Online video games are social spaces for players from around the world. They use this space to form communities, relationships, and identities. However, gaming communities are not always welcoming, and some are even perceived as being “toxic.” A prevalent issue is online sexual harassment, which is keeping many women from participating in the gaming community. Research on the factors contributing to the problem is limited, though. The present study replicates and expands previous research, using a sample of 856 online gamers. The study supports earlier findings that found hostile sexism and social dominance orientation as predictors of sexual harassment perpetration in online video games. In addition, we expanded the previous research with additional predictors: machiavellianism, psychopathy, and gamer identification predicted higher sexual harassment perpetration. Our results have implications for the gaming community's role in curtailing sexual harassment and making itself a more inclusive community.

1 INTRODUCTION Video games are popular entertainment media worldwide. However, there are notable country differences (Quandt, Chen, Mäyrä, & Van Looy, 2014). In some places, games are a form of mainstream entertainment or even a form of competitive sports (Bányai, Griffiths, Király, & Demetrovics, 2018; like in South Korea), while in others, they are still regarded to be a niche interest for specific parts of society, especially a younger, male audience (like in Germany). However, even in these later cases, there has been notable growth in games used throughout various parts of society (Quandt, Breuer, Festl, & Scharkow, 2013). The growth in video games’ global popularity is impressive, but this is not necessarily paralleled by a synchronous change of perception. Often, video games are still regarded as an activity for men only, causing significant problems for women's participation in gaming especially within the core group of self‐identified “gamers” (Shaw, 2012). While the gender gap seems to be closing in terms of the widest user range, there are still notable differences in preferences and behavior, especially among the “hardcore” users (Scharkow, Festl, Vogelgesang, & Quandt, 2015; Vermeulen & Van Looy, 2016). The experiences of women and other groups that are portrayed as outsiders or minorities in gamer culture can be discouraging or worse. Indeed, research shows that (online) video games can be hostile environments as a product of competitive play via trash talk similarly observed in sports (Breuer, Scharkow, & Quandt, 2015). Furthermore, some online competitive video games have been plagued by intense player‐to‐player hostility that caused players to quit (Fox & Tang, 2016; Shores, He, Swanenburg, Kraut, & Riedl, 2014). The hostility is also reported in cooperative and community‐driven video games (Ballard & Welch, 2015; Beale, McKittrick, & Richards, 2016; Brehm, 2013). Its pervasiveness impressed upon young players as a normative feature in gaming culture, thus reinforcing hostility in a vicious cycle (McInroy & Mishna, 2017). In gaming culture, women are often harassed because they are perceived as an outside and intrusive minority; this is exemplified by the Gamergate controversy where self‐identified gamers threatened with violence to female video game developers for raising problematic gender issues in video game culture (Consalvo, 2012; Gray, 2012; Gray, Buyukozturk, & Hill, 2017). Indeed, sexual harassment has been identified as a relevant problem for female gamers (Fox & Tang, 2017). Given the visible and sexist attacks on women in video games, some academic attention focused on its effects. A variety of surveys and interviews with targets of sexual harassment in online video games revealed converging evidence. Surveyed online players, especially female players, frequently experienced sexual harassment, either directly or indirectly while playing online video games (Ballard & Welch, 2015; Brehm, 2013). These surveys examined sexual harassment with single or few questions, such as whether they have experienced sexual harassment or sexism. However, individuals’ conception of sexual harassment widely differs, a more reliable measure is by examining the frequency of specific sexual harassment behaviors that would not vary by individual perceptions (Magley, Hulin, Fitzgerald, & DeNardo, 1999). Two surveys by Fox and Tang assessed the frequency of victimization and perpetration, respectively, on specific sexual harassment behaviors in online video games (Fox & Tang, 2016; Tang & Fox, 2016). In one study (Tang & Fox, 2016), they found that high levels of hostile sexism and social dominance orientation (SDO) predicted men's sexual harassment perpetration. However, this study is not without limitations: Tang and Fox (2016) relied on a self‐selected sample, a specific game of choice and the US‐context. Also, the study was limited to men's perpetration in video games as past studies indicate that men perpetuate more sexual harassment than women across contexts; henceforth it is not known how often women perpetuate these behaviors (Henry & Powell, 2016; Pina, Gannon, & Saunders, 2009). The present study addresses these limitations in a partial replication of the study by Tang and Fox (2016), using a nationally representative sample in a different national context (Germany). Furthermore, it expands the earlier work by using additional explanatory factors such as identification as a gamer and personality traits associated with sexual aggression, such as narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy (Zeigler‐Hill, Besser, Morag, & Campbell, 2016). By doing so, it helps in evaluating previous work and building a solid foundation for research in an area that deserves more scientific attention, given its societal relevance.

