Women hold up (more than) half of the sky: examining the motivations, the behaviors, and the social capital in a multiplayer game popular among female players
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/ris.2022.80.4.M22-003Keywords:
Female Gameplayers, Gender Role Theory, Multiplayer Game, Social Capital, Uses And GratificationsAbstract
This study combined survey and behavioral data to examine the connections between socio-relational motivations, socializing behaviors, and social capital. Participants were U.S. players (N = 1,027; 65% female) from a fantasy mobile game popular among female players. Consistent with gender role theory, female players partook in higher socializing behaviors. Moreover, in support of uses and gratifications theory and the social capital framework, the smarty-pants and socializing motivations, and socializing behaviors were positively associated with social capital. Partly in support of gender role theory and the social capital framework, both bridging and bonding social capital were higher for female players. This study’s results offer nuance to how certain game affordances and incentives may be predictive of social capital outcomes.
Downloads
References
Adler, Paul S. y Seok-Woo Kwon. 2002. "Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept". Academy of Management Review 27(1): 17-40. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2002.5922314
Antonucci, Toni C. e Hiroko Akiyama. 1987. "An Examination of Sex Differences in Social Support among Older Men and Women". Sex Roles 17(11-12): 737-49. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287685
Bartle, Richard. 1996. "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs". Journal of MUD Research 1(1): 1-27.
Boone, Harry N. y Deborah A. Boone. 2012. "Analyzing Likert Data". Journal of Extension 50(2): artículo n.º 2TOT2.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. "The Forms of Capital". Pp. 241-58 en Handbook of theory and research for sociology of education, editado por J. Richardson. Greenwood.
Casella, Donna. 2017. "Shaping the Craft of Screenwriting: Women Screen Writers in Silent Era Hollywood". Pp. 1-19 en Women Film Pioneers Project, editado por J. Gaines, R. Vatsal y M. Dall'Asta. Columbia University Libraries.
Choi, Sukyoung, Mingxuan Liu, Jingyi Sun y Ke M. Huang-Isherwood. 2021. "Who Benefits from Directed Communication? Communication Directionality, Network Structures, and Perceived Social Capital in an MMOG". Paper presented at the National Communication Association 107th Annual Convention, November 19, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Clopton, Aaron W. 2012. "Social Capital, Gender, and the Student Athlete". Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 16(4): 272-88. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028376
Cote, Amanda C. 2020. "Casual Resistance: A Longitudinal Case Study of Video Gaming's Gendered Construction and Related Audience Perceptions". Journal of Communication 70(6): 819-41. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqaa028
Depping, Ansgar E., Colby Johanson y Regan L. Mandryk. 2018. "Designing for Friendship: Modeling Properties of Play, In-Game Social Capital, and Psychological Well-Being". Pp. 87-100 en Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. Melbourne VIC Australia: Association of Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3242671.3242702
Ducheneaut, Nicolas, Nicholas Yee, Eric Nickell y Robert J. Moore. 2006. "'Alone Together?': Exploring the Social Dynamics of Massively Multiplayer Online Games". Pp. 407 en Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems - CHI '06. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Association of Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/1124772.1124834
Eagly, Alice H. 1987. Sex Differences in Social Behavior: A Social-Role Interpretation. Nueva York. Erlbaum.
Eagly, Alice H. y Anne M. Koenig. 2006. "Social Role Theory of Sex Differences and Similarities: Implication for Prosocial Behavior". Pp. 156-71 en Sex differences and similarities in communication, editado por K. Dindia y D. J. Canary. Nueva York. Routledge.
van Emmerik, IJ. Hetty. 2006. "Gender Differences in the Creation of Different Types of Social Capital: A Multilevel Study". Social Networks 28(1): 24-37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2005.04.002
Entertainment Software Association. 2021. "2021 Essential Facts about the Video Game Industry." Washington, DC: Entertainment Software Association. Accessed 17 October 2022 (https://www.theesa.com/resource/2021-essential-facts-about-the-video-game-industry/).
Festinger, L. 1957. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Redwood City, California. Stanford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503620766
Field, Andy P., Jeremy Miles y Zoë Field. 2012. Discovering Statistics Using R. Thousand Oaks, California. Sage.
