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Influence of Black Masculinity Game Exemplars on Social Judgments
Karen E. Dill and Melinda C.R. Burgess
Simulation Gaming published online 26 July 2012
DOI: 10.1177/1046878112449958
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449958
958Dill and BurgessSimulation & Gaming
SAGXXX10.1177/1046878112449
Influence of Black
Masculinity Game Exemplars
on Social Judgments
Simulation & Gaming
XX(X) 1­–24
© 2012 SAGE Publications
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sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1046878112449958
http://sag.sagepub.com
Karen E. Dill1 and Melinda C.R. Burgess2
Abstract
In this investigation, the authors ask how media exemplars of Black masculinity influence
the views of and intentions toward other Black men. An experiment compared the
effects of exposure to Black video game characters fitting the exemplar thug or
street criminal (e.g., Carl Johnson from GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS)
versus exemplars of professional Black men (e.g., political leaders), on evaluations
of an unknown and unrelated Black or White political candidate and on pro-Black
attitudes. Results revealed significant interactions of exemplar type and candidate
race on favorability and capability candidate ratings and on pro-Black attitudes.
These data demonstrate the power of mass media exemplars of Black masculinity to
prime meaningfully different outcomes in viewers. As the face of gaming evolves with
advances in technology, so too should the characterization of race in games.
Keywords
attitudes, characterization of race, exemplars, media, political imagery, positive influence of imagery, priming, race, racial exemplars, stereotypes, video games, visions
of race
How do members of a majority group construct a view of Minority members? Before
the advent of mass media, we based our judgments primarily on direct experience and
on stories of indirect experience. Now our primary storytellers are the media, particularly when direct experience opportunities are lacking. Media stories construct visions
1
Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Weatherford, OK, USA
2
Corresponding Author:
Karen E. Dill, Department of Psychology, Fielding Graduate University, 2112 Santa Barbara Street, Santa
Barbara, CA, USA
Email: [email protected]
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of race. Vivid examples, whether fictional or not, fill our minds with possibilities of
what members of this group are like, and they bias our expectations, perceptions, and
intentions toward other group members (Dill & Burgess, 2012). In the present research,
we focus on media imagery of Black masculinity. We explore perceptions of and reactions toward two common media characterizations of Black men: those found in political and video game imagery.
Although video games are not always construed as storytellers, games do tell stories and characterize individuals, including stories about what it means to be a member
of a given racial group. Despite international economic woes, worldwide video game
sales have risen steadily in recent years. In fact, PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that
video games will continue to be the fastest growing sector of the global media market,
with sales projected to triple by 2014, earning a combined total of US$84 billion
worldwide (Edgecliffe-Johnson & Bradshaw, 2010). This means that the stories games
tell, including stories about race, are important and influential. With the historic
American presidency of Barack Obama, we were in a position to contrast reactions to
two very different media stories about Black men. Therefore, in this article, we concentrate on the potential for video games and political images to send social messages.
Specifically, when media show us limited exemplars of Black men, they populate our
psyches with a limited set of possibilities for what Black masculinity means, and this
has real-world ramifications.
From where do our visions of reality come? Busselle and Shrum (2003) measured
the relative cognitive availability of examples derived from either media or through
real personal experience. They found that people can think of more media examples of
events like murder and drug busts, whereas people can think of more personal examples of things like fistfights and highway accidents. Furthermore, people who watched
more media, especially relevant genres, were more likely to generate media examples
than examples from personal experiences. This study demonstrates that when we do
not have experience with a particular issue, the examples we know about that issue
come from the media. We believe this applies to people’s ideas about race.
Exemplars
An exemplar is a specific mental representation of a social group and can be based on
direct or indirect experience (Fiske, 2004). Whereas schemas are general and relatively static, exemplars are specific and dynamic. If schemas are things, exemplars are
a state, grounded in memory and therefore possessing the qualities of memories
(Smith, 1998). For example, when thinking of a Black man, one might recall a character from a game or movie as an example of what Black men are like. As with
memories in general, exemplars are created, stored, opened, and reconstructed in
relevant situations, and are subject to interpretation based on motive and context.
Because exemplars involve implicit memories, we are often unaware that these social
constructions and reconstructions play a role in our judgments and behavioral intentions toward group members, but they do (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007; Smith, 1998).
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That we employ mental representations and form judgments and behavioral intentions based on these representations is a foundational perspective in social psychology.
Although various exemplar models exist, the dual-process, exemplar-plus-abstraction
approach is the favored approach in social psychology (Smith, 1998). Whereas exemplars are concrete examples, prototypes are generalizations. For instance, consider the
construct mother. Exemplars of mothers include various concrete incarnations that
we can bring to mind, such as the working mother, the abusive mother, the stay-athome mom, or the hot mom. A prototype would be one’s concept of an average or
normative mother, including definitional characteristics (e.g., nurturing) and beliefs,
or attitudes, about the expected behaviors of this construct group (e.g., mothers should
be nurturing).
