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Gender and Appearance Stereotypes Travel to World of Warcraft

posted by CoolHand on Saturday May 09 2015, @01:58AM   
from the we-like-cartoon-chicks dept.

takyon writes:

Researchers at Penn State have measured responses to avatars rated on a scale of attractiveness:

In a study of how people interacted with avatars in an online game, women received less help from fellow players than men when they operated an unattractive avatar and when they used a male avatar, said T. Franklin Waddell, a doctoral candidate in mass communications, Penn State.

"It doesn't matter if you have an ugly avatar or not, if you're a man, you'll still receive about the same amount of help," said Waddell, who worked with James Ivory, associate professor of communication, Virginia Tech. "However, if you are a woman and operate an unattractive avatar, you will receive significantly less help."

The researchers used six different avatars to study reactions to help requests among 2,300 players of the online game, World of Warcraft. The avatars represented male and female creatures across three different levels of attractiveness. Prior to this study, participants had evaluated the levels of attractiveness as high, medium and low.

WoW racism at work: the highly attractive avatars were blood elves, the somewhat attractive avatars were night elves, and the unattractive avatars were orcs.

• How do other players know? How do other players know? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @03:44AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @03:44AM (#180624)

  women received less help from fellow players than men when they operated an unattractive avatar

  So how do other players know the gender of the person "operating" an avatar?

  "For example, if I approach a player, I might say, 'Can you help a guy out?' to signal that I was a male operating the avatar," said Waddell. "If I wanted to signal that I was a female operator, I would say, 'Can you help a girl out?'"

  Now they need to study how frequently men ask for help versus how often women ask for help. I'd imagine that there is a regression equation hidden in there that correlates frequency and annoyance.

• Re:How do other players know? Re:How do other players know? (Score: 4, Funny) by Tork on Saturday May 09 2015, @05:19AM

  by Tork (3914) on Saturday May 09 2015, @05:19AM (#180645)

  So how do other players know the gender of the person "operating" an avatar?

  Ask them to describe themselves. If they say "I have big tits", it's a guy.

  --
  🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈

  Parent

  • Re:How do other players know? Re:How do other players know? (Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Saturday May 09 2015, @10:56AM

    by CirclesInSand (2899) on Saturday May 09 2015, @10:56AM (#180711)

    Ask them to describe themselves. If they say "I have big tits", it's a guy.

    It could be a grandma.

    Parent

    • Re:How do other players know? Re:How do other players know? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @03:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @03:52PM (#180781)

      Or an Aviculturalist. [wikipedia.org]

      Parent

      • Re:How do other players know? (Score: 1) by KiloByte on Saturday May 09 2015, @06:57PM

        by KiloByte (375) on Saturday May 09 2015, @06:57PM (#180828)

        Or a kitteh.

        As the saying goes, "a tit a day keeps the vet away".

        --
        Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.

        Parent