Games probably don’t make you sexist, German researcher finds — but one critic is unconvinced

You can go back to playing games without the fear that they’ll turn you into a monster.

New research from the University of Cologne in Germany finds that long-term exposure to the sexist portrayal of human characters in games does not imbue a person with sexist attitudes in their everyday life. This directly counters the claims of “cultivation theory,” which is the idea that the longer people spend consuming media like games or television, the likelier they are to accept the fictional social realities as the norm. But this latest study found no evidence to support that despite what appears as an increase in sexist attitudes among gamers in recent months, although one critic points out that it uses methodology that may not apply to the problems the industry faces when it comes to gender.