Our engagement with real and fictional media characters serves as experience and
can provide the basis for forming these mental representations. We learn social lessons
from media, be it fiction or nonfictional media (Dill, 2009; Dill & Burgess, 2012;
Green & Dill, in press). After creating a working exemplar, when we see another
member of the exemplar’s social group, we process and react to that individual based
on the related exemplar. This is precisely what happens with media priming of exemplars and what we demonstrate in the present research. Priming of media exemplars of
Black males, in the present case, initiates exemplar-based processing of other members of the group Black males. The group member is understood in light of the primed
exemplar.
Aversive Racism
According to the theory of aversive racism, our culture produces a group of people
who are low prejudiced in their conscious minds, but who have unconscious prejudiced inclinations (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2005). “These unconscious negative feelings
and beliefs develop as a consequence of normal, almost unavoidable and frequently
functional, cognitive, motivational, and social-cultural processes” (Gaertner &
Dovidio, 2005, p. 618). Many of these unavoidable, unconscious, sociocultural processes stem from social messages about race transmitted via mass media. The source
of some of this implicit aversive racism is exposure to negative media exemplars of
race. These media messages about members of a particular racial group have the
power to shape real-life attitudes and actions (D. Mastro, Behm-Morawitz, & Ortiz,
2007; D. Mastro, Lapinski, Kopacz, & Behm-Morawitz, 2009; D. E. Mastro, BehmMorawitz, & Kopacz, 2008).
Game Characters and Race
Media representations of race are often a primary source of social information about
race (Roberts & Foehr, 2004; Wilson, Gutierrez, & Chao, 2003), and research suggests that these representations influence behaviors, thoughts, and feelings of the
audience (Cuddy et al., 2007; Holtzman, 2000). Furthermore, the very nature of a
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mass media message suggests that the projected representations are shared, which has
been shown to influence behaviors, attitudes, and attitude accessibility, and to reinforce the attitude-behavior link (Clark & Kashima, 2003; Sechrist & Stangor, 2001).
D. Mastro and colleagues (2007) found that people use both their own perceptions
of Latinos as well as their exposure to images of Latinos in the media to form expectations about real Latinos. Essentially, this cognitive approach suggests that we build
our attitudes toward, and expectations about, Latinos from interactions with Latino
people both in real life and through media representations. If most of our experience
comes from the media, and its largely stereotyped portrayals, then we will be primed
and ready to believe that more stereotyped examples exist in real life. Basic social
cognitive principles suggest that we will remember the examples that are consistent
with our expectations (i.e., stereotypes) and be less likely to remember the counterstereotypical, thus making us more accepting of the very stereotyped portrayals that
started this chain. D. Mastro and colleagues relate this to cultivation theory and call it
a mental model. This process is also known as the availability heuristic. If I ask you
what the average Latino or African American is like, you may think of the easiest
examples that come to mind, and these may well be media examples, especially if your
experience with these groups is limited. Note that these averages are prototypes, as
discussed above.
Based on these studies, it is reasonable to ask what messages video games send
about race. Like film and television, video games use characters to tell stories about
people. Researchers have begun to examine the prevalence and consequences of exposure to stereotypical depictions of gender and race in games, as well as in other gaming
media, such as game advertisements, magazine articles, and game covers (BehmMorawitz, 2008, 2009; Scharrer, 2004).
In two content analyses of video game magazines and covers, Burgess, Dill,
Stermer, Burgess, and Brown (2011) found that Minority characters were infrequently
present relative to Whites. More importantly, the representations of Minorities relied
extensively on stock stereotypes: the Asian martial artist, the violent Black street criminal (or professional athlete), and the White military hero saving either the world as we
know it through epic battles, or in an exotic fantasy realm. In addition, in spite of being
underrepresented overall, Minority males were more likely to be portrayed as violent,
and more likely to be armed with extreme weapons defined by unusually large size
and/or firepower. Minority females were virtually absent. These findings are consistent with Higgins’s (2009) assertion that Minority males are “inescapably objectified
as hypermasculine variations of the gangsta or sports player tropes” (p. 3).
The Influence of a Variety of Black Media Exemplars
Past research suggests differential effects of priming positive and neutral Black
images. In one investigation (Bodenhausen, Schwarz, Bless, & Wanke, 1995; Study 1),
researchers primed Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan as positive images of Black
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Americans and primed Julia Roberts as a White, successful control stimulus. Results
indicated that priming these images of likable and high-status Black Americans
altered participants’ beliefs about discrimination; compared with those who saw the
control images, the participants who viewed the images of successful Black Americans
were more likely to agree that discrimination is still a problem.
In a second study, the researchers compared beliefs about discrimination following
exposure to either the positive images discussed above or to the more neutral, but still
well-known images of Black Americans, Spike Lee and Jesse Jackson. Results indicated that those exposed to Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan were more likely to
believe discrimination is still a problem compared with those exposed to Jesse Jackson
and Spike Lee, or to the White control condition. Interestingly, in a third study, when
participants were reminded of the atypicality of the highly successful images, the discrimination effect disappeared.
Other research has demonstrated that it is possible to prime specific stereotypes, or
exemplars, by using media images. Brown Givens and Monahan (2005) primed two
very different stereotypes of African American women: the mammy or the jezebel
exemplars. The jezebel prime was a scene in which actress Halle Berry portrayed
singer Dorothy Dandridge, and the mammy prime was a compilation of scenes featuring actress Juanita Moore from 1959’s Imitation of Life. Participants then watched a
3-minute video of a young woman (either African American or White) interviewing
for a position as a sales representative. Results indicated that participants associated
the African American interviewee more quickly with negative terms such as aggressive, compared with the White interviewee. Furthermore, the experimental manipulation showed an effect of image prime on speed of response to schema-consistent
words. The jezebel and mammy images primed the associated schemas for the African
American, but not the White female job applicant.
