THE INSTITUTE
Core Concepts
Identity and Representation
Designing games so that all people, including those with disabilities, can enjoy the full experience. (Visit https://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com for more information.)
Accessibility
A feeling of acceptance — that one can be their authentic self — within a group.
Belonging
A variety of human body types (e.g., by height, fatness, muscularity, gender presentation, limb differences, use of mobility aids), which creates deeper connections for players, especially for nonbinary, trans, fat, and/or disabled gamers.
Body Diversity
A description for someone whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Cisgender
A digital extension of an individual's identity, such as in a video game (Waggoner, 2009).
Digital Identity
Proportionate representation across dimensions of human difference.
Diversity
An approach of welcoming and respecting all identities in a way that an individual feels valued, respected, and heard.
Inclusion
A framework for understanding how multiple aspects of a person's social and political identities (for example, gender, race, class, sexuality) combine to create unique modes of discrimination and privilege (Crenshaw, 1991).
Intersectionality
Means of treating a person or a group as less significant than the dominant group — excluding them and affording them less power.
Marginalization
A small act or acknowledgment of inclusion and acceptance.
Micro-affirmation
A seemingly small but deeply hurtful action — such as a joke or disrespectful comment — that singles out individuals from marginalized groups. Microaggressions are usually encountered in routine situations, such as workplace meetings or in the classroom.
Microaggression
The process of being aware of how one's background and experiences shape their perspective, and actively considering these influences in order to improve the objectivity and quality of one's decisions or perspectives.
Reflexivity
A description for someone whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. For example, a trans man identifies as a man (gender identity) but was assigned female (sex) at birth.
Transgender
When a particular group is represented to a greater extent than would be expected based on its proportion in an overall, real-world population.
Overrepresentation
Underrepresenting marginalized groups relative to their real-world population. This imbalance distorts one’s view of society and can reinforce harmful stereotypes about marginalized groups.
Underrepresentation
Indicates design that is useful and beneficial to everyone (and is a complementary concept to “accessibility”). A real-world example is a curb ramp, which allows a smooth transition between sidewalks and streets, thereby making them accessible for people with wheelchairs and other mobility impairments as well as benefiting those with child (or pet) strollers, travelers rolling their luggage, and more.
Universal Design
Cultural Competence
Discriminatory treatment of people with darker skin tones, which upholds beauty standards of whiteness that benefit white people and those with lighter skin.
Colorism
The use of elements of a culture by members of another culture, often without understanding or respecting the elements’ significance to that culture (Young, 2008).
Cultural Appropriation
Awareness of cultural differences without assigning a value judgment.
Cultural
Sensitivity
The arrangement of institutions in which humans live and interact with one another. This includes the regularities of social life, customs, traditions, roles, and norms. To understand social inequality, it’s important to recognize how social structures have created, reinforced, and perpetuated inequality.
Social Structures
The practice of including a small number of individuals from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of diversity. This practice makes token individuals a stand-in for a larger group.
Tokenization
Replacing historical or real-world figures of color with white actors, casting white actors to portray characters of color, or overrepresenting a white population or perspective.
Whitewashing
Character & Narrative Tropes
A character trope that defines a character as tech support or the “brain” of the operation. These characters are sometimes stereotypically cast as physically disabled.
Brain Trope
Perspectives that challenge dominant points of view or the status quo, and are typically from the point of view of a marginalized voice.
Counternarratives
A plot device in which a female character finds herself in distress or in a perilous position, needing rescue by a hero. She becomes a prize for the hero, an object in the storyline, with limited or no opportunity for player interaction.
Damseling
A storyline where the male hero's background includes the violent murder of a woman he loves. The male hero grapples with guilt for failing to perform his socially expected, patriarchal role of being the protector of women.
Fridged Woman Trope
A character that supports another character through healing. These characters tend to be supportive and comparatively passive, often represented as white or Native women.
Healer Trope
A common story structure centered on a hero (usually a man) who goes on an adventure, learns a lesson, wins a victory with that newfound knowledge, and then returns home transformed. Oftentimes, the hero wins a woman as a prize at the end. (See: Damseling.)
Hero’s Journey Trope
Exaggerated stereotypical behavior for men, such as an emphasis on physical power, aggression, dominance, violence, and cockyness. (See: Man Box.)
Hypermasculine
Common ways that boys and men are socialized and expected to behave — in other words, they are boxed in. These seven pillars of masculinity can have negative effects for boys and men: 1) self-sufficiency, 2) acting tough, 3) physical attractiveness, 4) rigid masculine gender roles, 5) heterosexuality and homophobia, 6) hypersexuality, and 7) aggression and control (Heilman et al., 2017). (See: Hypermasculinity.)
Man Box
Categorical representations that reduce groups of people and places to basic generalizations. Stereotypes often include making assumptions about individuals based on a group they are a part of, and can reinforce the dominant ideology and power of elite groups because they influence the audience’s attitude toward the people and events being described.
Stereotype
The “tank” is a character class that attracts enemy attention, defends weaker teammates, and has substantial armor and weapons capabilities. Often, this class is represented by a dumb brute character with a lot of strength who can take a lot of damage, and is also often portrayed as a person of color, which risks reinforcing racial stereotypes and contributing to dehumanization. (See: Mechanistic Dehumanization.)
Tank Trope
A storytelling shorthand that provides familiar elements for audiences to easily understand and relate to. They often perpetuate stereotypes.