2 ONLINE VIDEO GAMES AND AGGRESSION At a very basic level, harassment experiences are bound to social interaction. In contrast, and very stereotypically, video games are portrayed as a solitary experience—but the “lonely” gamer has always been a misleading reduction (Kowert, Domahidi, Festl, & Quandt, 2014). Socializing in video games has been present throughout its history (Quandt & Kröger, 2013). Already the first video game, Spacewar!, required two players to play which set the template for subsequent video games. Youth playing arcades during the 1980 s enjoyed playing with their friends or watching their friends play (Egli & Meyers, 1984). With the advent of the internet, the social experience in video games has expanded and diversified. Many online video games take advantage of players’ need for socializing with each other to various effects. For example, some massively multiplayer online games, such as World of Warcraft, have players choose a faction, pushing them to collaborate with other faction members and to compete against players of the opposing faction. Team‐based video games, such as League of Legends and Counter‐Strike: Global Offensive, have two teams of players opposing each other fostering cooperation and competition. Likewise, players use the gaming environment as a social space, such as forming relationships, building communities, and constructing an identity (Schiano, Nardi, Debeauvais, Ducheneaut, & Yee, 2014). However, men dominated the social dynamics in online video games, especially in competitive genres (Nagygyörgy et al., 2013). The players’ hostility toward women is seen as a part of the homosocial experiences of online video gaming for male players (McInroy & Mishna, 2017), and a reflection of the aggressive content and context. Indeed, some meta‐analytical findings indicated that violent video game content led to increased aggression and hostility in players (Anderson et al., 2010; Greitemeyer & Mugge, 2014) and over time according to longitudinal studies (Prescott, Sargent, & Hull, 2018). It needs to be noted, though, that other meta‐analyses found relatively weak support for this assumption (Ferguson, 2007; Sherry, 2007), or proposed more complex processes, including selection effects (Breuer, Vogelgesang, Quandt, & Festl, 2015). The issues of toxic gamer communities did not go unnoticed in the industry as well. The hostility between players in online video games have been gaining attention from video game developers as players may withdraw from such a hostile online environment, threatening their revenue stream (Fox & Tang, 2016; Shores et al., 2014).

3 ONLINE SEXUAL HARASSMENT Sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual advances or other conduct that targets someone based on their sex, inclusive of gender harassment, making suggestive or discriminatory comments, and sexual coercion, forcing someone to perform sex acts (Pina et al., 2009). Examples of sexual harassment in online video games include sexist jokes, sexist insults, unwanted sexual advances, rape jokes, and comments about female players’ appearances (Fox & Tang, 2013). Sexual harassment is perpetrated most often by men targeting women in both offline and online contexts (Henry & Powell, 2016; Pina et al., 2009). Field experiments in online video games where researchers interacted with other anonymous players using prerecorded neutral messages revealed that these players reacted depending on the voice's gender. The results were that the female‐voiced player received three times the amount of negative comments than the male‐voiced player received and female‐voiced received more so from lower skilled players (Kasumovic & Kuznekoff, 2015; Kuznekoff & Rose, 2013); female‐voiced players who conformed to gender stereotypes were more likely to have their friend request accepted (Holz Ivory, Fox, Waddell, & Ivory, 2014). Furthermore, online surveys and interviews with gamers provided evidence that women players are disproportionately targets of sexual harassment (Assunção, 2016; Behm‐Morawitz & Schipper, 2016; Brehm, 2013; Cote, 2017; Fox & Tang, 2016). Thus, women are likely to be targets of sexual harassment in online video games and likewise would perpetrate less often than men do. We, therefore, can hypothesize: H1.Female players perpetrate sexual harassment in online video games less often than male players do. Pryor, Giedd, and Williams (1995) posited a theoretical model that sexual harassment perpetration is a function of situational and personal factors. Thus, we further examine how the online gaming environment and relevant personality traits affect sexual harassment perpetration.

4 SOCIAL IDENTITY MODEL OF DEINDIVIDUATION EFFECTS AND THE GAMER IDENTITY In online video games, players are represented by very few social cues, such as their usernames, avatars, or profile images. According to the social identity model of deindividuation effects, these limited social cues lead to feelings of anonymity, which in turn leads to shifting from personal identity to social identity (Lea & Spears, 1991). For players, they would self‐identify and behave as their fellow gamers or perhaps as a player of a specific video game. The research found that players identifying to the in‐game faction they belong to displayed favoritism to other members of the same faction (Guegan, Moliner, & Buisine, 2015). Conversely, players who belong to perceived outgroups are depersonalized and stereotyped (Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 1998). In brief, a depersonalized player identifying as a gamer would behave according to its perceived social norms, including antisocial behaviors, such as griefing, trolling, cyberbullying, and online harassment (Chen, Duh, & Ng, 2009; Fox & Tang, 2014). The gamer identity is stereotypically of white, heterosexual male despite the actual diversity of video game players (Gray, 2012; Shaw, 2012). Other aspects defining a gamer include time investment in gaming, self‐identification, specific genre preferences, knowledge, and preferences to certain design game elements (De Grove, Courtois, & Van Looy, 2015; Paaßen, Morgenroth, & Stratemeyer, 2016; Richard, 2017). Some self‐identifying gamers might use these aspects to deny others this identity through derogatory labels (Paaßen et al., 2016; Richard, 2017). For example, players who play certain types of games, such as games on web browsers, social networking sites, or mobile devices are considered not true gamers, but “casuals” (Scharkow et al., 2015; Shaw, 2012). Another example is female players being denied gamer status as “fake geek girls,” women who play video games with ostensibly sexual motives (Richard, 2017), consequently female players may be forced to choose between a female or a gamer identity (Paaßen et al., 2016). According to the social identity theory, these acts of identity denial, especially toward sexual and ethnic minorities, are suggested to be social identity threat responses, justifying directed antisocial behaviors against outgroup members (Maass, Cadinu, Guarnieri, & Grasselli, 2003). In their analysis of men's harassment behavior in online video games, Tang and Fox (2016) examined video game involvement rather than gamer identity as a predictor. They found that involvement was predictive of nongendered harassment, but not sexual harassment. The lack of significant finding for sexual harassment may be due to participants narrowing their involvement to a single video game rather than gamer culture in general. Thus, this study will examine more broadly by considering the gamer identity as a predictor of sexual harassment perpetration. We hypothesize: H2.Higher levels of gamer identification will be associated with more sexual harassment perpetration in online video games