Johnson, Bushman, and Dovidio (2008; Study 2) primed the promiscuous Black
female stereotype using rap music with sexual content by Black female artists such as
Lil’ Kim. Compared with controls, those exposed to the promiscuous Black female
stereotype felt less empathy toward a Black—but not a White—pregnant college student and also attributed greater promiscuity to her than to her White counterpart.
In another experiment, Burgess et al. (2011) measured reactions after watching
recorded game play with Black or White male characters. Using a Payne-style weapons
identification task (Payne, 2001), researchers found that participants who had just
watched the action of a Black character classified weapons faster, and those who had just
watched a White character classified nonweapons faster than the relevant controls. It is
important to note that the type of game (violent vs. non-violent) did not influence this
interaction. Participants were faster to identify weapons after watching a Black character, regardless of whether that character was passive (as in The Sims) or aggressive (as in
Urban Reign). It is unlikely that it is simply the Blackness of the characters or their
actual behaviors that primed this faster identification of weapons, but rather that Black
characters themselves have become a symbol for violence. As Leonard (2006) said,
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The stereotypes of Asians as martial artists, foreign, and speaking poor English
are evident in a number of games (Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven, Dynasty Warriors,
Crouching Tiger), as are the violent and muscular Black athlete (Street Hoops,
NBA Live, Madden 2004), the Arab as terrorist (America’s Army, Centcom,
Desert Storm: Splinter Cell), and the Latino as criminals (GTA III, Vice City).
Such stereotypes do not merely reflect ignorance or the flattening of characters
through stock racial ideas, but dominant ideas of race, thereby contributing to
our commonsense ideas about race, acting as a compass for both daily and institutional relations. (p. 85)
Current Investigation
Using an experimental design, we contrasted two different, but popular, exemplars of
Black masculinity and predicted differential effects on college students’ perceptions
of an unrelated Black man. The Black male images were presented alongside White
male images so that the nature of the primes would be less obvious and, thus, less
likely to produce unnatural responses. In one condition, we primed the media exemplar of Black maleness common in the gaming world (Burgess et al., 2011), that of
the young, Black male gangsta, thug, or street criminal. Interspersed with the Black
masculine images were typical White male game characters, again derived from the
results of Burgess and colleagues (2011). In a second condition, we primed the media
exemplar projected by Barack Obama and other successful and respected Black, male
political figures (e.g., Martin Luther King, Jr.), that of the high-achieving and valued
Black leader. Again, images of White, male political leaders were interspersed with
these images for the reasons described above. These are, but two possible media
exemplars of Black maleness, but two that are widely known and therefore likely to
be widely influential.
Priming Carl “CJ” Johnson or Barack Obama
These contrasting media portrayals and subsequent ratings of an unrelated politician
were examined with specific theoretical justifications in mind. Images were specifically chosen to represent two extremes of stereotypic presentations: a positive and a
negative exemplar. Video game images of Black men have been consistently shown
to represent negative stereotypes (Burgess et al., 2011), and were rated as less competent and less warm in a pretest (described below), even as the contemporary and
historic figures are associated with leadership and intelligence. By using historic and
contemporary people who were rated in a pretest as significantly different on the
dimensions of interest, we can control for the factors of interest and also use realistic
images the participants are exposed to in everyday life.
While using positive Black video game characters—even avatars we created
ourselves—would have been a more textbook control group, we felt strongly that this
would not be the most realistic or best comparison group in any practical sense.
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Unfortunately, past research (Burgess et al., 2007, 2011) has revealed that we simply
do not have existing Black video game characters that could rival Barack Obama in his
ability to generate high enough ratings of warmth and competence to be able to contrast with the negativity of existing Black male video game characters. Generic Black
avatars also would not meet this standard. Therefore, we chose to use media figures
who were all members of our collective cultural representation of what it means to be
a Black male. We chose two sets on the opposite ends of the spectrum to study their
differential effects. With the level of technology we have for rendering characters
judged as highly realistic (Dill, Gentile, Richter, & Dill, 2005), the compelling nature
of games, and the general knowledge of video game characters from the most popular
games (Dill & Thill, 2007), we felt this was the design that made most practical and
psychological sense. For example, we used Carl “CJ” Johnson, who is a well-known
character from the GRAND THEFT AUTO series. As support for the notion that Carl
is seen as a character, see his biography on Wikipedia (http://gta.wikia.com/Carl_
Johnson), which includes a picture and information about his place of birth, childhood,
teen years, and gang life.