Fox, Jesse y Wai Yen Tang. 2017. "Women's Experiences with General and Sexual Harassment in Online Video Games: Rumination, Organizational Responsiveness, Withdrawal, and Coping Strategies". New Media & Society 19(8): 1290-1307. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816635778
Fuster, Héctor, Xavier Carbonell, Andrés Chamarro y Ursula Oberst. 2013. "Interaction with the Game and Motivation among Players of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games". Spanish Journal of Psychology 16: E43. https://doi.org/10.1017/sjp.2013.54 PMid:,23866239
Gerstel, N., C. Riessman y S. Rosenfield. 1985. "Explaining the Symptomatology of Separated and Divorced Women and Men: The Role of Material Conditions and Social Networks". Social Forces 64(1): 84-101. https://doi.org/10.2307/2578973
Granovetter, Mark S. 1973. "The Strength of Weak Ties". The American Journal of Sociology 78(6): 1360-80. https://doi.org/10.1086/225469
Greenberg, Bradley S., John Sherry, Kenneth Lachlan, Kristen Lucas y Amanda Holmstrom. 2010. "Orientations to Video Games among Gender and Age Groups". Simulation & Gaming 41(2): 238-59. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878108319930
Holcomb, Jennifer L., J. Michael Wilkerson, Gretchen L. Gemeinhardt, Ann J. Robison y Vanessa R. Schick. 2022. "A Qualitative Study Examining the Social Network Types of Older Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Women and Gender Non-Binary Adults". Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services 34(1): 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/10538720.2021.1905578
Huang-Isherwood, Ke M. y Jorge Peña. 2021. "Testing Moral Disengagement and Proteus Effect Predictions on Feelings of Guilt and Self-Empowerment Attributed to Bearing Guns". Frontiers in Psychology 12: artículo n.º 695086. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.695086 PMid:,34335412 PMCid:PMC8324306
Huh, Searle y Dmitri Williams. 2010. "Dude Looks like a Lady: Gender Swapping in an Online Game". Pp. 161-74 en Online worlds: Convergence of the real and the virtual, editado por W. Bainbridge. Londres. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-825-4_13
Kahn, Adam S., Cuihua Shen, Li Lu, Rabindra A. Ratan, Sean Coary, Jinghui Hou, Jinghui Meng, Joseph Osborn y Dmitri Williams. 2015. "The Trojan Player Typology: A Cross-Genre, Cross-Cultural, Behaviorally Validated Scale of Video Game Play Motivations". Computers in Human Behavior 49: 354-61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.018
Kim, S. S. Y., Ke M. Huang-Isherwood, W. Zheng y Dmitri Williams. 2022. "The Art of Being Together: How Group Play Can Increase Reciprocity, Social Capital, and Social Status in a Multiplayer Online Game". Computers in Human Behavior 133: artículo n.º 107291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107291
Kim, Seon Mi. 2014. "The Impacts of Gender Differences in Social Capital on Microenterprise Business Start-Up". Affilia 29(4): 404-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886109913519789
Körner, Robert y Astrid Schütz. 2021. "It Is Not All for the Same Reason! Predicting Motives in Miniature Wargaming on the Basis of Personality Traits". Personality and Individual Differences 173: artículo n.º 110639. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110639
Kumra, Savita y Susan Vinnicombe. 2010. "Impressing for Success: A Gendered Analysis of a Key Social Capital Accumulation Strategy". Gender, Work & Organization 17(5): 521-46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0432.2010.00521.x
Lindtner, Silvia, Bonnie Nardi, Yang Wang, Scott Mainwaring, He Jing y Wenjing Liang. 2008. "A Hybrid Cultural Ecology: World of Warcraft in China". Pp. 371 en Proceedings of the ACM 2008 conference on Computer supported cooperative work - CSCW '08. San Diego, CA, USA: Association of Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/1460563.1460624
Lynch, Teresa, Jessica E. Tompkins, Irene I. van Driel y Niki Fritz. 2016. "Sexy, Strong, and Secondary: A Content Analysis of Female Characters in Video Games across 31 Years". Journal of Communication 66(4): 564-84. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12237
