Study: Unskilled Players More Likely to Negatively Comment in the Presence of Female Players
Jul. 22, 2015Study: Unskilled Players More Likely to Negatively Comment in the Presence of Female Players
Update: Liana Kintelligently speaks on aggrieved entitlement theory and how it’s relevant to this study here.
According to the study, the researchers played 163 games in popular first-person shooter Halo 3; 82 games were played with a female player (the experiment) and 81 were with a male player (the control). To quote the study, “There was a significant positive correlation between the number of positive statements and deaths with focal individuals that died more often stating more positive comments. There was also a significant interaction between experimental manipulation and the maximum skill level achieved by focal players on the number of positive statements. In the female-voiced manipulation, lower-skilled players were less positive, while higher skilled players were more positive.”
…bad players were more likely to badmouth the female player than skilled players.
While the experiment doesn’t involve a particularly large sample size, it does potentially offer some insight into male player behavior towards female players. The researchers point to a sound theory stating low-performing male players have more to lose (in terms of social status) when matched against well-performing female players.
The scientists do provide an alternate theory, stating players may be responding more aggressively towards individuals with a higher pitched voice, as dominance is predictable by voice pitch.
Read the full study here:Insights into Sexism: Male Status and Performance Moderates Female-Directed Hostile and Amicable Behaviour
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jayholden
Love my family. And good games. I own the @BloodborneGame twitter account.
yeah. how many times have you gotten hatemail after a win as opposed to a loss?
I know I can count on one hand the amount of times I received hatemail after losing a PvP match in a souls game. i’ve lost count of the number i’ve gotten after wins.
That’s not really how stastics work. You, as a person, are not more or less likely to do/be anything according to any stastics. We, as a population, are.
Crappy players are just looking to shift attention away from the fact that they suck by demonising something else, which is easily observable in most every game I’ve played. There’s a lot of it in DKS as well.
While we are at it, does this has anything to do due to the “fact” that, it seems like, there are more female players on the gaming world as opposed to the past decades? (I’m sure this has been discussed before, but I can’t remember)
Based on my personal experiences, I feel like, nowadays, it’s easier to find a girl playing any online game. I’ve played MMOs since 10, and online shooters since the PS3 came out.
Perhaps other people has different experiences, but one thing that could add to this study is that, since the gaming world is changing, most male players are trying to adapt to this new Era that include more female players, and some reacts differently than others. Like, most young male tends to react in a pretty immature way, that makes sense because of their age but still, there are a lot of young people playing online games
This should bring the feeling of gender competition, that we see not only in gaming but in school as well, most people, when they’re kids, compete with the opposite gender, instead of cooperating, which is more common when they’re adults, right?
The common mentality of “Male kids are better soccer players”, or this sort of thing
This is a very interesting subject, if not one that is somewhat taboo (wrongfully so, but still is). I find myself wondering if I would be more likely to insult females more skilled than I in competitive games if I was a shettier player. Since I’m generally in the good category in most competitive shooters (1.5-2 KD average ish), I often have the opposite response when playing with or against a female that’s better than me. I’m sort of in awe.
I will say, in total honesty, that I do try harder when playing with a female of about the same skill. It does bring out a more competitive streak in me. I’m not sure why that is exactly. Naeeli is at or about the same skill as me in Destiny in PvP (and much better than I in PvE), Fex was more skilled than me at LOTRO, and I find It motivates me to be even better. I’m not sure if I’m phrasing everything completely right, but from a brief moment of introspection, I can see how this might be true. I’m not sure that this sort of knee-jerk reaction I have is a good thing, but it’s there nonetheless.
I’m doing my best to be a more advanced male and I think this article actually made me realize a thing or two about myself (as a male and a gamer).
Cas
