Who’s afraid of Donkey Kong? Testing the Stereotype Threat Effect in Video Gaming

In two studies (Study 1: N = 130; Study 2: N = 56) participants played a video game (Bejeweled 3; SkyChasers) and were either confronted with a stereotype threat (ST) or not. ST is defined as the risk of confirming a negative stereotype about one’s own group and has been investigated in various field, i.a. in gaming. In the first study participants were confronted with the stereotype that women would perform worse in video games than men. In the second study we worked with a reversed stereotype, namely that women would have now outpaced males in some genres of video games. Our results show that performance varies across gender and genre. Although we did not find the hypothesized interaction effect of gender and ST condition in performance, self-reported measures, such as perceived frustration, and moderating variables indicate performance differences both for women and men, but on different psychological dimensions.