 0.40 Total

SD 0.25 0.42 0.46 0.49

Note: N = 361. Never = Never plays video games. Rarely = Plays video gam es once or twice a month. Somet imes = Plays video games once or twice a week. Often = Plays video games three or more t imes a week.

With respect to gam e preference, there were gender and age differences as well. Out of the 11 popular gam e categories (act ion, m usic, first -person shooter, adventure puzzle, sports, ext rem e sports, racing, st rategy, fight ing, and role-


playing gam es) , gir ls picked m usic gam es as their favorite type of gam es significant ly m ore often than did boys, and boys picked act ion, shooter, sports, fight ing, and role-playing gam es m ore often than did gir ls [ m in t (357) = 2.495, p < .05] . Addit ionally, gam e preferences changed som ewhat with age am ong boys: those in eleventh grade chose puzzle gam es m ore often than ninth-graders; in com parison, younger boys picked shooter gam es m ore often than did eleventh-grade boys [ m in t (191) = 1.987, p < .05] . Thus, boys interest in violent ( shooter) gam es decreased with age. Descript ive stat ist ics for gam e preference are provided in Table 2.

Presence of Stereotyped Gender I m ages Are there stereotypes in this gam e? Are the im ages posit ive? Are the im ages negat ive? Stepwise logist ic regression analyses of part icipants responses to these quest ions (1 = yes, 0 = no) revealed that for the fem ale-stereotyped (FS) gam e, gender, with an odds rat io (OR) of 4.18 for gir ls (CI 95 = 2.21 to 7.89, p < .001) , and gender by grade interact ion (OR = .25, CI 95 = .09 to .74, p < .05) were the significant predictors of the judgm ent that stereotypes were present [ (4) = 28.817, p < .001] . This indicates that overall, gir ls (M = .76, SD = .43) were m ore likely than boys (M = .63, SD = .48) to recognize that port rayals of fem ale characters in the FS gam e were stereotypic. When looking at gender differences by grade, follow-up t tests revealed that while ninth-grade boys (M = .77, SD = .42) and gir ls (M = .74, SD = .44) did not respond significant ly different ly, eleventh-grade gir ls (M = .77, SD = .42) were m ore likely to view im ages in the FS gam e as stereotypical representat ions of wom en than were eleventh-grade boys (M = .45, SD = .50) , (p < .001) . For the m ale-stereotyped (MS) gam e, none of the predictor variables were significant ly associated with part icipants responses. Thus, older gir ls viewed the im ages in the FS gam e as m ore stereotypic than did older boys; there were no gender differences for recognizing the im ages as stereotypic in the MS gam e.

Two addit ional logist ic analyses were conducted to determ ine whether those who did perceive stereotypes in the MS and FS gam es evaluated them as posit ive or negat ive. For the MS gam e, gender was the only significant predictor of both posit ive [ (1) = 11.423, p < .01] and negat ive evaluat ions [ (2) = 15,221, p < .001] , with gir ls being m ore likely to see m ale-stereotyped characters as negat ive (OR = 2.20, CI 95 = 1.31 to 3.70, p < .01) and less likely as posit ive (OR = .32, CI 95 = .16 to .65, p < .01) .

For the FS gam e, for posit ive evaluat ions [ (3) = 23.333, p < .001] , gender and age were the two significant predictors: gir ls (OR = .21, CI 95 = .07 to .62, p < .01) were less likely than boys to perceive im ages in the FS gam e as posit ive stereotypes of wom en, whereas younger adolescents (OR = 3.04, CI 95 = 1.27 to 7.26, p < .05) were m ore likely to do so than older adolescents. For negat ive evaluat ions, gender (OR = 6.71, CI 95 = 3.51 to 12.83, p < .001) and interact ion of gender by grade (OR = .22, CI 95 = .08 to .62, p < .01) were the significant

Do

Ste

reotypic

Imag

es in

Vide

o G

am

es Affe

ct A

ttitude

s a

nd B

eha

vior?

181

Table 2 . Mean preferences for different types of video gam es by gender and grade

Gender Grade N Action Music Shooter Adven- ture

Puzzle Sports Extreme Sports Racing Strategy Fighting Role Playing

Dont Play

Females 9th 65 M 0.23 0.12 0.14 0.32 0.11 0.22 0.08 0.28 0.14 0.12 0.18 0.34

SD 0.43 0.33 0.35 0.47 0.31 0.41 0.27 0.45 0.35 0.33 0.39 0.48

11th 101 M 0.15 0.08 0.06 0.19 0.12 0.17 0.08 0.20 0.14 0.11 0.09 0.50

SD 0.36 0.27 0.24 0.39 0.33 0.38 0.27 0.40 0.35 0.31 0.29 0.50

Total 166 M 0.18 0.10 0.09 0.24 0.11 0.19 0.08 0.23 0.14 0.11 0.13 0.44

SD 0.39 0.30 0.29 0.43 0.32 0.39 0.27 0.42 0.35 0.32 0.33 0.50

Males 9th 111 M 0.46 0.01 0.56 0.30 0.02 0.66 0.10 0.27 0.20 0.23 0.31 0.03

SD 0.50 0.01 0.50 0.46 0.13 0.48 0.30 0.45 0.40 0.42 0.46 0.16

11th 82 M 0.38 0.06 0.41 0.21 0.11 0.62 0.12 0.26 0.18 0.27 0.24 0.10

SD 0.49 0.24 0.50 0.41 0.32 0.49 0.33 0.44 0.39 0.45 0.43 0.30

Total 193 M 0.42 0.03 0.50 0.26 0.06 0.64 0.11 0.26 0.19 0.24 0.28 0.06

SD 0.50 0.17 0.50 0.44 0.23 0.48 0.31 0.44 0.40 0.43 0.45 0.23

Note: N = 359.


