TY - JOUR
T1 - Gut or Game? The Influence of Moral Intuitions on Decisions in Video Games
AU - Joeckel, Sven
AU - Bowman, Nicholas David
AU - Dogruel, Leyla
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2012 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2012/10
Y1 - 2012/10
N2 - Recent theorizing on the role of morality in media entertainment suggests morality serves as a guiding force in audience reactions to content. Using moral foundations theory as a base, research has found significant associations between moral salience and audience preferences for and responses to film and television varying in their presentations of morality. Our study extends this work by testing the same relationship in video games. Because a distinguishing factor between video games and traditional media is interactivity, our study focuses on how moral salience predicts decisions made in a video game. We find that increased moral salience led to a decreased probability of moral violations, while decreased moral salience led to an observed random (50%) distribution of violations. This finding was largely stable across different morality subcultures (German, United States) and age groups (adolescents and elderly), with deviations from this pattern explained by theory. We interpret this as evidence for a gut or game explanation of decision making in video games. When users encounter virtual scenarios that prime their moral sensitivities, they rely on their moral intuitions; otherwise, they make satisficing decisions not as an indication of moral corruption but merely as a continuation of the virtual experience.
AB - Recent theorizing on the role of morality in media entertainment suggests morality serves as a guiding force in audience reactions to content. Using moral foundations theory as a base, research has found significant associations between moral salience and audience preferences for and responses to film and television varying in their presentations of morality. Our study extends this work by testing the same relationship in video games. Because a distinguishing factor between video games and traditional media is interactivity, our study focuses on how moral salience predicts decisions made in a video game. We find that increased moral salience led to a decreased probability of moral violations, while decreased moral salience led to an observed random (50%) distribution of violations. This finding was largely stable across different morality subcultures (German, United States) and age groups (adolescents and elderly), with deviations from this pattern explained by theory. We interpret this as evidence for a gut or game explanation of decision making in video games. When users encounter virtual scenarios that prime their moral sensitivities, they rely on their moral intuitions; otherwise, they make satisficing decisions not as an indication of moral corruption but merely as a continuation of the virtual experience.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84870977963&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/15213269.2012.727218
DO - 10.1080/15213269.2012.727218
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84870977963
VL - 15
SP - 460
EP - 485
JO - Media Psychology
JF - Media Psychology
SN - 1521-3269
IS - 4
ER -