作者：Wai Yen Tang

正是今天，我注意到了Johannes Breuer（来自科隆大学）关于电子游戏的使用和性别歧视态度间的纵向关系的论文出现在《Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking》杂志上。该论文的合著者还包括Rachel Kowert，Ruth Festl和Thorsten Quandt。

摘要

从《生或死》或《忍者外传》等打斗游戏中的过于性感的角色到《超级马里奥》系列等大受欢迎游戏中让女子遭遇各种不幸，电子游戏中对于女性的歪曲已经成为了许多内容分析的常见主题。培养论告诉我，长期接触媒体内容中可能会以某种方式影响我们对社会现实的看法，即当我们更加熟悉媒体上的表达方式时，我们的信念和态度便会发生变化。之前关于电子游戏及其发展的研究通常都是具有试验性，而关于这一领域的有限的纵向研究通常都只能维持1个月的时间。此外，之前关于这一领域的研究主要专注于暴力内容的影响并依赖于一些自选或便利样本（由青少年或大学生所组成）。所以我们正在创造一个长达3年的纵向设计，即通过使用来自14岁以上的德国玩家的代表样本作为数据去评估电子游戏的使用以及性别歧视态度之间的关系。我们发现性别其实态度与每天使用电子游戏或偏好特定游戏类型的女性玩家和男性玩家的数量没有关系。我们将讨论研究对于电子游戏中的性别歧视以及电子游戏的培养效果的启示。

作者关于他们的纵向研究的理论角度是基于培养论。该理论假设长期接触媒体内容会影响我们对于世界的认知。例如长期看到黑人犯罪的新闻会让我们逐渐认为黑人就是坏人。大多数培养论研究都是专注于电视的影响，但也有少数培养论研究是关于电子游戏，并且这些研究所得到的结果并不足以支持理论，相反地这只是关于寻找部分支持或消极影响的研究。

方法

参与者：824名作为Social Foundations of Online Gaming project（SOFOGA）所进行的全国性电话调查的对象的德国人。最初在2011年的调查对象是4500人，2012年是2199人，而在2013年则只有902人。这些数字的变化是源于纵向研究的消耗性。

对策

该研究是全国性的电话调查的一部分，它同时也意味着调查对象将回答所有类型的问题。有些问题是关于其它研究，如Rachel Kowert和同事的敏感度与友谊的研究。我们必须清楚所有的这些问题都是通过电话进行提问，所以我们可以想象每个调查对象听取并回答问题所消耗的时间。

社会人口统计：年龄，性别，在德国教育系统中所获得的最高教育水平。

电子游戏的使用：游戏的频率：每天，一周几次，一个月几次或更少。每天/每周/每个月平均玩几个小时游戏。他们同时也会通过给出不同点数（5个点）去表达自己对于每种电子游戏类型的喜欢，包括第一人称射击游戏，行动游戏，角色扮演游戏等等。

性别歧视态度：基于5个点数回答3个问题。第一个问题是：“男人应该负责家庭中所有重要决定，”“在一群包含男性与女性的小组中，男性应该起领导作用，”“即使男女双方都有工作，女性也应该负责照料家庭。”这是非常明确的性别歧视表现，一点都不含糊。

结果

他们通过使用交叉滞后的方程模型分析了数据。他们并未详细到统计细节，因为这些内容将被用于完整的论文中。以下是关于他们的发现的图示。

master(from gamasutra)

上面的数字代表女性调查者的标准系数，而下面的数字则代表男性调查者的标准系数。该模型将年龄和教育作为控制变量，但是为了保持图标的简洁而未将其呈现出来。

所以这一图示意味着什么？随着时间的发展，性别歧视态度和电子游戏的使用并未发生明显的变化。调查对象在2011年的性别歧视态度与在2013年是相似的（女性是60%而男性是74%），他们的电子游戏使用水平也是如此（女性是64%而男性是57%）。不管是在2011年还是在2013年，性别歧视态度与电子游戏的使用都是不相干的。