predictors: overall, gir ls were alm ost six t im es m ore likely to perceive im ages in this gam e as negat ive stereotypes of wom en than were boys. Further, follow-up t test analyses of gender differences by grade showed that in ninth grade, there was no significant difference between boys rat ings (M = .59, SD = .49) and gir ls (M = .63, SD = .49) ; however, in eleventh grade, gir ls (M = .74, SD = .44) were m ore likely than boys (M = .29, SD = .46) , (p < .001) to view im ages in the FS gam e as negat ive stereotypes of wom en. Older gir ls were thus m ore likely to view the im ages in the FS gam e as negat ive stereotypes than were older boys. The sum m ary of the results for the regression analyses for the MS and FS gam es appear in Table 3.

Table 3 . Logist ic regression analyses by gam e type: Main effects for presence of stereotyped im ages

Male-stereotyped Fem ale-stereotyped OR 95% CI OR 95% CI Presence of stereotypes

Play frequency .90 .72 1.13 Gender 1.60 .97 2.64 4.18* * * 2.21 7.89 Grade 2.76 .93 8.14 Stereotypes posit ive?

Play frequency .98 .64 1.48 Gender .32* * .16 .65 .21* * .07 .62 Grade 3.04* 1.27 7.26 Stereotypes negat ive?

Play frequency .95 .75 1.20 Gender 2.20* * 1.31 3.70 6.71* * * 3.51 12.83 Grade 2.20 .80 6.04

Note: N = 359. OR = Odds rat io. CI = Confidence interval. Values for gender were 0 = boys, 1 = gir ls; for grade 0 = 11th, 1 = 9 th; for outcom e variables 0 = no, 1 = yes. * p < .05, * * p < .01, * * * p < .001. = variable was elim inated during the stepwise com putat ion process. = not applicable.

Com parisons of the responses across gam es confirm ed that part icipants evaluated the three gam es different ly according to their content . Regarding the posit ive and negat ive evaluat ions of the stereotyped im ages, there were within-subjects differences in the assessm ents [ F (2, 704) = 41.152, p < .001, p2 = .11, for whether the im ages are negat ive; F (2, 704) = 4.191, p < .05, p2 = .01, for whether the im ages are posit ive] . Stereotyped im ages in the FS gam e were rated as negat ive the m ost often (M = .53, SD = .48) com pared to the two other gam es (M = .30, SD = .43, for GN; and M = .34, SD = .45, for MS) , (p < .001 for all pairwise com parisons) . I m ages in the GN gam e (M = .12, SD = .30) were viewed


as posit ive m ore often than those in the FS gam e (M = .07, SD = .24; p < .001) , but neither the GN nor FS gam e were evaluated significant ly different ly from the MS gam e (M = .09, SD = .26) .

Potent ia l Effect of Stereotypical Character Port rayals Can playing this gam e have harm ful consequences for the players? We asked part icipants if any of the gam es presented in the survey would be appropriate for anyone to play if there had not been a rat ing system in place (see analyses of governm ental regulat ion below) and then were offered four types of answers to just ify their opinion: people can decide what they want to play, there are no rules against it , there m ay be harm ful consequences to the player, and there are no harm ful consequences to the player. Stepwise m ult inom ial logist ic regression, conducted with harm ful consequences as the reference category, revealed that for the MS gam e [ (3) = 25.667, p < .001] , gender was the only significant predictor: gir ls were less likely to pick people can decide (OR = .35, CI 95 = .20 to .59, p < .001) , there are no rules against it (OR = .41, CI 95 = .18 to .91, p < .05) and there are no harm ful consequences to the player (OR = .13, CI 95 = .03 to .59, p < .01) over there m ay be harm ful consequences to the player; which m eans that com pared to gir ls, boys were significant ly m ore likely to pick there are no harm ful consequences to the player over there m ay be harm ful consequences to the player. For the FS gam e, gender and grade were significant predictors [ (6) = 28.535, p < .001] . Gir ls and ninth-graders were less likely to pick people can decide (OR = .38, CI 95 = .22 to .65, p < .001; and OR = .39, CI 95 = .23 to .65, p < .001) and no rules (OR = .34, CI 95 = .16 to .73, p < .01; and OR = .36, CI 95 = .17 to .76, p < .01) over harm ful consequences. I n sum , com pared to boys, gir ls were m ore likely to view the MS gam e as having harm ful consequences than as having no harm ; gir ls and younger adolescents were m ore likely than boys and older adolescents to view the FS gam e as having harm ful consequences than as a gam e that can be played by anyone because there are no rules or because players can decide them selves what to play. These results confirm the expectat ion that gender differences exist regarding the at t r ibut ion of harm ful consequences to the im ages in video gam e playing, part icular ly gam es with negat ive stereotypic im ages.

