Browsing by Subject "sex"

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    Effects of female videogame character body-idealization exposure
    (2016-09) Murphy, Hannah
    Video games are a multibillion-dollar industry that has been researched scantily when it comes to body image effects. Much of the existing literature on video games focuses on aggression effects and has minimally expanded to explore other effects. This study expands upon the current literature by exploring body image perception and self-esteem effects from idealized character body game play. Factors affecting these responses were also investigated. A lab-based experiment was conducted using 36 participants from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication Subject pool. Only female participants were used. Results indicated that participants experienced fewer issues with weight concern when playing the idealized game character compared to the less idealized character. However, the manipulation check was only marginally significant and cell sizes were small, so the pattern found is underpowered and unreliable. Implications for the video game industry practitioners and directions for future research are discussed.
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    Gender Differences in Buffering Stress Responses in Same-Sex Friend Dyads
    (2015-12-14) Pauling, Sydney N.; Doom, Jenalee R.; Gunnar, Megan R.
    Social buffering is the ability of an individual to lower or block a close social partner’s physiological response to stress. It is unknown whether friends can buffer children and adolescents’ responses to stress both before and after puberty, and whether buffering by friends differs in boys and girls. The current study will examine these questions using a study of 30 9-10 year old boys and girls and 30 15-16 year old boys and girls asked to prepare for a stressful task with a friend. This task, called the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) involves a public speaking task and a math task conducted in front of judges, which consistently provokes increases in levels of the stress hormone cortisol (Yim, Quas, Cahill & Hayakawa, 2010). Friends assist the participant with speech preparation immediately before the speech, and a variety of behaviors were coded, including: validation, humor, distraction, and sensitivity. In addition, participants provided saliva samples for cortisol assay before speech preparation and every 10 minutes thereafter. After analyses were conducted, this study presented both age and sex differences in a variety of friendship behaviors: positive support, peer/participant anxiety, and humor/distraction. Statistically marginal effects indicate that larger samples were needed in each age/sex group to adequately test our predictions. In addition, peer support did not correlate with cortisol responses; although peer/participant anxiety did. Other measures of stress might have been more sensitive to peer support and should be examined. Considering the pivotal role that peers play in development, especially during the stressful period of adolescence, this is an essential area of future developmental research. Furthermore, taking age and gender into account will deepen the understanding of peer relationships across development.