"The present study attempts to fill this void by examining the short-term cognitive effects of playing a popular video game containing sexually explicit and female “objectification” content among male players. This laboratory based study addresses this critical gender-related social issue by testing theory that proposes psychological processes that are considered universal and employs a specific research methodology that is less affected by social and cultural factors that may influence study outcomes." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"At a basic level sexual content may simply be used for aesthetic purposes. At a more complex level sexual content may also be part of the main mechanics of a video game allowing players to directly control the sex act with virtual characters. Sex can also function as a form of reward. For example, in the popular Leisure Suit Larry video game series, players overcome various obstacles, such as winning poker games, solving puzzles, and answering trivia questions, in order to have sex with various female characters." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"Sex in video games may also vary in terms of its degree. Sexual content may range from pure abstraction to extremely explicit depictions. For example, sex acts are merely suggested or assumed in many social simulation games such as The Sims. Teen-oriented games may contain some degree of partial nudity. In games that target adults the amount of sexual content may be significantly more and explicit.
Generally speaking, video games produced in the 21st century are both more interactive and have much better graphics than their predecessors from the 80 s and 90 s. Instead of performing a series of repetitive moves in prearranged and crudely depicted scenarios, game players can freely interact with intelligent and realistically animated computer avatars. Similarly, the sexual content in these newer video games also became more realistic and complex.
Third, video game sex can be understood in terms of its general purpose. Most obviously, sex depictions are inherently interesting and sex for sex’s sake serves the purpose of entertainment. These games also often enable players to explore their sexual fantasies through virtual characters or computer-mediated live partners. Sexual-oriented games may also serve the purpose of sex education. For example, The Sex Ed Game, allows parents and teens to play a trivia game together in order to stimulate serious discussions about sexuality in a fun environment. Game developers also use sexual content to convey realism in role-playing or simulation games. In such cases, sexual content would enhance the overall experience of the video game. Recent development in immersive systems and networking technologies even allow users to create their own adult content and simulate sex acts with other human-controlled avatars in realistically rendered virtual environments such as Second Life." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"Most video games, whether specifically sexually-oriented or not, often feature hyper-sexualized female characters (Dietz 1998; Dill and Thill 2007; Ray 2004). Female heroines in action-based video games often wear sexy outfits barely covering their bodies." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"Most female characters in video games are also stereotyped and objectified. Burgess et al. (2007) analyzed 250 console video game covers and found that females were more likely to be portrayed as ancillary characters, and that over two thirds of the female video game characters (as opposed to only about ten percent of male characters) were represented in stereotyped gender roles (e.g., damsel-in-distress and cheerleaders) or the subject of physical objectification. Similar findings were obtained from two recent content analyses of video game magazines (Dill and Thill 2007; Miller and Summers 2007). Dill and Thill (2007) found that female characters in video games were significantly more likely to be portrayed as sexualized, scantily clad, and as showing a mix of sex and aggression than male characters. An important research question naturally following from these content analyses, which guides the present research, is: “What are the effects of playing video games containing such sexually objectified depictions of females?” As a foundation for this research question, we first turn to past literature on the influence of mediated sexual content from traditional media sources." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"Researchers have also examined the influence of sexual media content on men’s attitude towards women. For example, studies have shown that exposure to violent sexual content in which woman appears to be responsible for her own victimization or appears to be sexually aroused can result in changes in men’s cognitive appraisal and acceptance of sexual violence (Donnerstein et al. 1987). There also exists a body of empirical evidence to indicate that when men are exposed to sexually explicit material in which women are portrayed as sex objects who are receptive to any sexual advances, they would develop negative attitudes towards women (Gunter 2002; Linz and Malamuth 1993)." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"Past research on gender portrayals in the media also suggests that gender stereotypical representations of both males and females would influence gender related attitude and perceptions (Scharrer 2005; Ward 2002). Operating from a cultivation effects perspective, which argues that long term and repeated exposure to television can alter viewers’ conceptions about social reality (Gerbner et al. 1980), researchers found an apparent correlation between the amount of television viewing and gender-role stereotyping among children and adolescents (Gunter 2002)." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"Unlike empirical research on sex in traditional media there are only a handful of empirical studies examining the effects of sexual content in video games. In one of the only studies of the effects of sex in videogames (Brenick et al. 2007), 41 male and 46 female were exposed to gender stereotypes and to violence in video games, the results suggest that male who were avid players were more likely to condone negative stereotypes in games that sexually exploited females. In another study (Dill and Thill 2007), participants displayed strong gender stereotyping when asked to describe what the typical male and female character looked like; the single most often stated characteristic for females was “big boobs”." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"Unlike viewers of television programs who simply watch other characters performing sexually-related behaviors, players of video games actually step into the role of the characters by virtually practicing these acts (i.e., strong identification). In addition, sexually oriented video games often directly offer rewards for sex (e.g., giving points for having sex with female characters) or use sex as a reward (e.g., showing sexual imageries after completing a designated task).
