Seminar
There has been a great deal of interest among researchers to identify patterns that exist between violent video game play and aggression. For example, are there certain features of video games that may interact to predict individual’s aggressive outcomes? The race of the characters combined with violent actions in a video game may activate well-learned Black cultural stereotypes among White video game players. The current presentation examines the impact of racial representation on character identification and post video game play hostility. Data examining Black and White participants demonstrate that cueing racial attributes in a video game influences identification and elicits stereotyping and violent thoughts among game players. Specifically, White players displayed more violent thoughts when playing as a Black character than they did playing as a White character. Black participants had more violent thoughts when playing against a White opponent than they did playing against a Black opponent. These findings are quite revealing and consistent with the literature on Whites’ racial attitudes toward Blacks. That is, past adjective list studies and research using implicit racial attitudes among Whites provide support that Whites do hold Black cultural stereotypes that link Blacks to aggression and violence. The findings and implications are discussed in the context of distinctiveness theory, theories of accessibility, and cultural voyeurism (Appiah, 2004).