Paper Info
Title
Our Virtual Selves, Our Virtual Morals: Mass Effect Players' Personality and In-Game Choices
Abstract
While many studies have been done on the consequences of playing aggressive games, there is little research on games where players can make choices that affect the storyline and the level of violence they employ. This online study focused on the Mass Effects series, which offers players' choices in how the story progresses, and positions them on Paragon (peaceful, 'rule adherence') or Renegade (aggressive, 'end justifies the means') alignment scale. We recruited 1007 players (69% women, 19% men, mean age=22, SD=5 years), and investigated how their choice to align with Paragon or Renegade positions was related to their Big Five personality traits, and to their decisions in two 'trolley' dilemmas. It was found that Renegade players scored significantly less on Agreeableness (mean 2.94 points) than Mixed players (mean 3.22) and Paragon players (mean 3.35). In the first trolley task (pulling a lever and thus killing one person to save five) there was no significant association between the playstyle and the decision made, with the majority of players electing to pull the lever. However, there was a significant group effect in the second trolley scenario (pushing a bystander onto the tracks to save five other lives), where the Renegade players were more likely to act (54%) than Mixed (40%) or Paragon players (30%).
Year
DOI
Venue
2016
10.1109/iTAG.2016.20
2016 International Conference on Interactive Technologies and Games (ITAG)
Keywords
DocType
ISBN
Individual differences,Moral choices,Video game play
Conference
978-1-5090-3739-1
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
0
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Eva Murzyn100.68
Evelien Valgaeren200.34