Andrew J. Weaver

Mirrored Morality: An Exploration of Moral Choice in Video Games

This exploratory study was designed to examine how players make moral choices in video games and what effects these choices have on emotional responses to the games. Participants (n=75) filled out a moral foundations questionnaire (MFQ) and then played through the first full act of the video game Fallout 3. Game play was recorded and content analyzed for the moral decisions made. Players also reported their enjoyment of and emotional reactions to the game and reflected on the decisions they made. The majority of players made moral decisions and behaved toward the nonplayer game characters they encountered as if these were actual interpersonal interactions. Individual differences in decision making were predicted by the MFQ. Behaving in antisocial ways did increase guilt, but had no impact on enjoyment.

Developing a Brief Sensation Seeking Scale for Children: Establishing Concurrent Validity With Video Game Use and Rule-Breaking Behavior

Despite the importance of life-cycle models to sensation seeking research, past studies have typically focused on adolescents and adults. This is especially problematic for researchers studying the role of media use in the development of risky behaviors (e.g., violent video game consumption and aggressive behavior). To facilitate research with child populations, a brief sensation seeking scale for children (BSSS-C) is developed and validated with a sample of fourth, fifth, and sixth graders (N = 136). The BSSS-C is found to be internally reliable (α = .82) as well as a strong predictor of several risky child behaviors. Higher sensation seeking children were more likely to play video games, including violent subgenres (e.g., shooters), and to enjoy playing video games that contained specific acts of violence (e.g., weapon use). Higher sensation seekers were also more likely to engage in rule-breaking behavior, such as bringing prohibited cell phones to school. The results suggest that sensation seeking may be related to risky behavior at a very young age.

More Than a Game: Sports Media Framing Effects on Attitudes, Intentions, and Enjoyment

Over the past several decades, media coverage of both professional and nonprofessional athletes has reached unprecedented levels. Previously unreported information about these individuals, including their behavior on and off the field, is now massively disseminated to the public for consumption. Although the extensive amount of media coverage often focuses on the athletes’ in-game performances, other information related to their individual characteristics and personal lives can be featured as well. Sports journalists can and do employ various frames that emphasize specific content in their stories; but the influence these frames have on subsequent audience evaluations pertaining to the athletes featured within them is unknown. This study will explore several important factors in the attitude formation process, including features of the media coverage itself, characteristics of the featured athletes, and characteristics of the processing audience. Implications for content producers in the media industry and directions for future research are discussed.

Shall We Play a Game

Over the course of the last decade, many games have shifted from single player to shared social experiences. Yet, most research examining antisocial behavior has focused on coded content and ignored the influence of other players. This paper examines the influence of the behavior of another player on strategy selection, and the formation of expectations, enjoyment, frustration, and state aggression. It reports an experiment examining antisocial griefing behavior in the multiplayer game Neverwinter Nights, where observational learning, revenge seeking, and expectation formation are tested. The results show that (a) the first encounter that a player has in a game shapes both behavior and expectations; (b) environments that facilitate expectation of cooperation will lead to retaliation against players who grief, whereas environments that facilitate expectations of griefing will increase the frequency of griefing, but not the frequency of retaliation against players who grief; and (c) griefing decreases enjoy...

Emotional Responses to Social Comparisons in Reality Television Programming

Abstract. In recent years, the viewing of reality television has become increasingly prevalent among television audiences. However, little is known about the psychological processes at work when viewing these programs. This study examined how social comparisons to cast members influenced emotional responses to reality television programming. Participants (N = 231) were cued with a specific comparison target group and placed in a situation of self-image enhancement or threat. Afterwards, participants watched a clip from a reality television program and then reported their emotional reactions to it. The manipulations of comparison target group and self-image affected both the direction of social comparisons made and their associated emotional responses. Participant gender also influenced social comparisons to the cast members and resulting emotional responses to the content. Although we were unable to compare the social comparison-related emotional responses to reality programs with those of scripted progra...

The Relationship Between Selective Exposure and the Enjoyment of Television Violence

The existing research on the appeal of media violence has led to an apparent incongruity: violent content tends to increase selective exposure to media, but violence often decreases enjoyment. In this experiment, we used two independent manipulations to assess the role of violence in both selective exposure and enjoyment in order to examine the relationship between the two. Program descriptions for four prime-time television dramas were altered to create violent and nonviolent descriptions for each episode. Then the episodes themselves were edited to create violent and nonviolent versions of each. Participants (N = 191) were more likely to choose violent descriptions to watch, but enjoyed the nonviolent episodes more than the violent episodes. Moreover, the nonviolent episodes were rated as more enjoyable even when the participants had chosen to watch a violent program description. From a theoretical perspective, these results suggest the need to move beyond explaining the appeal of violence in terms of increased enjoyment and instead further explore other motivations that could be driving selective exposure to violent content.