Men having problems in their personal lives are more likely to harass women online, according to a new study conducted in UK. To be precise, sexist men are quite literally losers.
Michael Kasumovic and Jeffrey Kuznekoff, researchers at the University of New South Wales and Miami University, respectively, used video game as the medium to observe the men's behaviour towards their female counterparts.
One of the researchers played 163 games of Halo 3, using a female voice for 126 of those games.
While observing the players and tracking their comments during the game, researchers find out that men were more cordial when playing with male counterparts, irrespective of their skill level and their performance.
However, the players with good hand in the game were seen complimenting their male and female opponents.
While, on the other hand, players who were less skilled and low in performance as compared to their peers were observed to be making nasty comments on women quite frequently.
As per researcher Michael Kasumovic, “video games are a good representation of real life human behaviour for a few reasons”.
The findings, published in the journal PLOS One, appear to reflect a recent Pew report that says that 40% of internet users experience harassment, especially women.
The findings of the research were illustrated in a comic form by researcher Michael Kasumovic and artist Savanna Ganuchea. Here are some strips from the book:
