The Truth Behind Video Games & Their Psychological Impact - Michael Kasumovic
Michael Kasumovic (guest), Chris Williamson (host), Narrator, Narrator
In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Michael Kasumovic and Chris Williamson, The Truth Behind Video Games & Their Psychological Impact - Michael Kasumovic explores how Violent Video Games Shape Status, Mating, and Modern Masculinity Michael Kasumovic explains violent video games as status-testing arenas that tap into deep evolutionary drives for hierarchy and mate competition. He outlines research showing that people more motivated by mating and status are disproportionately drawn to violent games, and that performance in these games can shift self-perceived mate value and confidence. The conversation broadens to male–female competition, online misogyny, inequality, and how virtual hierarchies now blur with real-world status dynamics. Throughout, Kasumovic argues that video games are powerful (and underused) tools for studying human behavior, while warning against overly simple “screens are sedating men” narratives.
How Violent Video Games Shape Status, Mating, and Modern Masculinity
Michael Kasumovic explains violent video games as status-testing arenas that tap into deep evolutionary drives for hierarchy and mate competition. He outlines research showing that people more motivated by mating and status are disproportionately drawn to violent games, and that performance in these games can shift self-perceived mate value and confidence. The conversation broadens to male–female competition, online misogyny, inequality, and how virtual hierarchies now blur with real-world status dynamics. Throughout, Kasumovic argues that video games are powerful (and underused) tools for studying human behavior, while warning against overly simple “screens are sedating men” narratives.
Key Takeaways
Violent video games function as low-risk status laboratories.
Players use violent games to test themselves against others, learn where they sit in a hierarchy, and get frequent feedback on competence—satisfying evolved drives to gauge and improve status without real physical danger.
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Mating drive strongly predicts attraction to violent games.
Across studies, people (men and women) who are more motivated to find mates, and who view themselves as higher-quality partners, are more likely to choose and play violent video games frequently, likely because these games feel like status-relevant arenas.
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Performance in violent games can change self-perceived mate value.
Doing poorly in a violent game lowers people’s self-assessed desirability as a mate, whereas non-violent games do not show this effect—implying that only status-coded competitive environments directly feed into mating self-concept.
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Lower-status men are most hostile to competent women in games.
In Halo data, men who performed worse than a perceived female teammate were significantly more hostile and sexist, suggesting they react defensively when a woman threatens their already-low status within a shared hierarchy.
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Virtual wins and losses shape confidence and risk appetites.
Violent games can make players feel tougher and more willing to face stronger opponents, but also seem to blunt sensitivity to anger cues—hinting that physiological arousal or desensitization may impair threat detection in real life.
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Male status systems may be mismatched to today’s mixed-sex hierarchies.
Historically, men and women competed mostly within sex-specific hierarchies; in modern workplaces, schools, and online arenas they now compete directly, contributing to male status anxiety and sometimes misogynistic backlash.
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Resource protection often explains female preference for masculine partners better than ‘good genes.’
Across countries, women’s preference for more masculine male faces tracks gendered income inequality; in contexts where women rely more on male resources, dominant-looking men are preferred mainly as protectors/providers, not just as carriers of superior genes.
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Notable Quotes
“Individuals who have a stronger drive to find mates are more likely to want to play violent video games and to play them more often.”
— Michael Kasumovic
“We seem to not be able to tell the difference between how a win occurs in the virtual world and the real world. Those are both very satisfying kinds of things.”
— Michael Kasumovic
“Those ideas have been around, and I listen to them a lot, and they seem like really simple answers to me to a very, very complex problem.”
— Michael Kasumovic
“It’s not losing to a woman. It’s losing to a person.”
— Michael Kasumovic
“Why do you think it is that our own self-perception, our own sense of self is so heavily impacted by the local social environment, even if that environment is virtual?”
— Chris Williamson
Questions Answered in This Episode
If game design algorithms are constantly smoothing wins and losses, how much are we actually learning about our true status and ability from online games?
Michael Kasumovic explains violent video games as status-testing arenas that tap into deep evolutionary drives for hierarchy and mate competition. ...
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Could we deliberately design violent video games to build prosocial traits—like resilience and cooperation—instead of just tapping competitive and aggressive drives?
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How can young men differentiate between confidence that genuinely transfers to real-world competence and confidence that is confined to virtual environments?
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What practical cultural or institutional changes might reduce male hostility toward high-performing women in mixed-status arenas like gaming and STEM fields?
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In a world of rising inequality and pervasive virtual hierarchies, how should we rethink ‘status’ so it doesn’t become a zero-sum trap for both men and women?
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Transcript Preview
Individuals who have a stronger drive to find mates are more likely to want to play violent video games and to play them more often. I, I never would have thought it actually would have worked out if it didn't keep showing up constantly in our studies. (wind blows)
Why do people play violent video games? What's their motivation?
(laughs) Yes. That is an age-old question since video games really came out, isn't it? Um, you know, they're fun, first off. Let's be honest. They're a really good time and people love playing them, but that's not really enough of a- an answer, is it? It's, um, seems like there's more than that just driving us. And, you know, my research and the research of my colleagues, uh, Tom Benson, for example, um, we believe that it's a search for status. Video games really allow you to test your mettle against others, and they allow you to see how well you stand up to other folks. And as a consequence, it allows you to see how you stack up and where you sit in the hierarchy. So we're arguing that it really allows you to get a better understanding of yourself and where you sit in between others.
Why the violence?
Yeah. Well, if we look through human history, you know, there's not a lot of kindness or as much kindness going on as there is of aggression and violence. And if we look at all animals, uh, almost all animals have some kind of social hierarchy. And individuals on the top of that hierarchy have, you know, extra or gain more benefits than other individuals lower in that- that hierarchy. And violence is a way to kind of keep that order in that hierarchy. And it actually ... A hierarchy works really well, because we are able to understand where we sit. And when we know where we sit, we actually don't have to compete against, uh, one another and we don't have to be violent against one another. It's when that hierarchy is kind of removed do we find that, that there's disorder and individuals within that system need to figure out where they sit, and that's when more aggression usually happens. So we have this kind of interesting system in video games, where individuals play games to have fun, but also can compete against one another, can kind of see where they stand against one another. And that allows everyone to constantly keep changing and testing where they sit in that hierarchy, so we see a lot of kind of, uh, an attraction to violent video games because of that.
I had a researcher called Tony Volk on the show recently.
Mm.
And he did some stuff around bullying. One of the interesting insights that he gave me was that bullies need to bully somebody who could be, uh, conceivably within a similar status hierarchy, uh, because if it's a 12-year-old bullying a five-year-old, you- you ... What's, what's the status here? Or-
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