1-2 Method For further information, contact: Dr. - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Method

For further information, contact: Dr.

Wendy Wolfe,

wendy.wolfe@armstrong.edu

Thanks to student members of the Scott-Wolfe lab group for their assistance with this project.

Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Jacksonville, FL (3/4/2011).

Key References

Bartky, S. (1990). Femininity and domination: Studies in the phenomenology of oppression. New York: Routledge.Bartlett, C., & Harris, R. (2008). The impact of body emphasizing video games on body image concerns in men and women. Sex Roles, 59, 586-601.Moradi, B., & Huang, Y. (2008). Objectification theory and psychology of women: A decade of advances and future directions. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 32, 377-398.Reed, D., Thompson, K., Brannick, M., & Sacco, W. (1991). Development and validation of the Physical Appearance State and Trait Anxiety Scale (PASTAS), Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 5, 323-332.Saguy, T., Quinn, D., Dovidio, J., & Pratto, F. (2010). Interacting like a body: Objectification can lead women to narrow their presence in social interactions. Psychological Science, doi: 10.1144/0956797609357751

Introduction

With

the increased quality and accessibility of videogames, young people are spending more time gaming,

are

gaming through a broader array of interfaces, and are more involved in first-person games (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010). According to one of the largest nationally representative surveys of media use among young people, from 1999 to 2009, daily time spent gaming tripled among 8-18 year-olds, and in 2009 the average young person spent 1 hr, 13 min gaming per day (KFF, 2010). The same study found that over half of all 8-18 year-olds had played the

Grand Theft Auto

series, despite its M rating. Much of the research on the psychological impact of gaming among young people has focused on aggression in male players. However, young women are also increasingly exposed to videogame images, through their own game play, and that of their male peers. Indeed, the KFF study found that girls reported as much videogame play as boys. However, when female characters are portrayed in videogames, they are typically depicted as sex objects and/or as potential targets for aggression (Dietz, 1998). Sexual objectification occurs when an individual’s body is viewed as an instrument that exists for the pleasure of others (Bartky, 1990). Sexual objectification occurs through a variety of mediums including video games, television, films, music videos, magazines, and advertising, as well personal encounters with others involving inappropriate comments about or gazes towards one’s body. The effect of exposure to objectifying videogame images of women on female participants’ perception of their own bodies was a focus of this investigation. This research extends Barlett and Harris’ (2008) study, which found that female participants felt significantly worse about their own physical appearance after playing 15 minutes of Extreme Heat Beach Volleyball, a game depicting thin, large-breasted, scantily clad women. Our investigation tests whether this effect extends to merely viewing objectifying videogame images of women and also compares the differential effects of general objectification versus personal objectification on body image. This examination of the effects of objectification on body image is part of a larger study replicating and extending the procedures of Saguy, Quinn, Dovidio, and Pratto (2010), who found that female participants spent significantly less time talking during a personal introduction when they believed that a male participant was viewing them from the neck down via closed circuit television as opposed to either viewing their face or hearing their voice. We hypothesized that female participants exposed to general objectification of women (through observation of a male confederate playing a scene with a stripper in Grand Theft Auto) and personal objectification (via a videotaped introduction to a male “participant” in which they are filmed from the neck down) would experience the greatest increase in body dissatisfaction and physical appearance anxiety. We expected this effect to be greatest for female participants with relatively higher body dissatisfaction at baseline.