2011年的变量对于2013年的变量是否具有影响？2011年的电子游戏使用是否对2013年的性别歧视态度产生影响？2011年男性调查对象关于电子游戏的使用对于2013年出现较低的性别歧视态度的影响力并不大。

讨论

从中我们可以得到的信息是，过去3年里德国用户关于电子游戏的使用而引起的性别歧视态度并不会导致性别歧视态度的任何明显变化。

该研究与之前关于性别歧视内容与性别歧视结果的实验研究相矛盾。这些实验使用了带有与性别歧视相关的特定结果的性别歧视电子游戏，但是其调查并未询问任何关于性别歧视电子游戏的特定问题。实验评估的是短期的效果而调查则是关于长期效果。不管怎样，这里所进行的研究是通过培养论去评估来自电子游戏的性别歧视态度的养成。

作者讨论了各种元素，包括个人体验，同辈，家人等比电子游戏内容更能影响性别歧视态度。说到同辈，这可以延伸到电子游戏社交网络中的同辈。此外，培养论并不能解释电子游戏影响，因为电子游戏的互动性让所有游戏体验对于每个玩家来说都是特别的。作者会在他们未能从电子游戏中找到支持性别歧视态度的培养效果以及未能找到对于这些效果的否定内容时告知你。他们会提议检查特定类型或个体系列游戏（如《生或死》）以及性别歧视的特定方面，而不是在电话调查里询问3个问题。

我们必须清楚这项研究是带有局限性的。因为是在德国进行研究，所以从普及性来看它并未涉及其它国家。所以如果能够让一些美国人也加入研究中就更好了。其次，调查对象中包括14岁的青少年，所以其中便包含了与成长相关的问题以及一些更敏感的问题。对于我而言，这一研究就像在3个不同时间段从摩天大楼上方朝大街上拍照一样。你将得到许多美丽的视角，但是你却不清楚是否应该专注于一个特定的内容。这也意味着我们需要一台能够锁定有关性别歧视态度方面的高分辨率照相机。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Longitudinal relation between videogames use and sexist attitudes among German video game players

by Wai Yen Tang

Just today, I’ve been alerted from Johannes Breuer (University of Cologne) that his paper on the longitudinal relationship between videogame use and sexist attitudes has just been published online at Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. Along with the mention of twitter exploding like crazy, so I dropped everything and reviewed it. The paper is co-authored by Rachel Kowert, Ruth Festl and Thorsten Quandt.

Abstract

From the oversexualized characters in fighting games, such as Dead or Alive or Ninja Gaiden, to the overuse of the damsel in distress trope in popular titles, such as the Super Mario series, the under- and misrepresentation of females in video games has been well documented in several content analyses. Cultivation theory suggests that long-term exposure to media content can affect perceptions of social realities in a way that they become more similar to the representations in the media and, in turn, impact one’s beliefs and attitudes. Previous studies on video games and cultivation have often been cross-sectional or experimental, and the limited longitudinal work in this area has only considered time intervals of up to 1 month. Additionally, previous work in this area has focused on the effects of violent content and relied on self-selected or convenience samples composed mostly of adolescents or college students. Enlisting a 3 year longitudinal design, the present study assessed the relationship between video game use and sexist attitudes, using data from a representative sample of German players aged 14 and older (N=824). Controlling for age and education, it was found that sexist attitudes—measured with a brief scale assessing beliefs about gender roles in society—were not related to the amount of daily video game use or preference for specific genres for both female and male players. Implications for research on sexism in video games and cultivation effects of video games in general are discussed.

The good news is that the paper is published in Cyberpsych and thus is quite short for my review.

The authors’ theoretical angle for their longitudinal study is cultivation theory (see Wikipedia). The theory posits that long-term exposure to media content can affect our perception of the world. For example, a long history of seeing Black criminals shown on the news generate and slowly crystallize the perception that Blacks are mostly criminals. Most of cultivation theory research focused on television effects, but there are few cultivation research on videogames and from those studies they reveal not much support for the theory, that is some studies found partial support or weak effects.

