Playing for a Better Future: How Animal Avatars Influence the Attitude of Players
First author: EmmerichYear: 2024
Abstract
Digital games allowus to adopt the avatar’s perspective and experience the (virtual)world from another point of view. The positive effects of such role swaps are well-documented in contexts such as combating racial or ethnic biases. Our work expands this research direction by considering animal avatars: We hypothesize that playing as an animal can improve our attitude towards wildlife and nature. In particular, this manuscript contributes a first systematic study on the effects of animal avatars on players’ implicit attitudes towards animals. Our study (N = 78) employs two commercial games featuring different animal avatars, Endling - Extinction is Forever and Bee Simulator, and compares the results of implicit association tests administered before and after gameplay. Our findings confirm significant positive effects of the games on players’ implicit associations with foxes and bees. Together with several interesting insights regarding player-avatar relationships and avatar identification, our work paves the groundwork for games contributing positively to societal change.Details
Language: EnglishCountry of affiliation: Germany
Published in: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Publication type: Journal article
Source: https://doi.org/10.1145/3677096
Games
No Results
Franchises
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Studies
Description: Implicit association test to detect changes in implicit attitudes towards animal protagonists
Research type: Quasi-experimental
Data type: Quantitative
Comparator: none
Control group: no
Pilot study: no
Pre/post measures used: yes
Follow-up: no
Sample type: Players
Sample size: 78
Power analysis: no
Sample countries: Germany
Games studied: Endling: Extinction is Forever, Bee Simulator
Franchises studied: null
Study outcomes: Connectedness to nature, Emotion, Ingame interactions, Gameplay experience, Perception