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Media Relations
Kansas State University
9 Anderson Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506
785-532-6415
media@k-state.edu

Information provided by K-State Media Relations, K-State's news service, may be reproduced without permission. The marks and names of Kansas State University are protected trademarks and may not be used in any commercial or private endeavor without the approval of the university.

Source: Richard Harris, 785-532-0610, rjharris@k-state.edu
http://www.k-state.edu/media/mediaguide/bios/harrisbio.html
News release prepared by: Megan Wilson, 785-532-6415, media@k-state.edu

Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2008

K-STATE PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR, FORMER GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH THE IMPACT OF BODY-EMPHASIZING VIDEO GAMES ON BODY IMAGE

MANHATTAN -- Too much violence may not be the only concern with some video games. Studies conducted at Kansas State University find body-emphasizing video games can negatively affect body image.

In studying violent video games, Christopher Barlett, a former K-State graduate student in psychology, and Richard Harris, K-State professor of psychology, began to notice that the characters in these games tended to have extreme body types -- either very muscular males or very thin females. This observation led to a question of how the body image of individuals playing the games might be affected by these extreme body types.

To answer that question, Harris and his research team conducted two studies.

The two study groups, made up of K-State students, were divided by gender. The men played the video game "WWF Wrestlemania 2000," while the women played a beach volleyball game. The participants were questioned about their body image before playing the game and then questioned again after playing the game for 15 minutes.

In only 15 minutes of playing, the game players viewed their own body images more negatively, Harris said.

"The results really weren't surprising; they were kind of what we were expecting and fulfilled one of our hypotheses," Harris said. "I'm not going to say that we were happy about that, to see such an effect. It was kind of sobering that it did have such a short-term effect."

Harris said the studies also follow a trend evolving in the media of an idealized image of men.

"There's been a lot of interest for a long time on the unrealistic supermodel image in advertising," he said. "What isn't as well known is that idealized masculine image is becoming so much more muscular and is just as unrealistic as the supermodel image.

"It is just as hard for the man to get his body into the shape of the WWF wrestler as it is for the woman to get her body to look like Barbie," Harris said. "There's some evidence of increasing numbers of body-image disorders in men, which used to be very rare until the last 10 years or so, and seems to becoming much more common."

For evidence of this phenomenon, Harris said to look no further than popular action figures, such as G.I. Joe, which have been bulked up in recent years, especially in comparison to their original models.

"There is no way for a man to get his body to look like those action figures without the heavy use of steroids," Harris said. "Everyone is aware of the female body-image problem, but what we are seeing now are males struggling with their own kind of body-image problems."

The study also has implications for future studies, Harris said, which could include how video games do or do not lead to objectified views of women, what are the long-term effects of video games on body image and how video games affect the body-image views of the opposite gender.

Harris said the most significant thing the study showed was how immediate an impact on body image video games had.

"Video games are a part of popular culture," he said. "I'm certainly not saying that everyone with major body-image issues has them because of video games. That may be a part of it, but there are other factors. There may be other issues of concern with video games besides the well-known concern about violence."

Barlett earned both a bachelor's, in 2004, and a master's, in 2007, in psychology from K-State. He is now working on his doctorate in psychology at Iowa State University.