5 PREDICTORS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT In their study, Tang and Fox (2016) already found two relevant personality predictors of sexual harassment in online video games: hostile sexism and social dominance orientation. The theory of ambivalent sexism defined hostile sexism as antipathy toward women and a sense of superiority over women, who are viewed as trying to manipulate and dominate men because of their inherent inferiority (Glick & Fiske, 1996). Several studies found that hostile sexism was predictive of men's sexual aggression against women across different contexts, such as between dating couples (Cross, Overall, Hammond, & Fletcher, 2016), and in their likelihood to communicate sexist jokes to a woman (Diehl, Rees, & Bohner, 2012). We therefore hypothesize: H3.Higher levels of hostile sexism will be associated with more sexual harassment perpetration in online video games. SDO (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) refers to individuals’ beliefs regarding society's organization of social groups, whether these groups should be treated as equals or structured in a hierarchy with some groups dominating over subordinate groups. SDO has been linked to prejudicial beliefs and behaviors against sexual and ethnic minorities (Pratto, Sidanius, & Levin, 2006). In the context of the gamer identity, some gamers with high SDO are likely to sexually harass other players as a means to assert their dominant social status. Hence, the following hypothesis: H4.Higher levels of SDO will be associated with more sexual harassment perpetration in online video games. Furthermore, and in an extension to previous research, we include dark personality traits as additional predictors of online sexual harassment perpetration in the present study. Recent works have found such dark personality features to be associated to various antisocial behaviors both in offline and online contexts, including online trolling, aggression, sexual aggression, cyberstalking, and sexual harassment (Buckels, Trapnell, & Paulhus, 2014; Carton & Egan, 2017; Furnham, Richards, & Paulhus, 2013; Jones & Olderbak, 2014; Pina, Holland, & James, 2017; Smoker & March, 2017; Zeigler‐Hill, Besser, Morag, & Keith Campbell, 2016). These personality traits share a common nature of being socially aversive, hence the “dark” moniker (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Although they originated in clinical psychology, these traits can be found to a lesser degree among normal and functioning individuals. The first is narcissism, characterized by self‐perceived entitlement and grandiosity. The second, machiavellianism, is a personality centered around cynical, unprincipled manipulation. The third, psychopathy, is characterized by impulsivity, thrill‐seeking, and callousness (Furnham et al., 2013). As these dark personality traits involve exploitation, callousness, and entitlement, it is reasonable to suggest that individuals high in those dark qualities will seek sexual exploitation opportunities, also in online games. Therefore, we predict that players high in those dark traits are more likely to sexually harass other players online. H5a.Higher levels of narcissism will be associated with more sexual harassment perpetration in online video games. H5b.Higher levels of machiavellianism will be associated with more sexual harassment perpetration in online video games. H5c.Higher levels of psychopathy will be associated with more sexual harassment perpetration in online video games. In their study on sexual harassment in video games, Tang and Fox (2016) hypothesized that more time spent playing online games will be associated with more harassment behaviors in such games. They assume that spending time in online video games would expose them to harassment, and players may then learn the social norms of their gaming environment which in turn re‐enact these harassment behaviors themselves (McInroy & Mishna, 2017). However, their results only supported the hypothesis for general harassment (i.e., nongendered insults). In the present study, we revisit Tang and Fox's more specific hypothesis in the context of a representative sample. H6.More time spent playing video games will be associated with more sexual harassment perpetration in online video games.