Participants Seven participants were excluded from data analyses because their responses to manipulation check items indicated they were aware that the confederate and video game exposure were part of the experimental manipulation, or that they were not aware that a videogame had been playing in the waiting room. Eighty-eight female participants (aged M = 26 yrs., SD = 8.8) completed both sessions of the study, although several participants failed to complete one of the body image assessments at either session one or session two. Sixty-two percent of participants were Caucasian. Participants were recruited through the research management system, SONA and received extra credit in a course of their choice in exchange for participation. They were randomly assigned to either the strip club scene videogame exposure (n = 48) or control videogame exposure (n = 40), and to either the video (n = 46) or audio (n = 42) introduction conditions.Materials & ProcedureSession One: Participants completed a series of measures administered through the web-based Survey Monkey program. Some of these are not relevant to this part of the larger investigation and will not be described here. Body dissatisfaction was assessed using the web-based Dynamic Body Rating Scale. The program uses QuickTime and instructs participants to stop a gradually increasing three-dimensional woman’s body in order to select the body sizes and shapes that best match the participants’ actual body and their ideal body. They are then prompted to enter numbers corresponding to their actual and ideal body selections. From this information, a body discrepancy score is calculated. Larger body discrepancy scores indicate greater body dissatisfaction. Physical appearance anxiety was assessed using the state version of the Physical Appearance State and Trait Anxiety Scale (PASTAS; Reed, Thompson, Brannick, & Sacco,1991). Participants rate their current anxiety about various parts of their body using a zero to four scale. Higher numbers indicate greater anxiety. The PASTAS consists of two subscales, a set of items corresponding to weight-based physical appearance anxiety (e.g., highs, thighs, stomach) and non-weight-based physical appearance anxiety (e.g., forehead, feet, ears). Given the emphasis on thin images of women in most videogames, we were primarily interested in change on the weight-based scale of the PASTAS. Session Two: Materials: Two small rooms were utilized during session two, an experimental room and a “waiting room”. Video game exposure was conducted using a 36-in TV, Sony Play Station 2 controller, and hidden DVD player. The DVD player contained a recording of either a sexually explicit (strip club) scene from the popular game, Grand Theft Auto 3: San Andreas, or a neutral scene containing normal game play from the same game. During the introduction task, a stop watch, video camera, wireless router, and 19-in TV were used. Procedure: Participants were greeted by a female researcher at the designated meeting place. The participant was informed that the experimental room was not quite ready and they were escorted to a waiting area where a male confederate was already waiting. Depending on the condition, the confederate was “playing” the videogame with the strip club scene or a neutral (control) segment from the same video game. After approximately six minutes, the researcher returned to retrieve the participant and took her to the experimental room. The participant completed a two-minute introduction task in which she believed a male student in another room was either watching her body from the neck down (video) or only hearing her voice (audio). For purposes of the larger investigation, participants’ talking time during the introduction task was later measured by a blind rater. Participants then completed a self-regulation task consisting of consuming as many 1 oz cups of an unpleasant tasting liquid as she could for a reward of $.05 per oz. Lastly, the participant completed the same measures as in session one, followed by a demographic questionnaire and manipulation checks.

Conclusion

Results

Mixed model ANOVA’s were used, with the body image measures at session one and session two as a repeated measure and videogame exposure and introduction task as between subjects variables. As is recommended when using a body size discrepancy measure of body dissatisfaction, BMI was used as a co-variate in analyses using this variable. Results failed to show an effect of videogame exposure (general objectification) or introduction task (personal objectification) on weight-based physical appearance anxiety on the PASTAS. Results also failed to show an effect of the independent variables on body size discrepancy. However, when only participants with relatively higher body dissatisfaction at baseline were included (selected through a median split procedure using session one body discrepancy scores), there was a marginally significant main effect of videogame exposure on body dissatisfaction. Surprisingly, the nature of this effect was that participants became less dissatisfied with their body shape and size after being exposed to the sexually objectifying strip club images of women in the waiting room videogame exposure and more dissatisfied after the waiting room control videogame experience, F (1, 16) = 3.932, p = .065.

In contrast with a body of literature that suggests that sexual objectification results in detrimental effects to women’s body image, such as increased body shame (Moradi & Huang, 2008), our results do not support this finding. Participants who believed their bodies were being viewed by a male participant did not experience an increase in weight-based physical appearance anxiety or a change in body dissatisfaction, as compared to those who provided an audio only introduction. Exposure to sexually objectifying images in a videogame did not lead to an increase in body anxiety, as compared to exposure to a control videogame. Only for women with relatively high pre-existing levels of body dissatisfaction was exposure to the objectifying images associated with a change in body dissatisfaction, and then only in the opposite direction from that expected. Participants confined in a room alone with a male confederate may have felt objectified even if a sexualized videogame was not in play, resulting in increased body dissatisfaction for our control videogame participants. Perhaps the videogame’s portrayal of a curvaceous stripper led participants exposed to the strip club videogame scene to feel better about their own bodies. Importantly, this study did not measure trait self-objectification or preference for objectification, two variables recently identified in the literature as important moderating variables in the effect of objectification experiences on self-esteem and body image. Our research lab is continuing to collect data using these procedures, with the addition of measures of these potential moderating variables.

The Effect of Objectifying Videogame Images on Women’s Body Image

Wendy Wolfe, Vann B. Scott Jr., Jenny Bader, Amanda Herring, Todd Allmond, William Worrell, Tyson Lemka, Wendy Lozo, Megan Brannen, and Jennifer Waters