Moral minds in gaming – A quantitative case study of moral decisions in Detroit: Become Human

Holl, Elisabeth; Melzer, André

doi:10.1027/1864-1105/a000323

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Moral minds in gaming – A quantitative case study of moral decisions in Detroit: Become Human

Holl, Elisabeth; Melzer, André

2022 • In Journal of Media Psychology

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https://hdl.handle.net/10993/52389

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10.1027/1864-1105/a000323

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Keywords :

video games; morality; decision-making; probability distributions; Detroit: Become Human

Abstract :

[en] Games including meaningful narratives and moral decisions have become increasingly popular. This case study examines (a) the prevalence of morality and moral foundations, (b) player decisions when encountering moral options, and (c) the influence of contextual factors (i.e., time pressure, played avatar, and humanness of nonplayable characters) on moral decision-making in the popular video game Detroit: Become Human. Based on extensive coding of available world statistics we identified 73.21% morally relevant (vs. morally irrelevant) decisions in the game with a high prevalence for harm- and authority-related situations. Although players had an overall tendency to engage in moral behavior, they were more likely to act “good” when under time pressure and if nonhuman characters were involved. Our findings are discussed with regard to common theories of morality. Results support the notion that prior theoretical assumptions may be successfully mapped onto top-selling video games.

Disciplines :

Communication & mass media

Author, co-author :

Holl, Elisabeth ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS)

Melzer, André ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS)

External co-authors :

Language :

English

Title :

Moral minds in gaming – A quantitative case study of moral decisions in Detroit: Become Human

Publication date :

January 2022

Journal title :

Journal of Media Psychology

ISSN :

2151-2388

Publisher :

Hogrefe-Verlag GmbH und Co., K.G., Germany

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

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since 11 October 2022

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