Leonard (2009) explained how ghetto-centric games like GRAND THEFT AUTO:
SAN ANDREAS (2005) depict non-Whites, especially Blacks and Latinos, as criminal street people who are a threat to civil order. The dialogue and narrative of the game
emphasize danger from the “other” and reify fears over immigration. Leonard wrote,
A defining characteristic of GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS is the
ability to commit home invasion robberies, on top of the usual murders, pimping, car theft, and other missions. Carl Johnson—the player-controlled character—
along with his crew can sneak into “innocent people’s” homes in search of
goods and cash to steal. At some points in the game, home invasions allow you
to sneak up on sleeping families, holding them at bay with a shotgun or another
weapon of your choice. During one game playing session, Carl breaks into a
house, only to find an unsuspecting White couple. As the White male resident
attempts to protect his blonde wife by challenging Carl to a fight, he states “you
probably can’t read,” linking civility and intelligence to both blackness and
criminality. As with the rest of the game, this standoff with Carl murdering
these two individuals further solidifies hegemonic visions of the ghetto as a war
zone inhabited by Black gangstas that not only prey on Black residents but also
on those White families living outside its virtual ghetto center. (p. 266)
This design is also consistent with Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, and colleagues’ stereotype
content model (SCM; Cuddy et al., 2007; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002). These
authors argue that stereotype content is generally categorized along the dimensions of
warmth and competence, allowing us to determine whether out-group members are
friends or foes. Our positive, political images map onto the high-competence/highwarmth category and we predicted that these images would facilitate higher ratings of
the unrelated politician. The game images represent the low-competence/low-warmth
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category in the SCM and we predicted that these images would facilitate lower ratings
of the unrelated politician. We specifically predicted that race of the politician would
interact with the exemplar prime condition: The negative images would be more detrimental to the Black political figure than the White political figure.
Finally, the specific competence and global favorability ratings we used for the politician were theoretically derived as well. According to Expectancy Violation Theory
(Jussim, Coleman, & Lerch, 1987), when people violate stereotypical expectations for
their group, we evaluate them more extremely and the valence of the evaluation is in the
direction of the expectancy violation. For example, Whites evaluate a high-status Black
man more positively than a White man of similar status because the Black man violates
stereotypical expectations. This is explained in part by the augmenting principle of
attribution in that the Black man is likely credited with overcoming social barriers to his
achievement, suggesting a dispositional attribution for his success.
Bettencourt, Dill, Greathouse, Charleton, and Mulholland (1997) found that when
Black male job candidates violated stereotypes by being extremely competent, White
participants made more extreme affective ratings of these candidates than they made
for extremely competent White candidates. Violated expectancies only affected global
favorability ratings of the target, which are affective, but did not affect specific trait
ratings. Because images of Obama are clearly a violation of expectations in that no
Black man had ever been elected President before, we predicted that the positive
images would result in a significant increase in the unrelated Black politician’s ratings. In addition, based on the predictions of Expectancy Violation Theory and on the
findings of Bettencourt and colleagues, we predicted that the global favorability ratings would be more influenced by the images than the trait/capability ratings.
We also measured attitudes toward Blacks (using the Pro-Black subscale of the
Racial Ambivalence Scale) as an outcome measure, predicting a main effect of exemplar type on pro-Black attitudes such that those exposed to the professional exemplars
would have higher pro-Black attitudes than those exposed to the thug exemplars.
Finally, because the negative images were video game characters, we included a measure of long-term exposure to violent video games for inclusion as a covariate in the
analyses. Those exposed to greater levels of video game violence have more chronic
exposure to images like those manipulated in our study.
In sum, the purpose of this investigation was to measure the priming effect of two
specific media exemplars of race on young adults’ judgments about an unrelated Black
or White (male) politician. We predicted that the negative exemplars would prime an
associated decrease in the ratings of the Black politician, but the positive exemplars
would prime an associated increase.
Pretest
Method
A pretest evaluated the judgments of young, White males about media exemplars of
Black and White men and women. The images were of two sorts: stereotypical exemplars
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from video games (violent males and objectified females) and professional images of
leaders. Participants watched a slide show of the images and rated them on the following characteristics derived from Bettencourt et al. (1997): competent, good, capable,
motivated, resourceful, likable, favorable, and warm. We included warmth and competence specifically based on their centrality in the behaviors from intergroup affect
and stereotypes (BIAS) map, which predicts attitudes and behaviors based on these
judgments (Cuddy et al., 2007). The other adjectives came from the aforementioned
Bettencourt et al.’s investigation involving favorability and trait ratings of race following positive and negative exemplar primes.
Results
We calculated average global favorability ratings for each of the following groups
of male images: Black video game characters, White video game characters, Black
leaders, and White leaders. These were submitted to a mixed factor 2 (race of
image, within subject) × 2 (exemplar type, between subjects) repeated-measure
ANOVA. We found a main effect for condition, F(1, 23) = 27.21, p < .01, where
leaders were rated as more favorable (M = 3.93, SD = 1.3) than game characters
(M = 2.88, SD = 1.5). We also found a main effect for race with White images rated
as more globally favorable than Black images, F(1, 23) = 11.751, p < .01; 3.68 (1.3)
versus 3.25 (1.2).
Most important was a significant a priori interaction between race and condition, F(1,
23) = 4.991, p < .05, such that whereas leaders were rated higher overall, the decrease for
Black game characters was more extreme than for White game characters (Black leaders
M = 3.85, Black games M = 2.49, White leaders M = 4.01, and White games M = 3.26).