6 METHOD 6.1 Sample The data were collected as part of a large representative online survey of 2,000 German Internet users aged 14–39 years. The study was conducted in cooperation with a leading German market and opinion research institute and the sample was stratified based on age, gender, and living region. The study was conducted in accordance with the ethical approval regulations of the host institution and the professional research institute adhering to the ESOMAR code. Respondents were informed about the purpose of the study, consented in their participation and could opt out at all times. A total of 71 respondents were removed for data irregularities (i.e., straight‐lining response, extreme/impossible values in their answers to media usage questions). A majority of the respondents played video games at least sometimes (n = 1,502). For the present study, those who had indicated never to play online together with others (n = 643) were removed from all analyses. Furthermore, three respondents refused to answer the items of the sexual harassment perpetration scale, leading to a final sample size of 856. The respondents (N = 856) included men (n = 574) and women (n = 282) who ranged in age from 14 to 39 (M = 26.76, Standard Deviation = 6.95). The most frequently cited games were title series belonging to FIFA (n = 84), Grand Theft Auto (n = 36), Call of Duty (n = 31), Counter‐Strike (n = 30), Battlefield (n = 29), League of Legends (n = 25), Sims (n = 22), and World of Warcraft (n = 19). 6.2 Measures 6.2.1 Video game sexual harassment perpetration Eight items were used to measure sexual harassment perpetration in online video game environments, such as sexist comments or insults, comments regarding a player's physical appearance, and rape jokes (Tang & Fox, 2013, 2016). Each item is accompanied by examples, such as “asked to be their girlfriend/boyfriend” for expressing affection to another player. The items were translated to German with a professional translation agency and the assistance of the first author. Respondents indicated how often they perpetrated each behavior (1 = never, 5 = very often). 6.2.2 Hostile sexism Four items were used from the German translation of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Eckes & Six‐Materna, 1999; Glick & Fiske, 1996). Respondents indicated their agreement on a six‐point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 6 = strongly agree). 6.2.3 Social dominance orientation Four items were used from the German translation of the SDO scale (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999; Zick, Küpper, & Hövermann, 2011). Respondents indicated their agreement on a seven‐point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree). 6.2.4 Dark triad of personality Nine items were used from the German Naughty Nine inventory (Jonason & Webster, 2010; Küfner, Dufner, & Back, 2015). The items assessed respondents’ narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Respondents indicated how each statement described them on a nine‐point Likert scale (1 = does not apply at all; 9 = does fully apply). 6.2.5 Gamer identity Three items were adapted from Ellemers, Kortekaas, and Ouwerkerk (1999) assessment on social identity and were translated to German. The adapted items referred respondents to their social identity connection toward gamers, such as “I identify with other gamers,” “I feel emotionally attached to other gamers,” and “I like being a gamer.” Respondents indicated their agreement on a five‐point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree).

7 RESULTS To examine the hypothesis regarding gender difference in sexual harassment perpetration, a t test revealed a significant difference in the frequency of sexual harassment perpetration in that women perpetrated less often than men (see Table 1). Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and t tests of all measures comparing male and female participants Men Women Variable M SD M SD t(854) p Cohen's d Cronbach's α Sexual harassment perpetration 2.05 1.03 1.81 0.97 3.27 <.001 0.24 0.95 Hostile sexism 3.16 1.15 2.74 1.16 4.90 <.001 0.36 0.87 Social dominance orientation 3.59 1.19 3.40 1.14 2.25 .025 0.16 0.62 Narcissism 4.63 1.91 4.36 1.99 1.98 .048 0.14 0.85 Machiavellianism 4.16 1.91 3.72 1.95 3.15 .002 0.23 0.84 Psychopathy 4.15 1.90 3.56 1.94 4.23 <.001 0.31 0.79 Gamer identity 2.97 0.98 2.65 1.09 4.31 <.001 0.31 0.82 Time spent on video games (hours per week) 15.46 19.61 12.08 20.56 2.34 .02 0.17 N 574 282 Correlations for all variables stated in hypotheses 2–6 can be seen in Table 2. Replicating Tang and Fox (2016), an ordinary least squares regression was conducted to examine the hypotheses. All variables have variance inflation values under 3, thus signifying