Male vs female gamers: Testing the stereotype threat effect in video gaming

Stereotype threat (ST), defined as the risk of confirming a negative stereotype about one’s own group, has been demonstrated in various social contexts. Regarding video games, for example, informing female participants that men would outperform women in gaming leads to gender differences in performance. To date, however, these studies have not looked into the mechanisms of this ST effect in gaming. In two lab studies (N=186), some participants were confronted with ST-related information before playing a video game. In Study 1, half of the participants read a bogus article confirming the “standard” gender stereotype (“men outperform women”). In Study 2, a reverse stereotype was presented to half of the participants (“women have outpaced men in some game genres”). In contrast to hypotheses, both studies failed to show the expected significant interaction effect of gender and ST condition on performance, although female participants confronted with the “standard” gender stereotype reported greater frustration in Study 1, for example. In sum, results indicate a complex relationship between gender, social identity, experience with the game genre, and behavior. Identifying oneself as a gamer and being experienced in a particular game genre were found to be better performance predictors than reading stereotype threatening information.