Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking
Volume 21, Issue 11, 2018, Pages 687-693

Game Perspective-Taking Effects on Players' Behavioral Intention, Attitudes, Subjective Norms, and Self-Efficacy to Help Immigrants: The Case of "Papers, Please" (Review)

Peña J.* , Hernández Pérez J.F. , Khan S. , Cano Gómez A.P.
  • a Department of Communication, University of California, Davis, 367 Kerr Hall, Davis, CA 95616, United States
  • b Faculty of Communication, Audiovisual Communication Area, Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, Murcia, Spain
  • c Department of Communication, University of California, Davis, 367 Kerr Hall, Davis, CA 95616, United States
  • d Faculty of Communication, Audiovisual Communication Area, Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, Murcia, Spain

Abstract

This study expands on game character perspective-taking effects on political opinions while controlling for players' social dominance orientation or inclination for inequality among social groups. Random assignment to play a game as an immigration inspector decreased intention, subjective norms, and self-efficacy to help immigrants relative to baseline scores. The scores of participants randomly assigned to play a game similar in style but instead featuring the role of a newspaper editor remained unchanged. Within-subjects effects implied that baseline reductions in intention, subjective norms, and self-efficacy to help immigrants were solely attributed to playing games as game immigration inspectors. The study provides initial evidence that taking on the perspective of game characters can influence players' opinions about political issues, such as immigration. © 2018, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

Author Keywords

Immigration video games Theory of planned behavior Perspective taking

Index Keywords

role playing immigrant publication cooperation randomization Random Allocation video game human immigration Video Games controlled study randomized controlled trial social dominance Helping Behavior Self Efficacy Humans migrant psychology attitude male Emigrants and Immigrants editor female Review Behavior self concept inspector Intention Theory of Planned Behavior adult human experiment politics
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85056308276&doi=10.1089%2fcyber.2018.0030&partnerID=40&md5=971be83e9be568ca990f559c08bd2321
DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2018.0030
ISSN: 21522715
Cited by: 1
Original Language: English