This pretest provides context because it describes typical judgments of the exemplars of
the type manipulated in the following experiment. It provides a basis for understanding
people’s attitudes toward the types of characters studied in the experiment that follows. It
also shows reactions to the images without a prior experimental manipulation.
Experiment
Method
Participants. One hundred fifty-three college students (103 female, 50 male) participated in exchange for either extra credit or partial fulfillment of a course requirement
in either a general or developmental psychology class. Ninety participants were from
a medium-sized regional university in the Midwest. Sixty-three participants were from
a small, private liberal arts college in the Southeast. Because the sample size was
insufficient for meaningful analyses based on participants’ race, only data from the
White participants (n = 131) were used in the analyses reported. All students were
treated in accordance with the American Psychological Association’s (APA) guidelines for the ethical treatment of human subjects, including the giving of informed
consent.
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Figure 1. Popular video game character, Carl “CJ” Johnson from GRAND THEFT AUTO:
SAN ANDREAS (2005; Rockstar Games)
Note: CJ’s portrayal is consistent with past research on the commonality of Black men portrayed as
street criminals.
Materials
Exemplar primes. The primes were presented with a looping PowerPoint presentation set
to show each slide for 1 minute. Each slide was shown twice for a total exposure time of
8 minutes. The negative primes were presented using four color slides of screenshots taken
from the following video games: RESIDENT EVIL 4 (2007), HALF LIFE 2 (2004),
SAINTS ROW 2 (2008), and GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS (GTA: SA).
The screenshots were pictures of Black men (SAINTS ROW 2, Grand Theft Auto:
San Andreas [GTA: SA]) portrayed as aggressive and thuggish (see Figure 1 for an
example), and aggressive White men (RESIDENT EVIL 4, HALF LIFE 2; see Figure
2 for an example).
One of the thug exemplars was Carl Johnson, the Black male from GTA: SA, as
discussed previously. In discussing GTA: SA, DeVane and Squire (2008) noted that
the game was criticized because it depicted African American males as “hyperviolent
and criminal.” They describe playing the character of Carl “CJ” Johnson as follows:
Players are invited to try on the personae of an inner-city gang member, experiencing some of what it means to live in a stylized 1990s rap world. Critics
charged that this portrayal of African American and Latino communities as hubs for
violence and criminality both reifies discriminatory stereotypes and provides
young adolescents with negative role models. (DeVane & Squire, 2008, p. 266)
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Figure 2. Typical White male video game character (from BAND OF BROTHERS:
HIGHWAY TO HELL)
Figure 3. Famous Black male politician (Barack Obama)
The professional exemplars were photographs of Barack Obama (see Figure 3);
John Kennedy (see Figure 4); Martin Luther King, Jr.; Lyndon Johnson; and George
W. Bush. The pictures of King and Kennedy were black and white, and the pictures
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Figure 4. Famous White male politician (John F. Kennedy)
of Obama and Bush were in color. Like the video game characters, each slide showed
multiple people interacting. This mix of people interacting with each other and the
mix of people of different races were designed to show a constellation of Black men
and White men with high status, thus suggesting Black men can have the respect
afforded to high-status White men. Furthermore, we wanted to avoid showing only
Black men because we felt it would be too easy for participants to guess that the study
focused on race.
Because our manipulations related to social hierarchies, we took care to present
each game character and political figure in juxtaposition with relevant others. For
instance, both the images from HALF LIFE 2 (2004) and SAINTS ROW 2 (2008)
included a woman to depict the status quo social hierarchy. Furthermore, Burgess and
colleagues (2011) found that though most male video game characters are portrayed as
aggressive, the Black game characters are more likely to be portrayed as thugs and
criminals, even as the White game characters are more likely to be portrayed in
respectable ways, for instance as soldiers or in fantasy scenes. Therefore, the selected
characters were intentionally used for their consistency with these characteristics
reported by Burgess and colleagues.
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Mock political website. A professional librarian created a mock website for this
investigation which featured a fictitious political candidate named Peter Smith. The
only thing that differed between the websites was the candidate’s race (either Black or
White).
Webpage evaluation. The webpage evaluation was modeled after Bettencourt et al.
(1997). The global affective ratings used 6-point Likert-type scales anchored by the
following word pairs: likable/unlikable, favorable/unfavorable, and good/bad. Target
qualifications were assessed with 6-point Likert-type scales anchored by the following
word pairs: capable/incapable, motivated/unmotivated, and resourceful/unresourceful.
A final question assessed likelihood of voting for the candidate based on this webpage.
Directionality of valence varied across the items.
Questionnaires. We administered the Racial Ambivalence Scale (Pro-Black subscale; Katz & Hass, 1988), the VGVE (Violent Video Game Exposure; Anderson &
Dill, 2000), and a memory test. The Pro-Black subscale is a 10-item (Katz & Hass,
1988) instrument used as a measure of racist attitudes. Items are reverse scored as
necessary so that higher scores indicate less racist attitudes. Sample items include
statements such as “Black people do not have the same employment opportunities
White people do,” and “Most Blacks are no longer discriminated against.”
