The Virtual Violence Against Women Scale (VVAWS): A Measure of Players' Experiences of Violence Against Women in Video Games

Extant research has shown that exposure to violent video games predicts aggressive attitudes and behaviors (Anderson & Bushman, 2001; Anderson & Dill, 2000; Hasan, Begue, & Bushman, 2012; Hasan, Begue, Scharkow, & Bushman, 2013). However, just as games differ from one another in terms of the presence or absence of violence, games differ along other important dimensions, such as the targets of violence (Gentile, 2011). The depiction of violence against women in video games has been shown to affect real-world hostility and acceptance of violence toward women (Beck, Boys, Rose, & Beck, 2012; Yao, Mahood, & Linz, 2010). The present study sought to create an inventory of violent acts against women in video games to help elucidate the construct of virtual violence against women and facilitate future research. Using items from validated, widely used measures of intimate partner violence, researchers assessed the types of violence against women depicted in 32 popular violent video games. Using a sample of 115 video game players, researchers reduced the number of a priori items from 74 to 28 (alpha = .96) and collected qualitative data to generate an additional 23 items. A second sample (N = 160) further reduced the total number of items to a final 27-item measure. Principal components analysis revealed three distinct factors: physical violence, sexual violence, and atypical violence. In future studies, this scale can be used to assess individuals' exposure to violence against women in video games and to aid in assessing how such exposure impacts players.