Citation

Lin SF. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Netw. 2010; 13(5): 533-537.

Affiliation

Department of Communication, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers)

DOI

10.1089/cyber.2009.0293

PMID

20950177

Abstract

This article explores the effect of gender and contextual features on emotional reactions, identification toward game characters, and game enjoyment. Two aspects of contextual features are specifically examined: the moral justification of game characters and violence. An experiment was conducted by allowing participants to play either a morally justified character of a non-violent game, a morally justified character of a violent game, or a morally unjustified character of a violent game. The results show that participants felt less guilty and identified with the characters more when playing the morally justified characters of the non-violent game. Furthermore, males and females demonstrate different patterns of enjoyment to different contextual features of video games. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Language: en