Do you think adolescents change their at t itudes about m ales and fem ales based on what they see in this gam e? When judgm ents about the influence of character port rayals on players at t itudes towards people in real life were evaluated (1 = very negat ive change; 2 = som ewhat negat ive change; 3 = no change at all; 4 = som ewhat posit ive change; 5 = very posit ive change) , stepwise ordinary least squares (OLS) regression revealed gender differences in evaluat ions of the two gam es with stereotyped characters. Boys (B = .33, p < .001) held m ore posit ive expectat ions about the influence of port rayals of m ales in the MS gam e [ F (4, 353) = 14.985, p < .001, Ra2 = .14] ; and they also expected m ore favorable at t itudinal changes towards fem ales (B = .35, p < .001) as a result of character depict ions in the FS gam e [ F (4, 352) = 14.256, p < .001, Ra2 = .13] . Thus, boys were m ore likely than gir ls to judge that playing gam es with stereotypic content leads to a posit ive change in players at t itudes.


I n addit ion, for the MS gam e, there was a significant interact ion between play frequency and grade (B = .35, p < .05) . Mult iple com parisons with Bonferroni adjustm ent conducted separately for each grade showed that eleventh-grade part icipants who played video gam es often (M = 3.26, SD = .89) rated characters in this gam e as having m ore posit ive influence on players at t itudes than those who played gam es never, rarely, or som et im es (M = 2.26, SD = .79; M = 2.61, SD = 1.06; and M = 2.46, SD = .91) , (p < .01) . I n cont rast , ninth-grade part icipants who played video gam es often (M = 2.82, SD = .83) differed only from those who played gam es rarely (M = 2.32, SD = .74) , (p < .05) . Thus, part icipants in eleventh grade who played video gam es the m ost were m ore likely to view the influence of the MS gam e on players at t itudes as posit ive com pared to those who played less frequent ly or not at all.

For the FS gam e, there also was an interact ion between play frequency and grade (B = .39, p < .05) as well as a significant effect for play frequency overall (B = -.39, p < .05) . Follow-up m ult iple com parisons reveled that while ninth-graders (M = 2.17, SD = 1.04) evaluat ions did not vary as a funct ion of their play frequency, opinions of eleventh-graders who played often (M = 3.06, SD = 1.09) differed from opinions of eleventh-graders who played never or rarely (M = 2.13, SD = 1.11 and M = 2.39, SD = 1.20) , (p < .05) . Thus, the m ost frequent players in eleventh grade expected that playing the FS gam e had m ore posit ive influences on at t itudes than did infrequent players or non-players. The sum m ary of the regression results can be found in Table 4.

Table 4 . OLS regression analyses by gam e type: Main effects for change in at t itudes and disregard for fr iends opinion

Gender-neut ral Male-stereotyped Fem ale-stereotyped

R2 B R2 B R2 B Change in at t itudes towards males ( females) .02 ( .11) .14 () ( .13)

Play frequency ( - .20) - .27 () ( - .39* ) Gender .15* * ( - .14) .33* * * () ( .35* * ) Grade .00 ( - .16) - .07 () ( .01) OK to play regardless of fr iends opinion .16 .20 .13

Play frequency - .09 .15* - .03

Gender .21* .37* * * .39* * * Grade .06 .09 .12*

Note: m in N = 356. Values for gender were 0 = gir ls, 1 = boys; for grade 0 = 9th, 1 = 11th. At t itude change ranged from 1 = very negat ive to 5 = very posit ive; OK to play ranged from 1 = never all r ight to 5 = always all r ight . * p < .05, * * p < .01, * * * p < .001. = variable was elim inated during the stepwise computat ion process. = not applicable.


Maturity of Adolescents Decisions about Gam es w ith Stereotypical Characters Are adolescents m ature enough to choose which gam es are all r ight for them to play? Part icipants were asked to assess whether adolescents 13 years old and up or their parents should decide whether a part icular type of gam e is appropriate for adolescents to play (see analyses of governm ental regulat ion below) , and then offered four types of answers to just ify their opinion: adolescent is old/ m ature enough to choose, adolescent has a r ight to choose, parent knows best , and parent has a r ight to choose. Stepwise m ult inom ial logist ic regression analyses, conducted with m aturity as the reference category, revealed that for the MS gam e, significant predictors were play frequency, grade, and two interact ions: play frequency by gender, and grade by gender [(27) = 86.112, p < .001] . Com pared to those who played often, players who played som et im es were m ore likely to pick adolescent has a r ight to choose (OR = 3.19, CI 95 = 1.14 to 8.95, p < .05) over adolescent is m ature, which m eans that the m ost frequent players were m ore likely to use adolescent m aturit y as their just ificat ion.

