The Effects of a Serious Game on Role-Taking and Willingness to Help

Serious games are emerging as a new medium for social change. This study investigated the influence of presentation mode afforded by different media on willingness to help in the context of humanitarianaid. Two online experiments were conducted. Thefirst experiment demonstrated that playing the Darfur is Dying game elicited greater role-taking and resulted in greater willingness to help the Darfurian people than reading a text conveying thesameinformation.Thesecondexperimentdeconstructedthevariablepresentationmode in more detail by adding a game watching condition. Similar results were found such that game playing resulted in greater role-taking and willingness to help than game watching and text reading. Implications for researchers and game developers are also discussed.

[1]  Walter Coutu,et al.  Role-Playing vs. Role-Taking: An Appeal for Clarification , 1951 .

[2]  M. Feffer.  The cognitive implications of role taking behavior. , 1959, Journal of personality.

[3]  Robert Liebendorfer.  Mind, self and society , 1960 .

[4]  John H. Flavell,et al.  The development of role-taking and communication skills in children , 1968 .

[5]  J. Freedman.  Role playing: Psychology by consensus. , 1969 .

[6]  Ezra Stotland,et al.  Exploratory Investigations of Empathy1 , 1969 .

[7]  S. Altman,et al.  The development of role-taking and communication skills in children , 1969 .

[8]  C. Hendrick,et al.  Role-Taking and Role-Playing in Human Communication , 1974 .

[9]  Dean Tjosvold,et al.  Effects of controversy on cognitive perspective taking. , 1977 .

[10]  C. Batson,et al.  Empathic mediation of helping: A two-stage model. , 1978 .

[11]  J. Gibson.  The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception , 1979 .

[12]  G. Salomon.  Interaction of media, cognition and learning , 1979 .

[13]  Mark H. Davis.  Individual differences in empathy: A multidimensional approach. , 1980 .

[14]  H. Clayton Foushee,et al.  The role of dispositional empathy and social evaluation in the empathic mediation of helping. , 1981 .

[15]  D. L. Miller,et al.  The individual and the social self , 1982 .

[16]  Mark H. Davis.  Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. , 1983 .

[17]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[18]  N. Eisenberg,et al.  The relation of empathy to prosocial and related behaviors. , 1987, Psychological bulletin.

[19]  N. Eisenberg,et al.  Empathy and its development , 1987 .

[20]  Gavriel Salomon,et al.  Cognitive Effects With and Of Computer Technology , 1990 .

[21]  Kevin L. Harrell,et al.  Empathic joy and the empathy-altruism hypothesis. , 1991, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[22]  M. Hoffman,et al.  The contribution of empathy to justice and moral judgment , 1993 .

[23]  Mark H. Davis.  Empathy: A Social Psychological Approach , 1994 .

[24]  J. Dovidio,et al.  The psychology of helping and altruism: Problems and puzzles. , 1995 .

[25]  Mark H. Davis,et al.  Effect of perspective taking on the cognitive representation of persons: a merging of self and other. , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[26]  C. Daniel Batson,et al.  Is Empathy-Induced Helping Due to Self–Other Merging? , 1997 .

[27]  Steven L. Neuberg,et al.  Reinterpreting the empathy-altruism relationship: when one into one equals oneness. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[28]  P. Vorderer,et al.  Media entertainment: The psychology of its appeal. , 2000 .

[29]  P. Vorderer.  Interactive entertainment and beyond , 2000 .

[30]  Daniel G. McDonald,et al.  When I Die, I Feel Small: Electronic Game Characters and the Social Self , 2001 .

[31]  Jonathan Cohen.  Defining Identification: A Theoretical Look at the Identification of Audiences With Media Characters , 2001 .

[32]  Peter Salovey,et al.  Construing action abstractly and blurring social distinctions: implications for perceiving homogeneity among, but also empathizing with and helping, others. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[33]  N. Epley,et al.  Perspective taking as egocentric anchoring and adjustment. , 2004, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[34]  Etienne Mullet,et al.  Perspective-taking judgments among young adults, middle-aged, and elderly people. , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. Applied.

[35]  David R. Michael,et al.  Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform , 2005 .

[36]  R. Mayer,et al.  Role of guidance, reflection, and interactivity in an agent-based multimedia game , 2005 .

[37]  J. Bryant,et al.  Psychology of entertainment , 2006 .

[38]  C. Klimmt,et al.  Effectance, self-efficacy, and the motivation to play video games , 2006 .

[39]  Paul Skalski,et al.  The Role of Presence in the Experience of Electronic Games , 2004 .

[40]  Aphra Kerr,et al.  The Business and Culture of Digital Games: Gamework and Gameplay , 2006 .

[41]  K. M. Lee,et al.  What do we know about social and psychological effects of computer games? A Comprehensive review of the current literature , 2006 .

[42]  R. Mayer,et al.  Interactive Multimodal Learning Environments , 2007 .

[43]  C. Batson,et al.  An additional antecedent of empathic concern: valuing the welfare of the person in need. , 2007, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[44]  Mark Vandenbosch,et al.  An Empathy-Helping Perspective on Consumers' Responses to Fund-Raising Appeals , 2008 .

[45]  Wei Peng,et al.  The Mediational Role of Identification in the Relationship between Experience Mode and Self-Efficacy: Enactive Role-Playing versus Passive Observation , 2008, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[46]  R. Ferdig.  Handbook of Research on Effective Electronic Gaming in Education , 2009 .

[47]  Wei Peng,et al.  An Overview of Using Electronic Games for Health Purposes , 2009 .

[48]  J. Bryant,et al.  Playing video games: Motives, responses, and consequences. , 2012 .

[49]  Hans-Bernd Brosius,et al.  Exemplification in communication: The influence of case reports on the perception of issues. , 2012 .

[50]  JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION , 2022 .