an absence of multicollinearity. As seen in Table 3, the regression analysis predicted sexual harassment perpetration, R = 0.67, adjusted R2 = 0.46, F(8, 847) = 89.24, p < .001. The following variables were significant predictors of sexual harassment perpetration: increasing levels of gamer identification, hostile sexism, SDO, machiavellianism, and psychopathy. However, narcissism, time spent playing, and gender were not significant predictors of sexual harassment perpetration. Table 2. Zero‐order correlations between variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 VG play time – Gender −0.08* – [−0.15, −0.01] Gamer identity .25** −0.15** – [0.19, 0.32] [−0.21, −0.07] SDO .04 −0.08* .20** – [−0.03, 0.10] [−0.14, −0.01] [0.13, 0.26] Hostile sexism .12** −.17** .31** .51** – [0.05, 0.19] [−0.23, −0.09] [0.24, 0.37] [0.45, 0.58] Narcissism −.03 −.07* .22** .31** .35** – [−0.09, 0.03] [−0.13, 0.00] [0.14, 0.30] [0.23, 0.38] [0.28, 0.42] Machiavellianism .03 −.11** .26** .34** .45** .64** – [−0.03, 0.10] [−0.18, −0.03] [0.18, 0.33] [0.27, 0.41] [0.39, 0.51] [0.58, 0.69] Psychopathy .04 −.14** .24** .41** .51** .52** .71** – [−0.03, 0.10] [−0.21, −0.07] [0.17, 0.31] [0.35, 0.48] [0.45, 0.57] [0.46, 0.59] [0.67, 0.76] Sexual harassment perpetration .10* −.11** .35** .37** .50** .40** .57** .58** – [0.03, 0.16] [−0.17, −0.04] [0.29, 0.41] [0.31, 0.44] [0.43, 0.55] [0.34, 0.46] [0.52, 0.63] [0.53, 0.63] Table 3. Regression table for predicting online gaming sexual harassment perpetration B SE β t p sr2 95% CI (Constant) Gender .02 .06 .01 0.37 .71 .01 [−0.09, 0.12] Hostile sexism .15 .03 .17 5.08 <.001 .13 [0.08, 0.21] Gamer identity .16 .03 .16 5.66 <.001 .14 [0.10, 0.21] Social dominance orientation .06 .03 .07 2.25 .03 .06 [0.01, 0.11] Narcissism −0.01 .02 −0.01 −0.30 .76 −.01 [−0.04, 0.11] Machiavellianism .14 .02 .26 6.51 <.001 .17 [0.10, 0.19] Psychopathy .13 .02 .25 6.46 <.001 .16 [0.09, 0.18] Time spent playing .00 .00 .02 0.62 .53 .02 [−0.00, 0.00]

8 DISCUSSION This study's goal was to analyze personality and contextual factors that predict sexual harassment perpetration in online video games. Sexual harassment behaviors include sexist comments and insults, comments regarding a player's physical appearance, and rape jokes. The present study has replicated results from Tang and Fox (2016), namely that hostile sexism and SDO were predictors of sexual harassment perpetration in online video games. The present study has replicated its nonsignificant findings as well, time spent playing video games did not predict sexual harassment perpetration. Thus, the present study's findings increase our confidence on reliably predicting sexual harassment perpetration in online video games. The study addressed some of the methodological limitations from earlier research by surveying a large and nationally representative sample of German Internet users. This allows for the analysis of harassment tendencies among all users of online multiplayer games (and not just self‐selected users of specific games), a comparison of gender differences, and the analysis of a wider range of personality features. Our findings indicated that men significantly perpetrated more sexual harassment in online video games than women do. These results support one of the fundamental propositions of sexual harassment being a gendered phenomenon (Pina et al., 2009). Second, respondents’ sexual harassment perpetration level is represented by their general online gaming experience rather than confined to a single video game. Finally, the survey was conducted with German respondents and thus the replicated and extended results suggest greater generalizability being warranted to Western countries. Nevertheless, these findings still require cross‐cultural replications, for example, in non‐western countries, such as Japan or South Korea, where gaming has greater cultural prominence. The dark personalities of machiavellianism and psychopathy were significant predictors of sexual harassment perpetration, but narcissism was not. With these partially supported hypotheses, this indicates that sexual harassment in online video games may be a part of a constellation of sexual aggressive strategies that players high in those traits would use along with sexual coercion, and revenge porn (Jones & Olderbak, 2014; Pina et al., 2017). Given the nonsignificant association for narcissism, this would suggest that certain traits might be exacerbated by situational contexts. As such, machiavellianism and psychopathy would fit well within video games’ competitive and hostile environments, as these players high in those traits would manipulate, cheat, or lie to win. The fourth dark personality trait, sadism, has been recently discussed as an extension of the