Malcom, Nancy L. 2003. "Constructing Female Athleticism: A Study of Girl's Recreational Softball". American Behavioral Scientist 46(10): 1387-1404. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764203046010007
McPherson, Miller, Lynn Smith-Lovin y James M. Cook. 2001. "Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks". Annual Review of Sociology 27(1): 415-44. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.415
Muzzey, Finneran K., M. Killian Kinney, Megan K. Maas y Heather L. McCauley. 2021. "Support Networks of Transmasculine and Nonbinary Young Adults during Chosen Name Transition". Psychology & Sexuality 13(3): 652-62. https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2021.1902379
Pearce, Eiluned, Anna Machin y Robin I. M. Dunbar. 2021. "Sex Differences in Intimacy Levels in Best Friendships and Romantic Partnerships". Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology 7(1): 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-020-00155-z
Peña, Jorge, Jeffrey T. Hancock y Nicholas A. Merola. 2009. "The Priming Effects of Avatars in Virtual Settings". Communication Research 36(6): 838-56. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650209346802
Pimentel, Jonald L. 2010. "A Note on the Usage of Likert Scaling for Research Data Analysis". USM R & D 18(2): 109-12.
Portes, Alejandro. 1998. "Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology". Annual Review of Sociology 24: 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.24.1.1
Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Nueva York. Simon & Schuster. https://doi.org/10.1145/358916.361990
Ratan, Rabindra, Vivian Hsueh Hua Chen, Frederik De Grove, Johannes Breuer, Thorsten Quandt y J. Patrick Williams. 2022. "Gender, Gaming Motives, and Genre: Comparing Singaporean, German, and American Players." IEEE Transactions on Games 14(3): 456-65. https://doi.org/10.1109/TG.2021.3116077
Ratan, Rabindra, Cuihua Shen y Dmitri Williams. 2020. "Men Do Not Rule the World of Tanks: Negating the Gender-Performance Gap in a Spatial-Action Game by Controlling for Time Played." American Behavioral Scientist 64(7): 1031-43. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764220919147
Reer, Felix y Nicole C. Krämer. 2019. "Are Online Role-Playing Games More Social than Multiplayer First-Person Shooters? Investigating How Online Gamers' Motivations and Playing Habits Are Related to Social Capital Acquisition and Social Support". Entertainment Computing 29: 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcom.2018.10.002
Van Reijmersdal, Eva A., Jeroen Jansz, Oscar Peters y Guda van Noort. 2013. "Why Girls Go Pink: Game Character Identification and Game-Players' Motivations". Computers in Human Behavior 29(6): 2640-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.06.046
Rubin, Alan M. 1981. "An Examination of Television Viewing Motivations". Communication Research 8(2): 141-65. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365028100800201
Ruggiero, Thomas E. 2000. "Uses and Gratifications Theory in the 21st Century". Mass Communication and Society 3(1): 3-37. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327825MCS0301_02
Shaw, Adrienne. 2012. "Do You Identify as a Gamer? Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Gamer Identity". New Media & Society 14(1): 28-44. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444811410394
Shen, Cuihua. 2014. "Network Patterns and Social Architecture in Massively Multiplayer Online Games: Mapping the Social World of EverQuest II". New Media & Society 16(4): 672-91. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444813489507
Shen, Cuihua, Rabindra Ratan, Y. Dora Cai y Alex Leavitt. 2016. "Do Men Advance Faster than Women? Debunking the Gender Performance Gap in Two Massively Multiplayer Online Games". Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 21(4): 312-29. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12159
Sherry, John L., Bradley S. Greenberg, Kristen Lucas y Ken Lachlan. 2006. "Video Game Uses and Gratifications as Predictors of Use and Game Preference". Pp. 213-24 en Playing video games: Motives, responses, and consequences, editado por P. Vorderer y J. Bryant. Nueva York. Routledge.
