Brad Bushman, a communication professor at Ohio State University, is interested in studying aggression. The academic has been highly critical of the effects of violence in video games over the course of his career, comparing daily play of these products to indulging in cigarettes. His latest study isn’t going to make him any more popular among the community, either.
The title? “Effects of Avatar Race in Violent Video Games on Racial Attitudes and Aggression.” Take a glance at the below abstract to get a better idea of what we’re dealing with here.
“The media often link Black characters and violence. This is especially true in video games, in which Black male characters are virtually always violent,” it reads. “This research tested the effects of playing a violent game as a Black (vs. White) avatar on racial stereotypes and aggression.”
As Uproxx rightly points out, there aren’t that many black characters in gaming choose from for a study like this. Diversity is hard to come by in this medium and more often than not, different races appear in games when they’re made through a character creation system in something like The Elder Scrolls or Dark Souls. In these particular cases, the characters don’t even have voices or implanted personalities, so it’d be tough to call them more “aggressive” than any white character.
If you’re willing to fall even deeper into this rabbit hole, you can find his full argument here.