The VGVE (Anderson & Dill, 2000) is designed to measure violent video game
exposure. Participants are asked to list their three favorite video games, rate the violence in the game on a scale of 1 (little or no violent content) to 7 (extremely violent
content), and indicate how frequently they play the game on a scale of 1 (rarely) to 7
(often). The VGVE score was computed by multiplying a participant’s favorite game’s
violent content by how often he or she reported playing it.
Separate, 10-item, multiple-choice memory tests were created for each priming
slide show to assess the degree to which participants followed the instructions to pay
close attention to the presentations. Questions were straightforward and addressed
objects, gestures, and behaviors represented in the slides. For example, 1 item asked
what was on the table in front of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Design and Procedure
This investigation used a 2 (thug exemplar vs. professional exemplar) × 2 (Black vs.
White political candidate) between-subjects factorial design.
Students completed an informed consent form telling them the study was investigating memory for game imagery, and that the highest scorers would be eligible for a
drawing for a US$25 Target gift card. Following either the positive or negative exemplar slide presentation, we asked them to participate in an unrelated study of an out-oftown media psychology colleague while we waited for the images to be stored in their
long-term memory. To maintain this cover story of an unrelated study, they completed
a second consent form before viewing the webpage and evaluating the candidate.
Following this, they then completed the VGVE (Anderson & Dill, 2000), the ProBlack subscale (Katz & Hass, 1988), the memory questionnaire relevant to their
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condition, and finally a basic demographic form. They then read a written debriefing
statement explaining the main hypotheses and the rationale for the study; this included
an invitation to contact the researchers should they have questions, and they signed it
to indicate their understanding. They were thanked and dismissed. Gift cards were
awarded to one randomly selected student from the highest scorers at each
university.
Results
Demographics
University had no significant effect on any of the dependent measures, nor did it
interact with any of the other variables in any significant way (all Fs < 1), and as such
all other analyses reported do not factor out school. The same was true for sex of
subject (all ps > .1).
Memory Test Scores
Scores on the memory test were generally high. We used these scores as a check that
participants were engaged with the images. Six participants had memory scores of
50% or below, and 125 had scores above chance. The six lowest scoring participants
were removed from the data set prior to analysis to avoid testing participants who
were not paying sufficient attention to the task.
Outcome Measures
Following Bettencourt et al. (1997), we created a global favorability composite using
the likable, good, and favorable ratings, and a trait/capability composite using the
capable, motivated, and resourceful ratings (same scoring system). We also calculated
a composite score reflecting an overall rating of the candidate by summing the sevenitem webpage evaluation, reverse scoring as necessary, so that higher scores indicated
more positive feelings about the candidate. We performed a principal-components
factor analysis on the seven-item webpage candidate evaluation. Results indicated a
one-factor solution with all seven items loading on the same factor. Cronbach’s alpha
for this overall composite was .919. Mean response on these seven items was used as
an overall candidate evaluation score, which was used as the outcome measure in the
broad analyses reported next. Finally, composite scores for the Pro-Black subscale of
the Racial Ambivalence Scale were calculated.
Broad Model
A 2 (thug exemplar vs. professional exemplar) × 2 (Black vs. White candidate)
ANCOVA was conducted with overall candidate evaluation as the dependent variable
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and prior VGVE as a covariate. This model was significant, F(3, 121) = 2.755, p < .05,
η2 = .084; however, the video game exposure covariate was not a significant factor in
the model (p > .05), so we dropped the video game covariate from further analyses.
The predicted effect of exemplar type by race interaction on overall candidate evaluation was significant, F(1, 121) = 9.764, p < .01, η2 = .075. Recall that means could
range from 1 to 6, with items reverse scored as necessary to make higher scores indicate more positive evaluations. As predicted, the Black candidate was rated more
poorly (M = 4.67) than the White candidate (M = 5.34) following exposure to the
negative exemplars of Black masculinity. In a reverse pattern, the White candidate
was rated more poorly (M = 4.91) than the Black candidate (M = 5.36) following
exposure to the professional exemplars.
Main Hypothesis Tests
Global Favorability, Trait/Capability, and Likability
Results indicated that the overall model was significant, F(3, 122) = 3.362, p < .05,
η2 = .077. As predicted, the image by candidate race interaction was also significant,
F(1, 122) = 9.716, p < .01, η2 = .074. As predicted, the Black candidate (M = 4.68)
was rated more highly on global favorability than the White candidate (M = 4.30) after
viewing the professional Black male exemplars. In a reversal, the White candidate
(M = 4.68) was rated more highly on global favorability than the Black candidate
(M = 4.11) after viewing the thug exemplars. This interaction is shown in Figure 5.
We ran the same model with trait/capability as the dependent measure. The predicted image by candidate race interaction was also significant, F(1, 121) = 6.6, p < .05,
η2 = .052. This interaction is also depicted in Figure 5, which compares the results on
the global favorability and trait/capability outcomes. Contrary to predictions, the trait/
capability results were not weaker than the global favorability results. However, the
shape of the interactions differed in interesting ways. As Figure 5 shows, of all 8 ratings, the highest was for the rating of trait/capability for the Black candidate, following exposure to the professional exemplars of Black masculinity. Interestingly, the
lowest rating was for the trait/capability of the Black candidate following exposure to
the thug exemplars. So the trait ratings showed the greatest extremes, and these
extremes were for the Black candidate.
