(A)morally Demanding Game? An Exploration of Moral Decision-Making in a Purpose-Made Video Game

Abstract

A purpose-made video game was used to measure response time and moral alignment of in-game moral decisions, which were made by 115 undergraduate students. Overall, moral decisions took between 4–6 seconds and were mostly pro-social. Previous gameplay, in-game, and post-game experiences predicted in-game moral alignment. Real-life moral salience was not related to in-game decision-making. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of the demands of video games and in-game moral decision-making models.

Keywords

• decision-making
• digital games
• moral foundations theory
• morality
• purpose-made games
• video games