dark triad and should be examined in the given context as well, as it has been linked to sexual assault (Russell & King, 2016). Thus, future research should examine how these traits would predict other in‐game behaviors, such as cheating, trolling, and trash‐talking. Our findings support the hypothesis that female players perpetrate sexual harassment less often than male players do, yet gender was not a significant predictor of sexual harassment perpetration. This suggests that the predictive factors of sexual harassment perpetration apply to both gender and the difference in perpetration rate is a function of women's lower average scores than men on the predictor variables, as shown in Table 1. Berdahl (2007) argued that sexual harassment is possible for both genders if it is primarily driven to protect one's threatened social status. Hence, a potential factor for sexual harassment perpetration would be gender beliefs, as women with internalized misogyny are more hostile toward other women (Cowan, 2000). Further evidence includes the “Queen Bee phenomenon” where the few women in leadership positions in male‐dominated environments tend be more hostile toward other women, such behaviors have also been reported in online video games (D'Anastasio, 2017; Derks, Ellemers, van Laar, & de Groot, 2011). Therefore, female gamers may be motivated to sexual harass other players to defend their gamer social status among their fellow male gamers. Future research should examine other forms of harassment, such as homophobic insults and harassment against LGBT players. Gamer identification was found to be a predictor of sexual harassment perpetration. This supports existing video game research that the gamer identity is associated exclusively to heterosexual masculinity. As the gamer identity, currently conceptualized by respondents and across gaming media (Chess, Evans, & Baines, 2016), is exclusively masculine, this suggests no allowances for feminine identity and by extension, any nonhetero identities (Evans & Janish, 2015). An example of heterosexist masculinity in video games is an incident where players of an online multiplayer video game responded negatively to the inclusion of playing as a gay male character (Condis, 2014). Hence, individuals who do not fit the stereotypical demographic would be less likely identified as a gamer by their peers. The positive correlations of gamer identification with hostile sexism, SDO, and the dark personalities demonstrate psychological evidence that parts of video game culture are associated to toxic masculinity (Consalvo, 2012). Such toxicity is demonstrated by the Gamergate incident where several female video game developers were targets of a harassment campaign (Gray et al., 2017). This finding opens an important avenue in alleviating sexual harassment in video games. For example, as gamers identify with other gamers, this means that influential individuals, such as game developers, gaming journalists, gaming youtubers (e.g., Pewdiepie), or professional gamers among others, would have significant persuasive influence, where they communicate to their audience that they do not tolerate sexual harassment behaviors.

9 LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSION The use of shortened scales in the survey may affect the results. Even though the scales used were from the same sources as used in the original survey, the study was part of a larger survey and thus there are practical limits in surveying respondents for multiple studies without causing fatigue. With such limitations, this led us not to fully replicate variables that were not significant in the original study, such as benevolent sexism. Furthermore, we did not ask who the targets of sexual harassment were, whether they were male or female players, thus future research should probe who is targeted and what factors predict such targeting. Another limitation is that we did not assess their exposure to video game violence (whether its content or aggression from other players) that could potentially affect their sexual harassment perpetration. In brief, the present study replicated earlier findings (Tang & Fox, 2016) and expanded them with additional factors explaining sexual harassment behavior in online video games. Given the general consistency of the study with previous research and other findings from related areas, this strengthens the confidence in the findings of a still‐developing research field and paves the way for more detailed studies on a societally relevant topic.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT Parts of the research leading to these results were funded by the Daimler & Benz Foundation via the project “Internet und seelische Gesundheit” ("Internet and Mental Health").