Sexualized Avatars Lead to Women’s Self-Objectification and Acceptance of Rape Myths

Abstract

Research has indicated that many video games and virtual worlds are populated by unrealistic, hypersexualized representations of women, but the effects of using these representations remain understudied. Objectification theory suggests that women’s exposure to sexualized media representations leads to self-objectification. Further, we anticipated this process would lead to increases in rape myth acceptance (RMA). Two experiments (Study 1, N = 87; Study 2, N = 81) examined the effects of avatar features on women’s experiences of self-objectification. In both studies, college women exposed to sexualized avatars experienced higher levels of self-objectification after the virtual experience than those exposed to nonsexualized avatars. Furthermore, in Study 2, self-objectification mediated the relationship between controlling a sexualized avatar and subsequent levels of RMA. We discuss the implications of women using sexualized avatars in video games and virtual environments, which may lead to negative attitudes about the self and other women off-line due to heightened self-objectification. Additional online materials for this article are available to PWQ subscribers on PWQ's website at http://pwq.sagepub.com/supplemental .