Thursday, 19 November 2009
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Do Video Games Feed Off a Male Need to Dominate?
According to this article from almost a year ago, guys generally take more pleasure in video games than girls because it appeals to their primal urges for conquest and victory. It may be slightly dated, but I still think the research is quite relevant.
The study comprised of scientists hooking up men and women to an MRI scanner while they played a video game, which involved scrambling for territory by clicking on a series of balls on-screen. The data showed sparks flying in the mesocorticolimbic centres of the participants, the part of the brain often correlated with feelings of reward and addiction. But the male samples showed much, much greater activation as they gained ground, as opposed to the much less spectacular reading in females.
Being a guy, I agree that my drive to perform better in a game is fueled by the sense of "reward and addiction" mentioned in the article. But I think the research should have tried to step it up and also observe the brains of competent female gamers; that would put to end any arguments as to whether it's a "guy" thing or simply an "aggression" thing.What do you think, does this study prove that guys really do enjoy games because of their base drives? Or is it just something that's "more common" in guys? Or do you think the research was maybe flawed?
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- From: Altair_Specineff@xanga
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Comments (8)
actually yes it does. i also think that developers feed off of the male insecurities in all of us by making games with over masculine bad asses in order to make top sale.
@pixelspecter@xanga - better than selling sex. because then its almost like an insult. I prefer violence anyday.
@Gerald_Washington@xanga - true. i'm ashamed but i bought dragon age origins because of the sex scene.
It certainly appeals to men, but i don't think it has anything to do with games appealing to men's need to dominate. The same need exists within women. I've worked in the prison system. One of the things we learned in our training is that it takes at least a couple months to reduce a man to being another man's punk. Women are more vicious. They often do it in a few weeks. I could extrapolate from this that they are actually more likely to dominate, but that's not a sound conclusion. It's just a sound conclusion that women get things out of dominating just like men.
The fundamental assumption of the test, then, is wrong. It assumes that the need to dominate is a masculine thing. This is not necessarily true. The study should have focused not just on female gamers, but also had test cases that recorded brain waves in areas where both sexes commonly demonstrate the need to compete. Without such a test case, this test is rather blah.
I don't think it's very accurate. I'm not a man, and I enjoy videogames just as much as my guy friends, and so do most of my chick friends. I think it's more your personality than masculinity alone.
I think the test is probably flawed. It is generally more socially acceptable for guys to play video games and nearly every guy plays them, while women tend to shy away from them for social reasons. That is changing little by little with the wii however. I think as such the guys were more likely to get involved with the games since they had spent their lives getting involved in games much the same way. I think it was simply a matter of immersion in which one group was "trained" in advance for it.
I read the question to my gf and she said "No because this need is infinite and u always constantly come up with new ways to fullfill it".
Need to dominate...pfff just stop analizing me i just like to kill ppl and it is forbidden irl.
PS : just bought Assassin creed 2 and it rocks
Males are typically more technology-oriented, especially in these sorts of activities. It's because of social norms, etc. Most girls would naturally be less interested in playing any sort of computer or video game, because of said social norms. There are some girls (like the ones who frequent HardestLevel) who do enjoy games, and I think they would probably have results much more similar to those of the guys in the study than the girls in the study. We also don't have a breakdown of the specific groups of people used in this study.
Many basic flaws in the research.I also believe that everyone has the need to dominate in some fashion, and each person displays and develops it in a different way.