Gaming the System: Biases and the Evolutionary Role of Games in Male Socialization
This article is also available in Brazilian Portuguese here.
Historically, about 25% of adult males died due to warfare. I do not have an estimation for deaths during hunting, but it is not hard to find stories about fictitious or historical males that died or were severely injured by “big game” (very suggestive expression). Therefore, I do not consider an exaggeration to estimate that these hunting and warfare have being historically responsible for a third of adult males’ deaths. Natural selection likely favoured traits that increased survival in these activities.
One way to diminish risks is by forming cooperative groups. If these groups are long-term, familiarity with each other will help coordinating actions faster, what is even better, and friendships are long-term cooperative groups. Consciously or not, people tend to befriend those who are alike themselves and can offer some material or social benefit. Therefore, it is expected that males would try to befriend the best hunters and warriors.
Sex differences in friendship styles support this view. Compared to female friendships, male friendship networks are usually described as larger, more hierarchical, and focused on activities, valuing cohesion over harmony. All these characteristics are useful in warfare and hunting, and it is notable that men in general are more interested in watching and playing sports than women are. It has been suggested that sports, especially team sports, arose a way to practice hunting and warfare skills. Unfortunately, delta bias makes us view male friendships as inferior to female friendships because they “are less intimate and talk less about feelings”. However, it has never been demonstrated that “talking more about feelings” benefits males, and males usually have one or two “best friends” with whom they have an “intimate” relationship. This sex difference likely reflects the different ways that, on average, men and women cope with stress, with women wanting to explore their feelings, and men wanting to fix the problem.
“Since males tend to play games to cope with stress more than women do, problematic gaming might be a gendered coping strategy that backfired.”
Let’s look now at digital games. The effects of digital games in mental health have been a hot topic in the last half century. In 2013, the DSM-5 included “internet gaming disorder” as a condition needing more research, and in 2018, WHO included "gaming disorder” as an official disorder in ICD-11. I am part of the group that acknowledges that some people play digital games in unhealthy ways but think that including (internet) gaming disorder in diagnostic manuals was a reckless decision considering how messy is research in this area. However, my goal here is to highlight the gamma and delta biases present in this field.
Gamma bias consists in magnifying sex differences when females receive harm or do good, while minimizing sex differences when males receive harm or do good. Research often claims that being male is a risk factor for developing problematic use of digital games, but screening and treatment are always treated as gender-neutral. I have never seen anyone asking health professionals, researchers, or politicians to consider gender-specific issues regarding gaming.
Delta bias is when we celebrate a behaviour when it is gender atypical, while denigrating behaviours that are gender typical. When discussing the positive aspects of gaming, researchers emphasize that females play games less often and less intensely than males and therefore miss out on benefits. To them, encouraging females to play (digital) games more often is a moral duty to achieve gender equality.
Several problems arise from this double-standard. First, it is already hard to find studies showing that games have long-term effects. If they do exist, is it possible to get similar benefits in another way? For instance, some have repeated Lever’s claim that games teach boys to deal with competition and teamwork, important skills for the workplace. So, can girls learn how to deal with competition and teamwork only through games? That is a strong assumption, and strongly suggestive of delta bias. As far as we can tell, encouraging females to play digital games more often might increase their risk of developing problematic gaming habits with no real benefit to counterweight it.
Second, we lack evidence that problematic use of digital games is a disorder rather than just a symptom of another issue. There is no biological reason for people to become “addicted” to digital games, but not to analog games. Hypothetical causes of addiction also exist in race board games, trading cards, and movies. Furthermore, problematic gaming often coexists with other mental disorders, such as major depression. The best predictors of problematic gaming seems to be social context and escapism, i.e., using games to avoid negative thoughts, and pretend to be someone you are not. Since males tend to play games to cope with stress more than women do, problematic gaming might be a gendered coping strategy that backfired.
Third, games play an important role in male socialization. Games are common topics of conversation among male friends, much more than among female friends. Further, males not only play more games, and talk more about games, but also spend more time and money acquiring game-related knowledge and watching others (usually males) playing. In Brazil, nearly 73% of the boys and 47% of the girls play digital games at least frequently. This “overrepresentation” of males is seen globally and across all game genres (i.e., sports, board games, card games, role-playing games (or RPGs), gambling in games of skills, etc.) except games of pure chance and non-game hobbies (e.g., puzzles). Researchers never mention if, when assessing the severity and prevalence of problematic gaming, they correct their results to reflect these facts, but I take their silence as a “no”.
Furthermore, digital multiplayer games have become mainstream nowadays. However, digital game scholars recognize that even single-player games are social because players use their experience as conversation topics, drawing materials, knowledge contests, group belongness indicators, and so on. When gaming, players sometimes help their own opponents, something rarely seen in any other kind of competition.
This led me to my current doctorate research: males’ stronger engagement with games might not be due to patriarchal norms, as sometimes suggested, but is an evolved characteristic. A priori, it is puzzling why males would both play and watch others play games more often than females, and why games are so important to them. A plausible hypothesis comes from evolutionary research about sports fans: nearly every game simulates skills used in warfare and hunting, traditionally male domains.
But let’s return to the relation between gaming and warfare/hunting. Real-world warfare and hunting come at considerable cost; men die, and their colleagues are bereaved. This is where games come in. Games, with their rules and fairness-seeking nature, are like scientific experiments. Players can test out strategies, and if these don’t work out, they live to play again. You learn your strengths and weakness, and those of others. You find out who you enjoy playing with. You can lose a game, or a player may ‘die’, but you get to learn from the experience and improve your performance and learn how to lose with sportsmanship and deal with banter.
“Let’s not forget that people play games because they enjoy them, and they care about their friends. It is disturbing to see how much distrust there is of men’s interest in gaming.”
Rather than seeing games-as-a-male-domain as resulting from misogynistic conspiracies, it is more likely an evolved male-typical style for finding and keeping friends. I am not saying that females should not play games. They should do whatever they enjoy if it is respectful and safe to themselves and others. But gender-typical behaviours are not inherently bad or oppressive.
The gamma bias in problematic gaming discussions is also concerning, since they often focus on restricting access to digital games. However, restricting boys and men’s access to digital games might be restricting their access to a coping mechanism. Researchers need to assess the benefits of treatments focused on access-restriction and compare these with the benefits of treatments focused on teaching coping strategies, and both should consider sex differences in these strategies.
Let’s not forget that people play games because they enjoy them, and they care about their friends. It is disturbing to see how much distrust there is of men’s interest in gaming, rather than taking it at face value. The apparent universality of sex differences in these games suggest that they result from evolutionary processes. We stand to gain much more by understanding these processes rather than moralising about them.
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Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, legal advice, or other professional opinion. Never disregard such advice because of this article or anything else you have read from the Centre for Male Psychology. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of, or are endorsed by, The Centre for Male Psychology, and we cannot be held responsible for these views. Read our full disclaimer here.
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