Based on the theoretical argument and research findings outlined above, it can be predicted that for males (a person variable) exposure to a video game that depicts females as sex objects (a situation variable) will be more susceptible to inappropriate sexual advances towards women." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"In this study we predicted that playing a sexually explicit video game with female “objectification” content would increase the accessibility of sex-related thoughts and a “female as sex object” schema. Eight types of words and nonwords in a lexical decision task were used to test these predictions. We expected that players of Leisure Suit Larry, the sexually explicit game, would have faster reaction time when recognizing sexual words and sexually objectifying descriptions of women than other types of words and nonwords of equal lengths, as compared to players of the two control games. A bivariate correlation analysis suggest that participants’ harmonic mean reaction times to the eight different word groups were significantly correlated (Pearson Correlation ranges from .464 to .801), A three-factor one-way multivariable analysis of variance (MANOVA), with the three game conditions as the independent variable and average harmonic mean reaction times to the eight word groups as dependent variables, was performed to test our hypotheses. This test revealed a significant multivariate effect for game condition (Wilk’s Lambda=.428, F(16, 128)=4.23, p<.000). To further examine the hypotheses, the between-subject effects were examined. Table 1 displays the results of these comparisons." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"Our second hypothesis predicted that players of sexually-explicit video game in so far as it portrayed women as sex objects would be primed with thought about women as sex objects. A test of between-subject effects show that male players of Leisure Suit Larry responded significantly faster (F(2. 74)=8.852, p<.001, η2=.200) to sexually-objectifying descriptions of women (Mreaction time=571.42 ms,SD=70.99) than male players of the Sims II (Mreaction time=655.56 ms, SD=70.46) and PacMan II(Mreaction time=651.39 ms, SD=92.12). No significant difference was found for non-objectifying descriptions of female and the corresponding non-word controls. This finding lends support to Hypothesis Two." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"Hypothesis Three predicted that individuals who played a sexually-charged video game with female characters as sex objects would display an increased self-reported tendency to sexually harass. A simple one-way ANOVA of participants’ LSH scores revealed a significant effect F(2. 74)=5.97, p<.01, η2=.126. Specifically, players of Leisure Suit Larry reported a significantly greater tendency to sexually harass (M=105.37, SD=20.25) than did players of the Sims (M=22.50, p<.01) and PacMan II (M=14.30, p<.05). Hypothesis Three is, therefore, supported." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"The results revealed that, as predicted, playing sexually-oriented video games significantly decreased male participants’ reaction time responding to sexual words and sexually objectifying words pertaining to women, as compared to neutral words and non-words and those participants in control conditions (Fig. 1). This is clear evidence that playing a sexually-oriented video game primes sex-related thoughts and increases accessibility to a negative gender schema of females as sex objects. This finding provides empirical support for the cognitive neoassociationistic perspective (Anderson and Bower 1973) and social information processing theory (Huesmann 1998) within the general framework of the general learning theory (Anderson and Bushman 2002)." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"More importantly, the present study found that playing a sexually-charged video game for merely 25 minutes might increase a self-reported tendency to engage in inappropriate sexual advances. This finding is particularly strong considering the potential for participants to wish to give socially-desirable responses." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"It should be noted that this study is not without its limitations. First, the present study focused primarily on immediate cognitive effects of playing sexually-oriented games. Future research should examine long-term effects. In addition, a typical video game may take hundreds of hours of playing time to complete. The effects of repeated experience on players’ cognition, emotion, attitude, and behavior should also be addressed.
Although the sexually-oriented video game chosen in the present research was a popular game title purchased by millions of game player, the use of a single game as treatment may have limited the generalizability of our findings. We cannot be sure if our findings can be extended to all sexually oriented video games. As discussed in the introduction, sexual content in video games may vary in degrees, representation, purpose, and function. Other factors such as humor and violence may also moderate the effects of sexual content. Furthermore, most existing media effects theories tend to focus on the influence of specific types of content (e.g., violence, sex, health, etc.); an implicit assumption in these theories is that the viewers will be exposed to the same content. However, the increasingly interactive video gaming experience would allow different players to see different content even when playing the same game. To what extent can these theories be applied to the video game effects research? Many interesting and important research questions are be addressed in future research. Nevertheless, our predictions about the effects of playing video games in which female characters were quite literally treated as sex objects were based on previous research findings and strong theoretical reasoning. We are confident that the results from this study would be applicable to games with similar content." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
"Even after recognizing these limitations, it is nevertheless clear from the findings reported here that there is now strong evidence for negative effects as a result of playing sexually-oriented video games. The present research is perhaps the first empirical study to systematically examining the effects of these types of video games, and the effects seem to be clear. Overall, the study provides strong empirical evidence that a sexually oriented video game with themes of female “objectification” may prime thoughts related to sex, encourage men to view women as sex objects, and increase the likelihood of self-reported tendencies to behave inappropriately toward women in social situations." (Linz, D., Mahood, C., Yao, M.Z., 2010)
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