Sim ilar ly, older players were m ore likely to refer to adolescent m atur ity: com pared to eleventh graders, ninth graders were less likely to pick adolescent has a r ight to choose (OR = .28, CI 95 = .11 to .73, p < .01) over adolescent is m ature. Further, there were gender differences am ong those who played never or som et im es : gir ls were less likely than boys to pick adolescent has a r ight to choose (OR = .03, CI 95 = .00 to .61, p < .05; and OR = .03, CI 95 = .00 to .62, p < .05) over adolescent is m ature. Last ly, am ong gir ls, ninth graders were m ore likely than eleventh graders to pick adolescent has a r ight to choose (OR = 11.51, CI 95 = 1.96 to 67.59, p < .01) and parent knows best (OR = 8.72, CI 95 = 2.12 to 35.84, p < .01) over adolescent is m ature, m eaning that older gir ls were m ore likely to think that adolescents are m ature enough to decide which m ale-stereotyped gam es are appropriate for them .

For the FS gam e, gender and a grade by gender interact ion were the significant predictors [ (9) = 22.377, p < .01] . Gir ls were m ore likely than boys to choose the just ificat ion parent has a r ight to choose (OR = 3.03, CI 95 = 1.12 to 8.22, p < .05) over adolescent is m ature; and am ong gir ls, ninth graders were again m ore likely than eleventh graders to pick parent knows best (OR = 3.62, CI 95 = 1.18 to 11.16, p < .05) over adolescent is m ature. Thus, younger gir ls supported parental jur isdict ion m ore often than did older gir ls.

Sensit ivity tow ards Those Offended by the Stereotyped Gender Port rayals I s it OK to keep playing the gam e if a fr iend is upset about how the characters are port rayed? Part icipants responses to this quest ion were scored on a five-point scale (1 = never all r ight ; 2 = rarely all r ight ; 3 = som et im es all r ight ; 4 = usually all r ight ; 5 = always all r ight ) . For the MS gam e, play frequency and gender were the two significant predictors [ F (3, 353) = 30.455, p < .001, Ra2 = .20] , with boys (B = .37, p < .001) and those who played video gam es m ore often (B = .15, p < .05) being m ore likely to rate that it was all r ight to keep playing the gam e. For the FS gam e, gender and grade were the two significant predictors [ F (3, 353) = 18.949, p < .001, Ra2 = .13] , with boys (B = .39, p < .001) and older adolescents


(B = .12, p < .05) saying m ore often that it was all r ight to keep playing. Table 4 shows a sum m ary of findings for the m ain effects for this quest ion. Overall, boys judged it m ore all r ight to keep playing even if a fr iend was upset about the port rayals in the gam e than did gir ls.

Part icipants evaluat ions across the three types of gam es were tested with repeated m easures ANOVA. Results indicated that there was a significant effect for the type of gam e, [ F(2, 698) = 118.542, p < .001, p2 = .25] ; and also a significant interact ion between gam e type and play frequency [ F(6, 698) = 2.316, p < .05, p2 = .02] . Follow-up tests revealed that part icipants thought it was all r ight to keep playing the GN gam e (M = 3.37, SD = 1.13) m ore often than they did for the MS and FS gam es (M = 3.25, SD = 1.24 and M = 2.60, SD = 1.32; p < .001) , and that part icipants also thought that it was the least appropriate to keep playing the FS gam e (p < .01) . With respect to the type of gam e by play frequency interact ion, for the GN and MS gam es, part icipants who played often (M = 3.89, SD = 1.07 and M = 3.90, SD = 1.07) were m ore likely to say that it was all r ight to keep playing regardless of a fr iends opinion than those who played never (M = 3.13, SD = .97 and M = 2.80, SD = 1.11) , rarely (M = 3.16, SD = 1.20 and M = 3.06, SD = 1.33) or som et im es (M = 3.39, SD = 1.06 and M = 3.30, SD = 1.13) , (p < .01) . However, for the FS gam e, only part icipants who said they never play (M = 2.36, SD = 1.31) differed from the part icipants who play often (M = 2.90, SD = 1.31; p < .05) . I n general, the m ore often part icipants played video gam es the m ore likely they were to judge that it is all r ight to keep playing the gam e even if a fr iend is bothered by the im ages.

Evaluat ion of Authority Jurisdict ion over Video Gam es Who should cont rol which gam es are all r ight for adolescents to play? Part icipants answers about who should decide whether a part icular type of gam e is appropriate for adolescents were analyzed using stepwise logist ic regression. For analyses, the four possible response categories in the survey, always adolescent , usually adolescent , usually their parent , and always their parent , were recoded into a binom ial var iable (1 = adolescents, 0 = parents) . Results revealed that for the GN gam e, the only significant predictor was play frequency [ (3) = 18.752, p < .001] . Com pared to less frequent players, those who played m ore often were m ore likely to pick adolescent jur isdict ion over parental jur isdict ion (OR = 1.51, CI 95 = 1.03 to 2.20, p < .05) . For the MS gam e, gender was the single significant predictor [ (2) = 32.338, p < .001] , with gir ls being less likely to support adolescent jur isdict ion (OR = .36, CI 95 = .21 to .61, p < .001) . For the FS gam e, gender and grade were significant [ (2) = 12.312, p < .01] , with gir ls again being less likely to support adolescent jur isdict ion over parental supervision (OR = .50, CI 95 = .32 to .77, p < .01) , and with older adolescents favoring adolescent jur isdict ion (OR = 1.56, CI 95 = 1.01 to 2.41, p < .05) . Thus, gir ls were m ore likely to view parental jur isdict ion as m ore appropriate than adolescent jur isdict ion for the stereotyped gam es but not for the non-stereotyped gam e, showing that they different iated am ong gam es based on content when m aking judgm ents regarding parental jur isdict ion.


