An investigation of morality for gamer and non gamers in real life and video game contexts

Conference: 1st Annual Cyberpsychology Conference

Dates: 19 September 2013

Abstract:

This study aimed to explore elements of morality by comparing gamers and non gamers in two different contexts (real life and videogames). Early research investigating moral beliefs and virtual worlds (Jackson, Zhao, Witt, Fitzgerald and Voneye, 2009) found that children accepted immoral beliefs and these beliefs were being transferred from reality into the video games. However, there is little research since then which examines the role of morality in videogames and if videogame use has an influence on perceptions of morality. The independent variables were gaming status (non gamer and gamer) and context (real life and video game). Fifty undergraduate participants completed a questionnaire using Thurstone equal appearing intervals scale to collect a measure of morality and a categorisation chart was used to record observations and discover themes. Four two tailed hypotheses were proposed and a series of ANOVA tests applied. Surprisingly, all experimental hypotheses were rejected and it was concluded that there were no significant differences in moral attitudes and behaviours between real life and video games contexts for gamers or non-gamers. This has important implications for understanding the impact of video gaming and the morality of individuals engaging in them.

Source: Manual

Preferred by: Jacqui Taylor