'Your identity, please?' An empirical study into social identities of women playing digital games

The relationship between the self and society is troublesome when the individual assumes social identities that mismatch society’s stereotypical expectations. In this sense, there seems to be a tension between claiming a female gender identity and adopting a gamer identity. This doctoral project focuses on the meanings female players ascribe to the practice of gaming and how they identify themselves (or not) as gamers. Based on a social psychological and sociological perspective, results will be presented of a follow-up study on the interplay between the social categories “women” and “gamers” and how these relate to stereotypical perceptions, gaming habits, and playing motives. In the past decade, the intricate relationship between digital games and women has received extensive academic attention. Although various studies indicate a rising trend of women playing games (Entertainment Software Association, 2013; Interactive Software Federation Europe 2012), there is evidence that female players still have to cope with credibility issues. An often mentioned ground is that digital game culture still suffers from the persistent stereotypical notion of games belonging to the male realm (Carr, 2005; Nakamura, 2012). Recently, it has been claimed that this is mainly reflected in the denigration of the “feminine casual game player” in favor of the normative “masculine core game player” (Vanderhoef, 2013). Because of this and other dismissive practices in game culture (e.g., the stereotypical portrayal of female avatars; Downs & Smith, 2010), there seems to exist a troubled relationship between women simultaneously assuming their gender identity ánd gamer identity (Shaw, 2011). The aim of this doctoral project is to shed light on this matter and investigate how women perform their gendered identities in digital game culture. In an explorative study phase, we already observed that female players are more reluctant than men to accept gender-related stereotypical ideas in gaming culture. Nevertheless, we found that high-frequency female players are more motivated to play specific game genres, giving support to the idea that women’s play motives are stronger than their beliefs that gaming is a typically male pursuit [author names removed to protect the review integrity]. Further research, however, indicated that the association of games with males does affect women’s emotional responses and performance evaluations negatively when competing against men in a game competition [author names removed for review purposes]. In a next step, this doctoral project will explicitly focus on the relationship between the social categories “women” and “gamers” starting from a social psychological and sociological perspective. Based on a survey study, our aim is to gain deeper insight into identification processes and how these are related to stereotypical attitudes, playing motives, and gaming habits of female players. We will draw on the social identity theory of intergroup relations (Tajfel, 1978) and self-categorization theory (Turner, 1985), which is an extension of the former, complemented with insights from identity theory (Burke, 1980; Stryker & Serpe, 1982). Assuming that identity is a multidimensional construct, various aspects of gender identity and gamer identity are taken into account with a focus on their cognitive (i.e., self-categorization), affective (i.e., group commitment), and evaluative (i.e., group self-esteem) nature (Ellemers, Kortekaas, & Ouwerkerk, 1999). Moreover, this survey will be one of the first quantitative studies that aims to map the diversification of female players. Although previous studies have already defined several player typologies (e.g., Schuurman, De Moor, De Marez, & Van Looy, 2008), focus was almost exclusively on male players without considering that these types may not apply to women. We aim to better understand the heterogeneity of female players by attributing women to gaming segments on the basis of their gaming habits (i.e., genre frequency) and look at how they differ in stereotypical gamer perceptions and playing motives. Finally, we will investigate whether and how social identities vary between these different female gaming segments. We thus postulate the following three research questions: 1. What is the relationship between female players’ gender identity and gamer identity?; 2. Does gamer identity/gender identity directly affect players’ stereotypical gamer perceptions, game behavior, or motivations? Or is this relation indirectly modulated by players’ gender identity/gamer identity?; 3. Which female gamer segments can be distinguished and do they differ in assuming gender identity and/or gamer identity