Trope
A character who compensates for their physical disability with superior intellect or some other unique skill.
Supercrip Trope
When a male protagonist goes to great lengths of personal sacrifice to rescue women he perceives to be helpless, with the intention of making himself feel self-satisfied, and without considering whether the women actually need help.
White Knighting
Portrays a person of color as a victim whose saving is dependent on the goodwill of a white character.
White Savior
Trope
Gender & Sexuality Tropes
When a player chooses an avatar or character that represents a different gender than the gender they present as in real life.
Gender Swapping
Societal expectations and behaviors that are taught to individuals based on their perceived gender. These roles can vary across cultures and time periods. Generally, women and girls are taught to be caring and prioritize others. Men and boys are taught to be independent, take risks, and show aggression.
Learned Gender Roles
A framework for looking at the world that challenges normative categories of identity in favor of finding new ways of thinking about existing social norms and assumptions. A way of critiquing social norms, power structures, and inequality.
Queer Theory
A theory suggesting both that stereotypes about gender roles influence the judgments made about individuals in leadership or other roles, and that there is a bias toward perceiving congruity between gender and role (Eagly & Karau, 2002).
Role Congruity Theory
Occurs when a person is treated as a sexual object, rather than as an individual with thoughts, feelings, and agency. (See: Male Gaze.)
Sexual Objectification
Media Bias & Effects
A form of dehumanization that strips away human characteristics — such as intelligence, rationality, and morality — by attributing animal-like traits to the human character, which serves to justify mistreatment, discrimination, or violence against the dehumanized character, such as likening a human character to vermin in dialogue.
Animalistic Dehumanization
A kind of bias that people are aware of having, like when someone has a conscious preference either for or against particular groups.
Explicit Bias
The use of parody and caricature to reinforce racist, anti-Black stereotypes. Often, this invokes exaggerated African American Vernacular English (Bucholtz & Lopez, 2011).
Linguistic Minstrelsy
A form of dehumanization invoking machine-like attributes, such as being cold, rigid, indifferent, and/or without heart or soul, which serves to justify mistreatment, discrimination, or violence against the dehumanized character. (See: The Tank Trope.)
Mechanistic Dehumanization
When individuals view themselves as objects, and their value stems from assessment of their physical appearance. It is associated with depressed personal efficacy, increased preoccupation with one’s appearance, decreased body satisfaction, depression, and disordered eating.
Self-
Objectification
Using exaggeration and/or distortion when creating character descriptions or appearance.
Caricatures
The erasure of women’s faces in media. Media that portrays women as though their bodies were sufficient to represent them are engaging in face-ism bias (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997).
Face-ism Bias
Visual media choices that prioritize pleasure for cisgender, heterosexual men, such as zooming in on women’s thighs or breasts (Mulvey, 1973).
Male Gaze
Far-reaching effects that media has on social, cultural, and personal values and perspectives. Video games are an important cultural touchstone that also influences other forms of entertainment and, as with other media, plays an important role in socialization.
Media Effects
A process of treating or describing others as if they are not human. When this happens, it can be leveraged to justify violence, unfair treatment, or other harmful actions. (See: Animalistic Dehumanization.)
Dehumanization
Unconscious beliefs that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions. These biases are often rooted in societal norms and can impact how we perceive and interact with others, particularly in relation to characteristics such as race, gender, or age.
Implicit Bias
The practice of popular media exaggerating gender differences in STEM fields by centering male contributions to STEM and rendering female contributions invisible (Rossiter, 1993). (See: Role Congruity Theory.)
Matilda Effect
The phenomenon where an avatar’s age, attractiveness, height, skin color, and gender influence aspects of players’ behavior, including their extraversion, aggression, and risk-taking (Yee, 2014).
Proteus Effect
Gameplay
Play that interrupts, fractures, or subverts gameplay or the process of becoming a player (Meades, 2015).
Counterplay
A statement preceding a piece of content (e.g., article, video, game) that alerts the viewer, reader, or player to content that may be distressing.
 Trigger Warning
When someone posts or comments online to “bait” people, which means deliberately provoking an argument or emotional reaction.
Trolling
References
Bucholtz, M., & Lopez, Q. (2011). Performing Blackness, Forming Whiteness: Linguistic Minstrelsy in Hollywood Film. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15(5), 680-706.
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241-1299.
Eagly, A. H. & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role Congruity Theory of Prejudice Toward Female Leaders. Psychological Review, 109(3), 573–598.
Fredrickson, B., & Roberts, T. (1997). Objectification Theory: Toward Understanding Women’s Lived Experience and Mental Health Risks.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21(2), 173-206.
Heilman, B., Barker, B., & Harrison, A. (2017). Man Box: A Study on Being a Man in the US, UK and Mexico. Equimundo.
Meades, A. F. (2015). Understanding Counterplay in Video Games. NY, NY: Routledge.
Mulvey, L. (1989). Visual and Other Pleasures. London: Macmillan.
Rossiter, M.W. (1993). The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science. Sage Journals, 23(2), 325-341.
Waggoner, Z. (2009). My Avatar, Myself: Identity in Video Role-playing Games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.
Yee, N. (2014). The Proteus Paradox: How Online Games and Virtual Worlds Change us-and How They Don’t. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Young, J. (2008). Cultural Appropriation and the Arts. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
