racism

Vexed by Online Bigots’ Language? Psychologists Say They Want You to Be

3:00AM Owen Good | By now it’s sadly common experience, hearing racist, homophobic, even anti-Semitic slurs during online games. Often it’s for no apparent reason other than as a term of abuse used against competitors, that packs more of a punch than your standard four-letter word. But a couple months back, I had a different experience, and I’m sure it’s no more uncommon for others, too. In a game of Castle Crashers — cooperative multiplayer — this guy I was playing with completely proffered some rather ugly opinions of African-Americans, and needlessly heaped racial slurs on the foes we were battling. More »

Study Finds Racial Bias Common In Virtual Worlds

6:20AM Stuart Houghton | Anyone thinking that virtual worlds are edging towards some kind of utopia, please revise your hopes downwards. A study into the social psychology of virtual environments, by Northwestern University, indicates that people respond to the same social cues about race in virtual worlds as they do in real life. In an experiment carried out in There.com users were approached by a researcher wearing either a light-skinned or dark-skinned avatar and asked a series of questions.. The study found that when asked a fairly demanding question, followed by a less demanding request (a so-called ‘Door in the face technique‘, dark skinned avatars received a significantly lower rate of positive responses. Same old, same old. Researchers find racial bias in virtual worlds [ITNews.com.au] (image source: http://soulsphincter.blogspot.com/) More »