A new study suggests that people who lose in online games are more likely to harass women.

Written by a pair of researchers from the University of New South Wales and Miami University of Ohio and published by the Public Library of Science, the study investigated player communication during 126 Halo 3 matches.

Dividing matches into three groups, the researchers would either stay silent, or play recorded statements like "good game everyone" in male and female voices.

The researchers tracked responses from players, comparing their tones against wins/losses, skill rankings, and kill/death ratios.

They found that lower-skilled players were more hostile towards a female-voiced teammate, especially when they themselves were performing poorly.

In contrast, lower-skilled players behaved submissively towards a male-voiced player in the identical scenario, and this difference in gender-directed behaviour became more extreme with poorer focal-player performance.

“We suggest that low-status males increase female-directed hostility to minimize the loss of status as a consequence of hierarchical reconfiguration resulting from the entrance of a woman into the competitive arena,” wrote the researchers.

Higher-skilled players, in contrast, were more positive towards a female relative to a male teammate.

“As higher-skilled players have less to fear from hierarchical reorganization, we argue that these males behave more positively in an attempt to support and garner a female player’s attention,” the researchers theorised.

“Our results provide the clearest picture of inter-sexual competition to date, highlighting the importance of considering an evolutionary perspective when exploring the factors that affect male hostility towards women.”

Note: This story was edited on 22/07 at 9:00pm to correctly reflect the results of the study. We apologise for the errors we published regarding its findings prior to this time.