New research highlights women’s complex attraction to sexy video game characters

A new study authored by Teresa Lynch finds that women show an interesting preference for certain video game characters. Lynch directs the Chronos Laboratory and is an assistant professor of communication technology.

The study, titled "Examining How Sex Appeal Cues and Strength Cues Influence Impressions of Female Video Game Characters," features two studies that look into how people feel about female video game characters based on their attractiveness and strength.

The first study had a sample of 239 undergraduate students who looked at characters from SOULCALIBUR VI. These characters were given different combinations of attractiveness and strength.

Notably, it was found that characters who were designed to look both attractive and strong were seen as the most sexualized.

"Our results, however, suggest that the incorporation of strengths cues does not offset and, instead, emphasizes perceptions of sexualization," the research stated. "At least when viewing these characters, strength cues seem to encourage perceptions of the character that align more with heightened objectification."

The study also showed that when characters were strong but not very sexualized, people thought they were less feminine. In an interview with the PsyPost, Lynch noted while women don't like characters with high sexualization, they often chose characters that looked more feminine — the higher sexualization cue.

"I was surprised to see that in our first study, women still selected the most sexualized character when asked which character they would choose to play," Lynch said. "It’s important to remember that this character was also rated as the most feminine, so it’s possible that women were just selecting the character they most identified with."

Meanwhile, the second study let participants play a character as opposed to just looking at them. This study had a sample of 438 undergraduate students. According to the findings, playing as a formidable character made players see them as less fitting of the typical feminine image. Additionally, while strong characters were viewed as more capable, they were also perceived as less warm and friendly.

It's also interesting that women participants rated high-strength characters as more competent compared to low-strength ones while male participants didn't indicate a significant difference.

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