Candidate likability, a specific affective measure, showed a significant interaction
like those reported above, F(1, 122) = 11.132, p < .001, η2 = .084. The pattern of means
for the likability rating showed the largest spread between those who had seen the video
game prime and rated the Black and White candidates (difference = −.706, p < .01).
Likelihood of Voting
We asked participants to speculate about how likely they would be to personally vote
for the candidate. Results indicated a significant exemplar by candidate race interaction,
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Figure 5. Comparison of the global favorability (top) and trait/capability (bottom)
interactions
F(1, 121) = 4.733, p < .05, η2 = .038, such that participants who saw the thug images
were less likely to vote for the Black candidate, or more likely to vote for the White
candidate (depending on their condition), even as participants who saw the professional images were less likely to vote for the Black candidate, or more likely to vote
for the White candidate (see Table 1 for all means and standard deviations).
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Table 1. Mean Candidate Ratings As a Function of Exemplar Type and Candidate Race
Game exemplar
Political exemplar
Black candidate
White candidate
Black candidate
White candidate
4.12 (0.93)
3.96 (1.2)
4.08 (1.23)
3.88 (1.17)
4.48 (1.12)
4.16 (1.14)
3.32 (1.46)
4.11 (1.0)
4.83 (0.72)
4.57 (0.90)
4.70 (0.97)
4.43 (0.95)
4.78 (0.90)
4.78 (0.67)
3.96 (1.64)
4.68 (0.65)
4.66 (0.94)
4.45 (0.92)
4.63 (0.94)
4.46 (0.77)
4.97 (0.94)
4.84 (0.93)
4.14 (1.03)
4.67 (0.72)
4.23 (1.03)
4.18 (0.98)
4.4 (1.08)
4.1 (1.00)
4.45 (1.08)
4.43 (1.15)
3.73 (1.22)
4.30 (0.87)
Likability**
Favorability*
Goodness*
Capability*
Motivation*
Resourcefulness**
Likelihood to vote*
Overall average**
*Interaction p < .05. **Interaction p < .01.
Pro-Black Attitudes
We used the same model described above, with pro-Black attitudes as the dependent
measure. Results showed a significant overall model, F(3, 119) = 2.356, p = .07,
η2 = .057. This time we also found a main effect of candidate race, F(1, 119) = 4.429,
p < .05, η2 = .036, with those exposed to the website of a White candidate showing
stronger pro-Black attitudes than those exposed to the website of a Black candidate.
A significant interaction also occurred between candidate race and exemplar type,
F(1, 121) = 3.809, p = .05, η2 = .031. This time the nature of the interaction was different. The means for pro-Black attitudes were virtually identical in the Black (M = 18.81)
and White (M = 18.93) candidate groups after the professional exemplar prime.
However, pro-Black attitudes were significantly lower in the Black (M = 17.88) than
the White (M = 21.04) candidate group following exposure to the thug exemplars. In
other words, if participants saw professional images of Blacks and Whites, they
reported similar levels of pro-Black attitudes. However, the thug exemplars were
polarizing. Those who saw the website of the Black candidate had low pro-Black
attitudes compared with relatively high pro-Black ratings for those who saw the website of the White candidate. This interaction is shown in Figure 6.
Discussion
This experiment demonstrates that priming media exemplars of Black masculinity
influences how young people view unrelated members of the racial group portrayed
in the images. The stereotypicality of the exemplar led to similar evaluations of an
unrelated individual. This same pattern of results was found for participants’ assessments of their behavior: more positive exemplars led to a reported greater willingness
to vote for an unrelated member of the same race, whereas less positive exemplars led
to a lesser willingness to vote for an unrelated member of the same race.
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Figure 6. Effect of prime type and candidate race on Pro-Black Attitudes subscale of the RAS
Note: RAS = Racial Ambivalence Scale.
The results of the current investigation strongly suggest that media exemplars of
race make a difference in subsequent judgments and behavioral intentions (Smith,
1998). Specifically, priming the Black, male “thug” exemplar commonly found in
video games (Burgess et al., 2011) undermined views of an unrelated Black professional man. On the other hand, priming professional exemplars of Black males affected
judgments of another Black man for the better.
We situate these findings in a dual-process, exemplar-plus-abstraction model of
mental representations (Smith, 1998). This model suggests two ways we understand
members of social groups: through prototypes, which are norms or averages, and
through exemplars, which are concrete and specific examples of group members.
These exemplars can be the embodiment of stereotypes, as with our images of video
game characters that evoke the notion of the Black, male street criminal or “thug.”
Alternatively, they can evoke another image, such as the more progressive Black, male
political leader. When these exemplars are stereotypical, they may fuel aversive racism by providing fodder for unconscious negative feelings about the stereotyped
group.
We chose a more positive and a more negative exemplar in order to provide contrast in the context of an experiment. That does not necessarily mean that the answer
to media stereotyping of Black males is limited only to the insertion of more positive
Black, male characters. In fact, West (1990) cautioned against the “simplistic binary
oppositions of positive/negative, good/bad images that privileged the first term in light
of a White norm so that Black efforts remained inscribed within the very logic that
dehumanized them” (p. 6) and Dines (1994) made a similar argument, citing the false
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dichotomy of “the good Black family” versus the “bad Black family.” Rather than
offering only the good/bad dichotomy of characterizations, if the media provided a
rich array of possibilities for Black characters, this could elaborate and humanize our
collective vision of Blackness. It could break down stereotypes and replace them with
multiple possibilities, especially including authentic exemplars generated from the
Black community. With video games, as with other forms of media, we suggest offering viewers a varied cast of characters, so they realize that the members of a racial
group are varied—that they do not all fit into one or two models.
