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Gender and Appearance Stereotypes Travel to World of Warcraft

posted by CoolHand on Saturday May 09 2015, @01:58AM   Printer-friendly
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.

 
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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @04:16AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @04:16AM (#180634)

    Marry young girls
    Kill feminists.

    Deuteronomy 22 28-29, hebrew, is good.

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @08:07AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @08:07AM (#180674)

    I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but this has been coming up repeatedly and deserves a proper rebuttal, at least once:

    Marry young girls
    Kill feminists.

    Deuteronomy 22 28-29, hebrew, is good.

    Deuteronomy 22:28-29 [umich.edu] [RSV]:

    [28] "If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found,
    [29] then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her; he may not put her away all his days.

    Cf: Exodus 22:16-17 [umich.edu] [RSV]:

    [16] "If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies with her, he shall give the marriage present for her, and make her his wife.
    [17] If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equivalent to the marriage present for virgins.

    If you are caught raping a virgin, it will cost you 50 shekels of silver... and the father may refuse your marrying her. If the father does permit the marriage, you are forbidden from ever divorcing her.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @08:17AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @08:17AM (#180681)

      It's an angry little troll, he (balance of probability) won't be back to read your response. Sadly. I wish he'd fuck off.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @10:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @10:23AM (#180706)

      Exodus is not Deuteronomy.

      Seduction (pathah) is not rape.
      The _Hebrew_ word used is different.
      (taphas)

      (If you wish to argue about taphas, here's a refutation of your arguments:
      http://pastebin.com/mzFJyxea) [pastebin.com]

      You didn't refute anything.

      If the man rapes the girl child (read the hebrew) he pays the father and keeps her.

      So go and Fuck yourself American Protestant Christian.

      Marry little girls.
      Kill feminists.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 09 2015, @03:36PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 09 2015, @03:36PM (#180774) Journal

      So - with inflation over 5 millenia, what is 50 shekels worth today? Rupert Murdoch might be impoverished if he had to pay the fee . . .