Given the ubiquity of game play, scholars have become increasingly interested of the ways in which internal and external aspects of games may impact players. One external factor of importance is cognitive framing of games. The present study examined the effects of framing the board game Blokus Duo (Tavitian, 2005); participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions in which the game was framed via game instructions as “spatial,” “strategic,” or was not framed. Results revealed that the spatial frame undermined women’s performance and enhanced men’s performance on a spatial reasoning test relative to the performance of participants to whom the game was not framed. Furthermore, the spatial frame negatively affected game satisfaction for participants relative to the effects of the strategic frame. General implications of these findings, particularly as they pertain to stereotype threat and the field of games for impact, are discussed.
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