Strengths and Limitations
Using games and game characters as research stimuli. The research reported in this
article uses game characters as primes. We did this by capturing digital images of
video game characters and asking participants to rate them (pretest) or asking participants to try to remember the characters (Study 1) for a test of memory. This methodology has been used successfully by the first author in past published work (Dill,
Brown, & Collins, 2008). Asking participants to remember images helps focus their
attention. Memory test results confirm that they can remember the details of the
images well.
Images of characters often show costumes, poses, and action shots that evoke the
story of the game. Factors such as character sexualization, objectification, gender role
stereotyping, and factors related to aggression such as weaponry and poses have been
the subjects of recent research interest. Whereas any given moment in game play may
not show a clear image of the game character, these shots tend to be distilled images
that evoke the game and story. Unlike movies or television shows that are linear,
games—especially “sandbox” games—are nonlinear. Different participants may have
different experiences. The rewards and punishments associated with game play will
vary from participant to participant. Showing game imagery is one way, methodologically speaking, to make all game content constant for groups of participants.
Reality of characters. One limitation of the current investigation revolves around the
notion that political figures are real people, whereas video game characters are computer renderings, albeit increasingly realistic ones. Dill and colleagues (2008), whose
design we used as a model, addressed this issue. In our research, we have noted the
scarcity of truly positive images of video game characters generally, and Black,
male video game characters specifically (Burgess et al., 2011). Furthermore, the very
rare positive Black male video game image, or even a plain avatar, would not represent
what members of our society typically see. Far more common are the types of images
we used in the present study. Our overarching goal was to expose participants to the
types of exemplars that are commonly present in their culture as representations of
Black men. Barack Obama was a common sight in the media during the time our data
were collected, as were discussions of the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Our video
game characters are, thus, representative of what young people actually see in their
media. We chose to be ecologically valid and to present images that reflected our
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participants’ real experiences. Still, it is fair to say this is an alternative explanation for
our findings. It is important to ask the question, “What would that mean?” What it
could mean is that when we see real Black people in the media, we want to vote for a
Black candidate more than a White candidate; however, when we see Black game
characters in the media, we want to vote for a White man more than a Black man. That
would be an interesting finding.
At the heart of our argument is the notion that we engage with media characters,
forming meaningful relationships, even with fictional characters. For instance,
Greenwood (2007) found that women identified with and wanted to be like popular
female fictional action heroes such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that this pararelationship was associated with the women’s own levels of aggression. Similarly,
Huesmann, Moise-Titus, Podolski, and Eron (2003) found that identification with
aggressive fictional characters predicted subsequent aggressive behavior. We are
influenced by fictional narratives and characters; we learn information and change our
attitudes, behaviors, and behavioral intentions based on our mediated social interactions (Dill & Burgess, 2012; Green, 2004; Green, Garst, Brock, & Shrum, 2004;
Green, Tesser, Wood, & Stapel, 2005).
Identification with characters. One limitation of the current investigation is the use of
still images rather than game play. Both types of stimuli are appropriate and relevant.
Images tend to tell stories and are often screenshots from a game, or are similar to
game covers in that they put main characters in context. Identification with characters
(Klimmt, Hefner, & Vorderer, 2009; Klimmt, Hefner, Vorderer, Roth, & Blake, 2010),
however, may operate differently for priming via still images as opposed to moving
images.
Participant race. Another limitation is the use of only White participants in the analyses. This is a persistent problem in race research when unequal group sizes and low
numbers of Minority members preclude between-groups inferential analyses. Future
research should focus on how a variety of exemplars of Black men affect the attitudes,
feelings, and behaviors of Black subjects.
To date, the conversation around racial representations in video games has been
one of negativity. In recent years, the game industry has made a number of positive
changes, including an emphasis on movement and music games, organizations dedicated to games for change and games for health. Simulation & Gaming editor David
Crookall (2005) wrote in an editorial: “Perhaps someone can invent videogames in
which one of the explicit aims is to help people learn the values of nonviolence, peace,
and tolerance of difference” (p. 437). A movement toward respectful representation of
non-Whites in video games would, according to this research, be consequential and fit
what Crookall envisioned.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
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Dill and Burgess
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
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Bios
Karen E. Dill is a faculty member in the Media Psychology doctoral program at Fielding
Graduate University. She earned her PhD in social psychology from University of Missouri,
Columbia. Her research investigates how various media forms can be used to promote education about social issues. In addition, she is interested in how various media forms can be used
to promote prosocial behaviors.Contact: [email protected].
Melinda C. R. Burgess teaches psychology at Southwestern Oklahoma State University. She
earned her PhD in experimental psychology from Florida State University. Her research interests center on how media portrayals of women and minorities influence our attitudes about and
treatment of women and minorities.Contact: [email protected].
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