The Impact of Body Emphasizing Video Games on Body Image ...

Sex Roles (2008) 59:586–601 599appropriate video game can be found for the same videogame system. Perhaps more recent wrestling video gamesallow for participants to play as either a muscular malewrestler or a thin yet muscular female wrestler. ExtremeHeat Beach Volleyball has both muscular males and thinfemale characters, but the procedure <strong>of</strong> study 1 did notallow for this game to be used. Finally, because females aremost impacted by thin female models and males are mostimpacted by muscular male models, developing questionnairesthat can be applied to both males and females may bedifficult. Even the <strong>Body</strong> Esteem Scale, when given to malesand females, has a different factor structure when analyzed(Franzoi and Shields 1984). Future research should usequestionnaires that can be used by males and females, suchas the BISS (Cash et al. 2002), in order to make gendercomparisons to see who is the most impacted. Futureresearch should also include measures to assess otherpertinent variables, such as depression and body imageanxiety, as these are all relevant variables that could beimpacted by body-emphasizing video game play.Another limitation is that the participants completedbaseline and post-game measures <strong>of</strong> the same variables.This is a limitation because <strong>of</strong> practice effects <strong>of</strong> havingcompleted the measures twice. Future research should try touse multiple games and have the participants completebody image measures post-game play only. However, inorder to complete this, researchers need to make sure thatthe different video games are equally as fun, exciting,difficult, and both have human characters, but differ in howthe characters bodies are presented. For instance, a controlgame for the volleyball game used in study 2 would consist<strong>of</strong> only female characters that are fully clothed engaging insome competitive behavior while providing no informationto the player about body type.Performance (i.e., success or failure in the game) mayhave impacted self-image (i.e., feeling like a failure if onedoes not do well in the game), but was never assessed. Thisis a limitation because performance may predict bodyimagechange during video game play. Future researchshould test this assumption, by recording how well theparticipant does in their respective video game anddetermine if performance impacts body image variables.One final limitation is that study 1 did not haveparticipants rate how well they thought that the characterresembled their own appearance, as that was the participant’stask. <strong>The</strong> current study had the researchers codehow closely the character resembled the participant;however, we were unable to determine if the researcher’scodings closely resembled the participant’s codings.Future work should check for such a relationship, becausehow well the participant’s feel as though they resembledthe character may have been a better indicator <strong>of</strong>immersion.Overall Conclusions<strong>The</strong>re are many possible avenues for future research basedon the results from these studies. <strong>The</strong> first would be to testhigh versus low video game players in order to determine ifthere would be differences in the levels <strong>of</strong> immersion andhow these two groups <strong>of</strong> gamers differ from one another inhow they feel and think about their body after idealizedvideo game play. Future research should measure performanceto see if the success or failure in the video game wouldmake men and women feel like more <strong>of</strong> less <strong>of</strong> a man orwoman after playing and competing in video games. Suchperformance could mediate the overall relationship betweenvideo game play and a negative body-image.<strong>The</strong> scope <strong>of</strong> the current research was to investigate theshort-term, immediate, impact that body-emphasizing videogames had on male and female players. Thus, long-termconclusions cannot be made from the results <strong>of</strong> this study.However, research has shown that playing video games isrelated to changes in children’s personality only a fewmonths later (Anderson et al. 2007). Also, the TripartiteInfluence Model posits that constant exposure to socioculturalfactors are related to feeling worse about one’s body,rather than one single exposure. Given the high frequency<strong>of</strong> video game play by children <strong>of</strong> both sexes, playing suchgames for long periods <strong>of</strong> time may be related to negativethoughts and feelings about one’s body, which may berelated to negative behavioral outcomes.Men and women are both negatively impacted from themass media. <strong>The</strong> present study found that male and femaleparticipants, after playing a body-emphasizing video game,increased their negative body-image. This study is one <strong>of</strong>the few to study men and the findings add to the literatureon body image concerns in men. Also, this study adds tothe literature by investigating how video games caninfluence body image concerns in men and women, whichhas not been extensively studied. <strong>Video</strong> game players andparents <strong>of</strong> children who play video games should attempt tomonitor what video games are being played so they do notget a negative body-image. Recall that negative body-imagesare related to behaviors that are maladaptive and generallydangerous, such as steroid use (see Ricciardelli and McCabe2004). <strong>Video</strong> game consumers should be careful in how theyperceive video games that emphasize the body.ReferencesAgliata, D., & Tantleff-Dunn, S. (2004). <strong>The</strong> impact <strong>of</strong> media onmales’ body image. Journal <strong>of</strong> Social and Clinical Psychology,23, 7–22.Anderson, C. A., Gentile, D. A., & Buckley, K. E. (2007). Violentvideo game effects on children and adolescents. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.