Stickney, Lisa T. y Alison M. Konrad. 2007. "Gender-Role Attitudes and Earnings: A Multinational Study of Married Women and Men". Sex Roles 57(11-12): 801-11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9311-4
Stone, Amy L., Elizabeth A. Nimmons, Robert Salcido y Phillip W. Schnarrs. 2020. "Multiplicity, Race, and Resilience: Transgender and Non-Binary People Building Community". Sociological Inquiry 90(2): 226-48. https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12341
Straubhaar, Rolf. 2013. "Student Use of Aspirational and Linguistic Social Capital in an Urban Immigrant-Centered English Immersion High School". High School Journal 97(2): 92-106. https://doi.org/10.1353/hsj.2013.0026
Sullivan, Gail M. y Anthony R. Artino. 2013. "Analyzing and Interpreting Data From Likert-Type Scales". Journal of Graduate Medical Education 5(4): 541-42. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-5-4-18 PMid:,24454995 PMCid:PMC3886444
Trepte, Sabine, Leonard Reinecke y Keno Juechems. 2012. "The Social Side of Gaming: How Playing Online Computer Games Creates Online and Offline Social Support". Computers in Human Behavior 28(3): 832-39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2011.12.003
Turkay, Selen y Sonam Adinolf. 2018. "Understanding Online Collectible Card Game Players' Motivations: A Survey Study with Two Games". Pp. 501-5 en Proceedings of ACM OzCHI conference. Melbourne, Australia: Association of Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3292147.3292216
Vella, Kellie, Madison Klarkowski, Selen Turkay y Daniel Johnson. 2020. "Making Friends in Online Games: Gender Differences and Designing for Greater Social Connectedness". Behaviour & Information Technology 39(8): 917-34. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2019.1625442
Vieira, Edward T. 2014. "The Relationships among Girls' Prosocial Video Gaming, Perspective-Taking, Sympathy, and Thoughts about Violence". Communication Research 41(7): 892-912. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650212463049
Wang, Zizhen. 2020. "Bonding and Bridging Social Capital: The Determinants of English Language Fluency and Its Effects on the Labour Market Outcome of International Students in Ireland". Economic and Social Review 51(1): 35-61.
Williams, Dmitri. 2006. "On and off the 'net: Scales for Social Capital in an Online Era". Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11(2): 593-628. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00029.x
Williams, Dmitri, Mia Consalvo, Scott Caplan y Nick Yee. 2009. "Looking for Gender: Gender Roles and Behaviors among Online Gamers". Journal of Communication 59(4): 700-725. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01453.x
Williams, Dmitri, Tracy L. M. Kennedy y Robert J. Moore. 2011. "Behind the Avatar: The Patterns, Practices, and Functions of Role Playing in MMOs". Games and Culture 6(2): 171-200. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412010364983
Yee, Nick. 2006. "Motivations for Play in Online Games". CyberPsychology & Behavior 9(6): 772-75. https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2006.9.772 PMid:,17201605
Yee, Nick. 2014. The Proteus Paradox: How Online Games and Virtual Worlds Change Us-and How They Don't. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Yee, Nick, Nicolas Ducheneaut, Mike Yao y Les Nelson. 2011. "Do Men Heal More When in Drag?: Conflicting Identity Cues between User and Avatar". Pp. 773-76 en Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Vancouver BC Canada: Association of Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979054
Zhong, Zhi-Jin. 2011. "The Effects of Collective MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) Play on Gamers' Online and Offline Social Capital". Computers in Human Behavior 27(6): 2352-63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2011.07.014
Zhou, Zhongyun, Xiao-Ling Jin y Yulin Fang. 2014. "Moderating Role of Gender in the Relationships between Perceived Benefits and Satisfaction in Social Virtual World Continuance". Decision Support Systems 65: 69-79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2014.05.004
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
© CSIC. Manuscripts published in both the print and online versions of this journal are the property of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, and quoting this source is a requirement for any partial or full reproduction.
All contents of this electronic edition, except where otherwise noted, are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. You may read the basic information and the legal text of the licence. The indication of the CC BY 4.0 licence must be expressly stated in this way when necessary.
Self-archiving in repositories, personal webpages or similar, of any version other than the final version of the work produced by the publisher, is not allowed.
