Social Evaluations of Stereotypic Images in Video Games: Unfair, Legitimate, or "Just Entertainment"?

What fosters concern for inequality among American adolescents?

Understanding cultural beliefs about social and economic inequality is vital to discerning the roadblocks and pathways to addressing that inequality. The foundation of concern for inequality is laid during adolescence, yet scholars understand little about the factors that influence whether and how adolescents come to express such concern. Arguing that structural and cultural contexts are just as consequential as whether adolescents themselves are members of disadvantaged groups, I draw on four theoretical perspectives to identify factors that influence adolescents' concern for addressing inequality: the underdog thesis, intergroup contact theory, the education enlightens thesis, and ideological buttressing. Using representative restricted-use Educational Longitudinal Survey data, I find that 12th-graders' beliefs are indeed influenced by more than their own demography: the diversity of their social milieu, the content of education in and out of the classroom, and ideological buttressing via political region and entertainment all influence whether they express concern for addressing inequality. These findings suggest extensions and amendments to the four theoretical perspectives and underscore the importance of studying structural and cultural factors that shape beliefs about inequality. The results also point to several interventions that may increase students' concern for inequality: involvement in civic-oriented extracurricular activities, more education in academic subjects that consider inequality, nurturing of cross-race friendships, and increased leisure reading.

Reducing prejudice and promoting positive intergroup attitudes among elementary-school children in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The current investigation tested the efficacy of the Extended Class Exchange Program (ECEP) in reducing prejudicial attitudes. Three hundred and twenty-two 3rd and 4th grade students from both Israeli-Jewish and Israeli-Palestinian schools in the ethnically mixed city of Jaffa were randomly assigned to either intervention or control classes. Members of the intervention classes engaged in ECEP's activities, whereas members of the control classes engaged in a social-emotional learning program. The program's outcomes were measured a week before, immediately after, and 15months following termination. Results showed that the ECEP decreased stereotyping and discriminatory tendencies toward the other group and increased positive feelings and readiness for social contact with the other group upon program termination. Additionally, the effects of the ECEP were generalized to an ethnic group (i.e., Ethiopians) with whom the ECEP's participants did not have any contact. Finally, the ECEP retained its significant effect 15months after the program's termination, despite the serious clashes between Israel and the Palestinians that occurred during that time. This empirical support for the ECEP'S utility in reducing prejudice makes it potentially applicable to other areas in the world, especially those that are characterized by ethnic tension and violent conflicts.

Sexual Priming, Gender Stereotyping, and Likelihood to Sexually Harass: Examining the Cognitive Effects of Playing a Sexually-Explicit Video Game

The present study examines the short-term cognitive effects of playing a sexually explicit video game with female “objectification” content on male players. Seventy-four male students from a university in California, U.S. participated in a laboratory experiment. They were randomly assigned to play either a sexually-explicit game or one of two control games. Participants’ cognitive accessibility to sexual and sexually objectifying thoughts was measured in a lexical decision task. A likelihood-to-sexually-harass scale was also administered. Results show that playing a video game with the theme of female “objectification” may prime thoughts related to sex, encourage men to view women as sex objects, and lead to self-reported tendencies to behave inappropriately towards women in social situations.

Do Stereotypic Images in Video Games Affect Attitudes and Behavior? Adolescents' Perspectives

This study examined adolescents' attitudes about video games along with their self-reported play frequency. Ninth and eleventh grade students (N = 361), approximately evenly divided by grade and gender, were surveyed about whether video games have stereotypic images, involve harmful consequences or affect one's attitudes, whether game playing should be regulated by parents or the government, and whether game playing is a personal choice. Adolescents who played video games frequently showed decreased concern about the effects that games with negatively stereotyped images may have on the players' attitudes compared to adolescents who played games infrequently or not at all. With age, adolescents were more likely to view images as negative, but were also less likely to recognize stereotypic images of females as harmful and more likely to judge video-game playing as a personal choice. The paper discusses other findings in relation to research on adolescents' social cognitive judgments.