Playing and working together : can video games increase real world cooperation? : presented to the Faculty of the Department of Psychology, Massey University, New Zealand in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Science in Psychology

Abstract

Video games are incredibly popular and their prevalence in society increases year to year. Looking at the effects of video games, research has found that cooperative gameplay results in increased cooperation post-game. However, these findings have been mixed, and accordingly the true effects of in-game cooperation are unclear. This study investigated the relationship between short-term cooperation in a video game and post-game cooperative behaviour. Sixty participants were randomly assigned to play a non-violent game (Portal 2) either by themselves, or in a split-screen cooperative game mode for 20 minutes. Following this, cooperation was measured both by a digital form of the give-some dilemma (a coin sharing game) and by the Everyday Cooperation Scale (self-report questionnaire). As prior research has identified social dominance orientations as an important factor in cooperation, participants also completed a questionnaire assessing their Social Dominance Orientation. Based on the General Learning Model and past research, it was predicted that participants who played cooperatively would show higher cooperation levels post-game than those who played the same game in single-player mode. Results did not support the core hypothesis. There was no significant effect of in-game cooperation on post-game cooperation. However, results suggested a small non-significant trend toward participants in the cooperative condition slightly more following gameplay than participants in the single player condition. This trend was much smaller than suggested by previous research. Social Dominance Orientation did not moderate the relationship between in-game cooperation and post-game cooperation. These results challenge the General Learning Model by showing that cooperation in video games does not appear to have a significant effect on post-game cooperation following short exposure durations. Moreover, the results suggest that social dominance orientation is not a personality factor which moderates the effects of in-game cooperation on post-game cooperation. However, as a large cooperation effect was expected it is possible a small effect exists but was not detected due to the study being underpowered to detect small effects. As such, replication studies with larger samples are recommended.