When part icipants responses across gam es were com pared, it was found that there was a significant effect for both the type of gam e [ F (2, 671) = 80.218, p < .001, p2 = .19] and for the interact ion between the gam e type and grade [ F (2, 671) = 4.195, p < .05, p2 = .01] . Follow-up analyses showed that for the GN gam e (M = .73, SD = .44) and the FS gam e (M = .51, SD = .49) , adolescent jur isdict ion was preferred m ore often than for the MS gam e (M = .39, SD = .50) ; the MS gam e was rated by part icipants as a gam e that should be under parental j ur isdict ion m ost often (p < .001) . Regarding the interact ion between gam e type and grade, follow up analyses revealed that ninth- and eleventh-graders rated the MS gam e sim ilar ly (M = .38, SD = .49 and M = .39, SD = .49) . The difference in rat ings between the MS and FS gam es was not stat ist ically significant for ninth grade (M = .47, SD = .50, for FS gam e) , whereas in eleventh grade, m ore part icipants afforded adolescent jur isdict ion over the FS gam e than over the MS gam e (M = .55, SD = .50, for FS gam e) , (p < .05) . Thus, by eleventh grade, adolescent jur isdict ion was judged okay for the FS gam e m ore than the MS gam e.

Should governm ent cont rol which gam es are appropriate for teenagers? For governm ental regulat ion in general (1 = yes, 0 = no) , stepwise logist ic regression revealed that for all three gam es, GN [ (2) = 14.206, p < .001] , MS [ (2) = 20.071, p < .001] and FS [ (2) = 6.975, p < .05] , only gender was significant ly related to part icipants judgm ents, with gir ls being consistent ly m ore likely to support governm ental regulat ion (OR = 2.13, CI 95 = 1.05 to 4.34, p < .05; OR = 2.36, CI 95 = 1.41 to 3.96, p < .001; and OR = 1.77, CI 95 = 1.02 to 3.07, p < .05) . (See Table 5 for the sum m ary of the regression results.)

Table 5 . Logist ic regression analyses by gam e type: Main effects for governm ental jur isdict ion

Gender-neut ral Male-stereotyped Fem ale-stereotyped

OR 95% CI OR 95% CI OR 95% CI Need for governm ental cont rol

Play frequency .79 .57 1.09 .91 .72 1.15 .97 .75 1.24 Gender 2.13* 1.05 4.34 2.36* * 1.41 3.96 1.77* 1.02 3.07 Grade OK for anyone to play without rat ing system?

Play frequency 1.02 .78 1.33 .96 .71 1.31 Gender .55* .31 .97 .25* * .10 .62 .59* .38 .91 Grade .51* * .30 .85 1.90* * 1.23 2.94

Note: m in N = 345. OR = Odds rat io. CI = Confidence interval. Values for gender were 0 = boys, 1 = gir ls; for grade 0 = 9th, 1 = 11th; for outcome variables 0 = no, 1 = yes. * p < .05, * * p < .01, * * * p < .001. = variable was elim inated during the stepwise com putat ion process. = not applicable.


Com parisons across gam es, perform ed with repeated m easures ANOVA, confirm ed that part icipants rat ings varied significant ly by gam e type [ F (2, 664) = 67.940, p < .001, p2 = .17] . Follow-up tests showed that the MS gam e (M = .44, SD = .50) was viewed as the m ost likely to need governm ental regulat ion (p < .001) ; by com parison, fewer part icipants saw the GN and FS gam es as needing governm ental jur isdict ion (M = .16, SD = .37 and M = .32, SD = .47; p < .001) .

Would it be OK for anyone to play a gam e like this if there were no rat ing system ? Table 5 sum m arizes the findings for part icipants responses to this quest ion (1 = yes, 0 = no) . For the GN gam e, gender and grade were the two significant predictors [ (3) = 16.565, p < .001] , with gir ls (OR = .55, CI 95 = .31 to .97, p < .05) and eleventh graders (OR = .51, CI 95 = .30 to .85, p < .01) were less likely to say yes. For the MS gam e, gender was the single significant predictor [ (3) = 19.088, p < .001] , with gir ls less likely to say yes (OR = .25, CI 95 = .10 to .62, p < .01) . For the FS gam e, gender and grade were the significant predictors [ (2) = 11.939, p < .01] : gir ls (OR = .59, CI 95 = .38 to .91, p < .05) were less likely to say that without any rat ing system in place, it would be okay for any player to play this type of gam e, whereas older adolescents were m ore likely (OR = 1.90, CI 95 = 1.23 to 2.94, p < .01) .

