Tuesday, February 24, 2009
4:56 PM
Men with high testosterone and low socioeconomic status have been linked to anti-social behavior in delinquent populations. The lack of an avenue to demonstrate dominance may explain the anti-social behavior that people with high level of testosterones but low socioeconomic factors display. (Dabbs and Morris, 1990) While men with high socioeconomic status and high testosterone may have been able to put their aggressive drive to good use such as climbing corporate ladders, their less well-off compatriots have thus resorted to less socially approved outlets such as crime or violence. However, it appears that there may now be an alternative outlet for such men with blocked pathways to success due to low socioeconomic factors to attempt to lead and dominate in a more socially acceptable fashion.
MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) provide whole alternative persistent worlds for online gamers to partake in, complete with an online community, economy, as well as shared challenges for gamers to achieve, be it leveling up their characters or banding together to slay monsters. Such worlds have the opportunity for players to demonstrate leadership, aggression or dominance.
Following the rise of the Internet, MMORPGs are another venue where people get the chance to exhibit characteristics that they may not be able to show in real life. However, there has been very little research available that has explored the derived experiences of the users of MMORPGs. (Yee, 2006) MMORPGs, being set in the online world, provide a different platform for people to interact in the same ways they would in the real world. This different platform provides anonymity and convenience. As such, gamers have more opportunity to express themselves because of fewer inhibitions. (Turkle, 1995) This has led to some research in this area, showing that a phenomenon of disinhibition occurs when people feel less restrained. (Suler, 2004) Anonymity also brings with it another advantage. Since most prejudices and expectations come from knowing someone’s background, this gives gamers the advantage to be relatively unknown and unprejudiced against in one’s individual or group-level interactions. (Bargh, Mckenna & Fitzsimons, 2002) Being blocked from success does not always come from the lack of qualifications or socioeconomic situations alone; very often prejudices reinforce such damaging circumstances and prevent them from climbing up the socioeconomic ladder. (McDill, 1961) Thus the anonymity of the internet and MMORPGs allow such men a viable alternative outlet to attempt to lead or dominate.
With a more tolerant and equal world in MMORPGs, men with high testosterone and lower socioeconomic status may no longer be blocked should they feel the need to achieve or lead in their alternate worlds. Research has so far pin-pointed the relationship between testosterone, socioeconomic status and blocked pathways to success. Research has also shown how MMORPGs have entire alternate persistent worlds with online avatars and personalities as diverse as any the real world has to offer that people can enter, offering equal opportunity and standing to all. However, researchers have not yet investigated the possibility of a connection between these two variables. Thus, when considering the possibility of a connection, we hypothesized that MMORPGs may be a way for these people to satisfy their desire to lead. We propose that some leaders in MMORPGs may have suppressed leadership potential in the real world, where they might not be given the chance to lead as much as they would like to.