Not Just for Girls: Encouraging Cross-Gender Role Play and Reducing Gender Stereotypes with a Strategy Game

Abstract

Harsher socio-cultural sanctions against cross-gender role play amongst boys versus girls create comparatively greater pressure for boys to adhere to traditional gender roles [29]. At the same time, strategically orchestrated play experiences may offer a potential means of counteracting this pressure. In the present research, a pair of randomized experiments, involving a strategy game that puts players in the role of princesses, revealed a positive impact of delaying the timing of the revelation of the characters' gender (Study 1) and reducing the degree of femininity of the illustrated representation of the characters (Study 2) on boys' evaluations of the game, level of experience-taking (identification and role assumption) with the princess characters, and shift in both gender perceptions and self-perceptions. Together, these findings illustrate that strategic design choices can facilitate boys' adoption of cross-gender personae and open the door to malleability in adherence to rigid gender roles and norms.