Analyses of part icipants answers across gam e types were conducted as well. Results of repeated m easures ANOVA indicated that part icipants rat ings varied by type of gam e [ F (2, 676) = 116.234, p < .001, p2 = .26] and that there was a significant interact ion between type of gam e and grade [ F (2, 676) = 11.097, p < .001, p2 = .03] . Follow-up tests revealed that in the absence of the rat ing system , allowing anyone to play the MS gam e was judged as the least appropriate (M = .30, SD = .46) , followed by the FS gam e (M = .44, SD = .50) and the GN gam e (M = .74, SD = .44) , which was rated as the m ost appropriate for anyone. Regarding the interact ion between type of gam e and grade, part icipants rat ings of the MS gam e were sim ilar for ninth and eleventh grade (M = .30, SD = .46 and M = .31, SD = .46) ; however, m ore ninth-graders rated the GN gam e as appropriate for anyone (M = .82, SD = .39 and M = .67, SD = .47; p < .001) , while m ore eleventh-graders rated the FS gam e as appropriate for all players (M = .37, SD = .48 and M = .51, SD = .50; p < .01) .

Discussion I n this study, adolescents evaluated video gam es with and without negat ive stereotypic port rayals of gender roles different ly, and m ade a num ber of social cognit ive different iat ions between negat ive m ale-stereotypic content and negat ive fem ale-stereotypic content , as was hypothesized. Moreover, there were significant gender and age- related differences in these judgm ents. Not surpr isingly, younger adolescent boys played video gam es the m ost , and video gam e playing decreased with age from ninth to eleventh grade. Consistent with the literature, boys preferred violent gam es m ore than did gir ls, and this decreased with age as well.

What has not been dem onst rated before is how boys and gir ls, and adolescents who play gam es frequent ly, evaluate im ages in video gam es that have been categorized


as stereotypic in the literature (Dill et al. 2005) . We found that gir ls were m ore likely than boys to recognize stereotypes in the gam es, and part icular ly for the fem ale-stereotypic gam es in which fem ales were port rayed in sexually explicit ways. Further, gir ls were m ore likely than boys to view the m ale-stereotypic gam es, which depicted m ale characters as aggressive and violent , as negat ive. Overall, though, all part icipants viewed the im ages in the fem ale-stereotypic gam es as m ore negat ive than in the m ale-stereotypic gam es. This suggests that violent and aggressive im ages are viewed in m ore posit ive light than are sexually exploit ive im ages by adolescents. This finding raises a num ber of quest ions about why this is the case, and whether this negat ively affects adolescent player at t itudes about gender roles and expectat ions.

I n fact , gir ls were m ore likely than boys to view the im ages as having harm ful consequences. I n cont rast , boys were m ore likely to view the port rayal of m ales in the m ale-stereotypic gam e as posit ive. I n general, boys were less cr it ical about gender-stereotyped im ages in video gam es than were gir ls. After account ing for gender, though, interact ions between play frequency and grade revealed that am ong older adolescents, m ore frequent playing was associated with increased likelihood of viewing stereotyped im ages as having posit ive influence on players at t itudes, suggest ing that m ore frequent players becom e less cr it ical of (and potent ially m ore desensit ized to) the negat ive content of the gam es.

Extensive findings in the adolescent literature indicate that , with age, adolescents assert autonom y for decision-m aking about ext racurr icular act iv it ies (Sm etana and Turiel 2003) . This pat tern was m odified in the present study. While adolescents on the whole viewed video-gam e playing as within adolescents decision-m aking jur isdict ion, gir ls and adolescents who did not play gam es frequent ly viewed gam es as requir ing parental and governm ental regulat ion m ore often than did boys and frequent players. This finding was m ore pronounced for the gender-neut ral gam e and the gam e with negat ive fem ale-stereotypic content than for the m ale-stereotypic gam e.

Adolescents were asked whether it was all r ight to play a gam e if a fr iend was upset about the character port rayal. This assessm ent was a m easure of adolescents view about harm fulness and was developed from pilot data in open-ended interviews in which som e fem ale part icipants claim ed that they were bothered when fr iends played gam es that depicted fem ales in a negat ive light . Gender differences arose for this assessm ent , with boys m ore likely to judge playing a gam e even if a fr iend was upset as m ore legit im ate than did gir ls. This raises an area for further inquiry to determ ine why this is the case, and how video-gam e playing bears on adolescent social relat ionships. One of the concerns about video-gam e playing is the extent to which playing video gam es replaces actual peer interact ion, part icular ly during childhood and adolescence (Anderson and Bushm an 2001) . Another dim ension of concern is the extent to which video-gam e playing creates conflict between fr iends, which potent ially disrupts social relat ionships.

Consistent with our expectat ions, our hypothesis that play frequency would be related to a decreased awareness of the presence of stereotyped gender im ages in


the gam es was confirm ed for the assessm ent about changes in players at t itudes based on what they see in the gam es. There also was a significant finding for the evaluat ion of m aturit y of adolescent players, with frequent players being m ore likely to judge that adolescent players are m ature enough to understand which video gam es contain im ages that are inappropriate for them . Further, adolescents who played gam es m ore often showed a decreased concern about an opinion of a fr iend upset about stereotypical character port rayal. The last two findings were significant only for the m ale-stereotypic gam e, however. This indicates that the content of the gam es ( i.e., presence of either m ale or fem ale characters) was an im portant factor in adolescents evaluat ions of stereotypical gender port rayals in video gam es. The explanat ion for why the associat ion between play frequency and video gam e evaluat ions was observed for gam es containing m ale im ages m ore often than for gam es containing fem ale im ages m ay be related to the fact that gam e categories with sim ilar m ale characters, such as first -person shooter and sports gam es, are very popular am ong those who play gam es frequent ly. Therefore, frequent players m ay have st ronger opinions about these types of gam es.

