‘Men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross’: Gender differences in shared-religion bias in identifying with fictional characters

Abstract

This experimental research investigated if men and/or women have an own-religion bias in their strength<br/>of identification with fictional characters. Past research on this topic in psychology, literary studies, and<br/>game studies is limited and the expectations from identity theory are unclear. A hypertext fiction story<br/>game was used as an experimental stimulus, slightly modified for different participant groups. Almost 400<br/>participants took part and ANOVA analysis carried out. The novel surprising results found no strong<br/>evidence of own-religion bias in identification for either gender but did produce good evidence of gender<br/>bias in identification. This reveals new complexities in identification research and suggests models from<br/>social identity theory may not generalise to identification, with practical application for informing literary<br/>creation.