TY  - JOUR
A1  - Skowronski, Marika
A1  - Busching, Robert
A1  - Krahé, Barbara
T1  - The effects of sexualized video game characters and character personalization on women's self-objectification and body satisfaction
JF  - Journal of experimental social psychology
N2  - Female role models in video games are rare, and if they are present, they are often heavily sexualized. Objectification theory suggests that exposure to sexualized media characters increases self-objectification and decreases body satisfaction in female users. This study investigated the effect of playing a video game with a sexualized versus a nonsexualized character on women's experiences of self-objectification and body satisfaction. We further studied the effect of character personalization as a core feature of video games on the relation between sexualized avatars, self-objectification and body satisfaction. N = 262 female participants reported state self-objectification and body satisfaction after 30 min of playing the video game The Sims 4 with a sexualized or nonsexualized avatar that was either generic or personalized to look like the participant. We predicted that controlling for trait self-objectification, playing the game with a sexualized character would increase state self-objectification, especially in the personalized condition. Regarding the effect of character sexualization on body satisfaction, competing hypotheses based on priming vs. the Proteus effect were tested, considering character personalization and enjoyment of sexualization as moderators and controlling for trait body satisfaction. The current study did not find evidence for the proposed hypotheses. The findings are discussed in terms of the relevance of objectification theory in explaining effects of sexualized models in interactive media.
KW  - Video games
KW  - Sexualization
KW  - Self-objectification
KW  - Body satisfaction
KW  - Character personalization
KW  - Media effects
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104051
SN  - 0022-1031
SN  - 1096-0465
VL  - 92
IS  - 1
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - San Diego
ER  -