With respect to authority jur isdict ion, the m ale-stereotypic gam e was evaluated m ost often as a gam e that should be under parental cont rol; it was also rated as the gam e m ost likely in need of governm ental regulat ion. I n the absence of the rat ing system , allowing anyone to play the m ale-stereotypic gam e was judged as the least appropriate, followed by the other two gam es. Thus, adolescents do not view video-gam e playing as solely within the personal dom ain (Nucci 2001; Sm etana and Turiel 2003) . Aspects of video-gam e playing were viewed as having negat ive consequences for players and others by the m ajority of adolescents sam pled in this study, indicat ing that m ore scrut iny of the regulat ion and m onitor ing of video-gam e playing is warranted.

While older adolescents opposed the idea of authority regulat ion m ore st rongly than did younger adolescents, older adolescents viewed fem ale-stereotyped im ages in video gam es as negat ive m ore often than did younger part icipants. Thus, older adolescents are m ore likely to view video-gam e playing as a personal decision than younger adolescents, but they also view stereotypic port rayals m ore negat ively.

Other age- related findings were in cont rast to our predict ions, however. Specifically, we found that older adolescents who played gam es often ( three or m ore t im es per week) expected players to have a m ore posit ive change in at t itudes towards m en and wom en in real life after playing video gam es. Addit ionally, for the gam e containing stereotyped port rayals of fem ales, older adolescents were m ore likely to think that in the absence of the age rest r ict ions it would be okay for anyone to play such a gam e. Also, com pared to younger adolescents, older adolescents were m ore likely to think that it should be players personal choice whether to play this type of gam e because people can decide them selves what to play, and because there are no rules prevent ing players from playing it , than to express a concern that negat ively-stereotyped im ages of fem ales could be harm ful. Thus, we found that in m any instances older adolescents were less rather than m ore cr it ical of gender stereotypes in video gam es. One possible explanat ion for


this finding is that older adolescents have had m ore exposure to video gam es over their lifet im es and becam e less cr it ical of them ; however, further research is needed to confirm or disprove this interpretat ion.

I t is im portant to em phasize here that the findings of gender differences in evaluat ions of stereotypes in video gam es do not im ply that m ales are inherent ly m ore insensit ive than fem ales in their evaluat ions of stereotypical im ages. Rather, we believe that both gender and age differences reflect the greater long- term exposure to stereotyped video gam e content . Given that m ales typically play video gam es m ore often and that video gam e playing usually begins at a young age, these findings m ay represent the cum ulat ive effects of playing video gam es for som e per iod of t im e. While differences in video gam e playing habits between m ales and fem ales did not perm it us to reliably different iate the effects of play frequency from the gender effects in this study, we suggest that future studies also exam ine the nature of gender differences by including greater num bers of less- frequent ly playing m ales and m ore- frequent ly playing fem ales in their sam ples. Further, societal m essages and expectat ions about gender stereotypes clearly play a role in how boys and gir ls evaluate stereotypic images (Dill et al. 2005) . This aspect of gender stereotyping was beyond the scope of this study, but should be included in future research.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relat ionship between the am ount and content of adolescent video gam e playing and at t itudes towards stereotyped gender im ages in the gam es. To date, m ost of the research on the effects of playing video gam es has focused m ainly on evaluat ing whether playing aggressive gam es leads to aggressive behavior in children and adolescents (Anderson and Dill 2000) . Only recent ly have researchers begun to explore other areas of social developm ent that m ay also be affected by exposure to the violence present in m any popular video gam es. For exam ple, Gent ile et al. (2004) found that playing violent video gam es was related to poor school perform ance and get t ing into argum ents with teachers, and Funk et al. (2004) discovered that frequent exposure to m edia violence, including aggressive video gam es, was related to lower em pathy to real- life violence and st ronger pro-violence at t itudes. Further, several reviewers pointed out that m any popular video gam es send incorrect m essages to the players about gender roles and appearance of m ales and fem ales in society (Dietz 1998; Dill et al. 2005; Dill and Thill 2007; Provenzo 2000) . Unt il now, however, vir tually no studies have exam ined the connect ion between frequency of engagem ent in video gam e playing and adolescents at t itudes towards gender-stereotypical im ages in the gam es.

The unique cont r ibut ion of the current study, then, pertained to dem onst rat ing a relat ionship between video-gam e playing and decreased concern about the effects of negat ive gender stereotypes in the gam es using a social cognit ive dom ain approach. Social cognit ive dom ain theory (Sm etana 2006; Turiel 1983; 1998; 2006) provided the fram ework for the assessm ents in this study, which included m easuring adolescents judgm ents about the harm ful consequences ( if any) of video-gam e playing ( the m oral dom ain) , the extent to which authority and the governm ent should regulate gam e playing ( the societal dom ain) , and the ways


that gam e playing is viewed as a personal decision ( the personal dom ain) . The findings indicated that adolescents m ade a num ber of social-cognit ive dist inct ions when evaluat ing video gam es, and age, gender, and frequency of play were significant and cont r ibut ing factors to the pat tern of findings.

