Citation

Gabbiadini A, Bushman BJ, Riva P, Andrighetto L, Volpato C. J. Youth Adolesc. 2017; 46(12): 2460-2466.

Affiliation

University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10964-017-0731-3

PMID

28836184

Abstract

In this issue, (Ferguson, C. J., & Donnellan, B. D., Journal of Youth and and Adolescence, published online 21 June 2017) criticize one of our studies (Gabbiadini, A., Riva, P., Andrighetto, L., Volpato, C., & Bushman, B. J., PLoS ONE, 11: 1-14, 2016) that found violent sexist video games can reduce empathy for female violence victims in male players who identify with violent male game characters, and do so by increasing masculine beliefs. Their main criticism is a "straw person" argument built on a claim that we never made (i.e., a direct effect of sexist-violent video games on empathy). They also made several other criticisms of our article. We appreciate the opportunity to respond to their criticisms in this article. We also point out some flaws in their reanalysis. Despite their criticisms, the core contributions of our original article remain intact.

Language: en

Keywords

Child development; Empathy; Reanalysis; Sexism; Sexist video games; Violent video games