Method

Participants: 824 German respondents who were part of a large nationally representative telephone survey ran by the Social Foundations of Online Gaming project (SOFOGA). The respondents were first surveyed in 2011 with 4500 respondents, 2012 with 2199 respondents and finally on 2013 with 902 respondents. These numbers differ due to attrition effects typically for a longitudinal study (see Wikipedia). The relevant data for this study was used for Time 1 (2011) and Time 3 (2013).

Measures

The study was part of a large nationally representative telephone survey, it also means the respondents were answering all sorts of questions. Some of the questions were related to other studies, such as Rachel Kowert and colleagues’ emotional sensitivity and friendship study (see blog post). Remember all questions were asked through the telephone, imagine how long each respondent had to listen and answer questions.

Sociodemographics: age, sex, and highest education within the German education system.

Videogame use: How often they play: every day, several times a week, several times a month or less often. How many hours per day, week or month they play on average. They also indicated how much they like each videogame genre on a 5-point scale, such as First-person shooters, action games, role-playing games, etc.

Sexist attitudes: 3 items answered on a 5-point scale. The items are: “The man should be responsible for all major decisions made in a family”, “In a group of male and female members, a man should take on the leadership”, “Even if both partners work, the woman should be responsible for taking care of the household”. Very clear sexist statements, little room for ambiguity.

Results

They analyzed the data by a cross-lagged structural equation model. Not going into the statistical details as those are interested would probably have access to the full paper. Here is the graphical representation of their findings.

The upper number represents the standardized coefficients for female respondents and the lower number represents the standardized coefficient for male respondents. The model accounted age and education as control variables and is not shown to keep the graph simple and clean.

So what does the graph mean? Sexist attitudes and videogame use is stable across time. A respondent’s sexist attitude in 2011 is relatively similar in 2013 (.60 for female and .74 for male), so is their level of videogame use (.64 for female and .57 for male). Sexist attitudes and videogame use are not correlated with each other in 2011 nor in 2013.

What are the effects of variables in 2011 to variables in 2013? That is does videogame use in 2011 affect sexist attitudes in 2013? Just a negligible effect for male respondents (-0.08) in that videogames use in 2011 is negligibly associated to lower sexist attitudes in 2013.

Discussion

The take home message is that the cultivation effects of sexist attitudes from a general use of videogames over a three year period from a German population has not resulted in any appreciable changes in sexist attitudes.

The study conflicts with previous experimental studies on sexist content and sexist outcomes. These experiments used very obvious sexist videogames with specific outcomes related to sexism (Dill et al., 2008, blog post), the survey did not ask any specific examples of sexist videogames, just videogames in general nor did the survey assess for the full spectrum of sexist attitudes. The experiments assessed for short-term effects whereas the survey assessed for long-term effects. Nevertheless, the study assessed for the cultivation of sexist attitudes from videogames as posited by cultivation theory.

The authors argued that factors, such as personal experience, peers and family would have a stronger effect on sexist attitude than video game content. Speaking of peers, IMO this can extend to peers in your videogame social network. Furthermore, cultivation theory cannot properly account for videogame effects because of videogames’ interactive nature that makes each play experience unique for each player. The authors remind you that while they failed to find support of cultivation effect of sexist beliefs from videogame exposure, they have not found a repudiation of these effects. They proposed instead to examine certain genres or individuals series (Dead or Alive for example) and specific aspects of sexism, instead of the three general items used in their telephone survey, something along the lines of gender roles, sexual harassment, etc.

The study has limitations to bear in mind. The study was funded for use in Germany, so limited generalizability to other countries. So, it would be great to see Americans ask for the same, and you’ve got researchers eager to do it like me. Second, respondents included adolescents as young as 14, so there are issues related to growing up and being more impressionable and other developmental issues. IMO, this study is analogous of taking photographs from a tall skyscraper down into the streets at three different time periods. You get a beautiful view of a lot of things, but not very clear if you try to focus on a single thing. This means we need a high resolution camera focusing on the most relevant aspects for sexist attitudes.(source:gamasutra)