Another im portant cont r ibut ion of this study was that the content of the gam esspecifically, stereotypic im ageswas a cent ral variable. Since not all gam es are violent nor do all gam es contain stereotypic im ages, it was im portant to separate the evaluat ions of video gam es with gender-neut ral im ages from the gam es with m ale- and fem ale-stereotyped characters. At the sam e t im e, although m any popular video gam es contain stereotypical m essages about gender roles in society, not all gam es do, so it is suggested that future studies use m ore specific indicators of exposure to gender-stereotyped m aterial in the gam es than sim ply play frequency. Another recom m ended direct ion for future research is to explore the relat ionship between adolescents at t itudes towards gender stereotypes and their video-gam e playing habits by using other m easures of adolescents at t itudes and/ or playing tendency in addit ion to self- report m easures, such as assessing change in their at t itudes following part icipat ion in video-gam e playing session. Finally, the m ethodology of the present study was lim ited in that only verbal descript ions of the content and purpose of video gam es were presented to part icipants. Thus, the readers are caut ioned that findings of the study m ay be reflect ive m ore of how adolescents respond to writ ten m arket ing literature and descr ipt ions of v ideo gam es. Future studies are necessary to confirm whether current findings are generalizable to how adolescents respond to the gam es when they play them .

I n this study we focused on gender stereotypes. Yet , given the addit ional prevalence of negat ive racial and ethnic stereotypes in m any popular video gam es, it is possible that excessive exposure to such gam es can lead to desensit izat ion to racial and ethnic stereotypes as well; racial and ethnic stereotypes em erge during childhood and adolescence and thus are m ost likely influenced by m edia port rayals (Killen 2007) . This im portant issue warrants further invest igat ion as it affects not only the developm ent of adolescent players and their parents, but society as a whole. Further research should evaluate the long- term effects of playing video gam es that frequent ly depict ethnic m inorit ies as well as other characters (e.g., police officers, teachers, older people, etc.) in an unflat ter ing m anner and/ or encourage violence towards these characters.

I n conclusion, our findings indicate that m ore frequent playing of video gam es is associated with greater acceptance and less cr it ical evaluat ion of gender stereotypes. This finding supports the growing body of literature suggest ing that exposure to the violent content of popular gam es can be det r im ental to adolescents social developm ent (Dill et al. 2005) . Unfortunately, despite researchers at tem pts to br ing at tent ion to the negat ive consequences of children and adolescents playing video gam es that are overly aggressive and st im ulat ing, m any parents and legislators rem ain uneducated about the potent ially harm ful consequences of unsupervised video gam e play (Anderson and Bushm an 2001) . Our goal is that the current study will help to draw societys at tent ion to the need to be educated about the content of the gam es that children and adolescents are


playing, and to engage in discussions with youth about what type of content is reflected in the gam es they are playing, how they evaluate it , and who should decide which gam es adolescents play.

Alexandra Henning (B.A., Psychology, Flor ida At lant ic University, 2001) is current ly a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland. She received the Graduate Student Research Award from the departm ent of Hum an Developm ent , University of Maryland, and a Best Scholar ly and Creat ive Research Award in the Social and Behavioral Sciences category at the Graduate Research I nteract ion Day, University of Maryland, for the study Adolescents and Young Adults Evaluat ions of Stereotyped I m ages in Video Gam es.

Alaina Brenick (B.A., Psychology, University of Maryland, Balt im ore County, 2002) is current ly a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland. She received the Graduate Student Research Award from the departm ent of Hum an Developm ent , University of Maryland, and a Best Scholar ly and Creat ive Research Award in the Social and Behavioral Sciences category at the Graduate Research I nteract ion Day, University of Maryland, for the study Adolescents and Young Adults Evaluat ions of Stereotyped I m ages in Video Gam es.

Melanie Killen, Ph.D. (1985, Developm ental Psychology, University of California, Berkeley) , is Professor of Hum an Developm ent at the University of Maryland, and the Associate Director of the Center for Children, Relat ionships, and Culture. She has received funding from the Nat ional I nst itute of Child Health and Hum an Developm ent (NI CHD) and the Nat ional Science Foundat ion (NSF) for her research on childrens and adolescents m oral developm ent , social reasoning about exclusion, intergroup bias, prejudice, and social cognit ion. She was a consultant on a U.S. governm ent - funded peer conflict resolut ion video gam e. Dr. Killen was awarded the Dist inguished Scholar-Teacher Award by the Provost from the University of Maryland for 2008-2009.

Alexander OConnor (B.A., Psychology, 2004, University of Maryland) is current ly a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley. He received a Nat ional Science Foundat ion Graduate Research Fellowship to study the influences on im plicit and explicit racial at t itudes across developm ent .

Michael Collins (B.S., Psychology, 2004, University of Maryland) is current ly working as a Recruit ing Coordinator for Bank of Am erica.

Acknow ledgem ents We thank Yoonjung Park and Robin Schwengels for their assistance with data collect ion. This work was supported, in part , by grants from the Nat ional Science Foundat ion (BCS9729739) and the Nat ional I nst itute of Child Health and Human Development (1R01HD04121) , awarded to the third author, and by Graduate Student Research Awards awarded to Alexandra Henning and Alaina Brenick by Departm ent of Hum an Developm ent at the University of Maryland.


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Henning's research about stereotyping in Video Game