Morality in video games: Gut or Game?

Over the last week, we've posted a few commentaries on potential pro-social influences of otherwise anti-social media content - including the notions of Appreciation and Disinterest. Today's post will focus on the role of moral intuitions in the processing and playing of video games. 

A scene from Heavy Rain for the PS3 (Sony)

Morality. Historically, the concept of morality has been a central focus of media research. In the early 20th century, the Payne Fund’s studies on children and movie content examined the moral lessons adolescents took from the cinema (cf. Lowery & DeFleur, 1995). Later, Wertham (1954) argued that comic books of the time were full of misogyny, sexual perversion, and graphic violence that had the potential to corrupt the pliable morality of children. Indeed, these views are not inventions of the modern era, as history is rife with examples of book burnings and other censure at the hands of governments, monarchs, and religious orders alike. In short, the belief that morally-questionable content serves only to corrupt individual moral codes has persisted. Indeed, considerations of morality has been the center of many of our classic theories in entertainment research, from understanding specific-level individual character judgments (Zillmann & Cantor, 1976) to broader audience patterns of media consumption (Gans, 1974; Zillmann, 2000).

Likewise, morality has been a focal point for video game theory and research. As interactive spaces, games are thought to be particularly adept at allowing gamers to encounter, learn and even rehearse reactions to a variety of different emotional states, including those concerned with morality (Grodal, 2000; Johnson, 2010). But how does an individual’s morality explain their motivation to enact (or not) the models of morally-questionable behaviors experienced in video games? Emerging research applying moral foundations theory (Haidt & Joseph, 2004) suggest that innate moral judgments may be key to this process. For example, Tamborini and colleagues report that variance in individual moral intuitions is predictive of how they appraise and eventually react to violent media content (Tamborini, Eden, Bowman, Grizzard, & Lachlan, 2012). Extending this research to video games, Bowman and colleagues found initial evidence to suggest that moral intuitions are not only predictive of gamers’ appraisals of content as moral or immoral, but also predictive of in-game responses to this content. Specifically, their research found that when a video game presented gamers with a choice to commit a moral violation, gamers who felt strongly about the particular situation (i.e. inflicting harm on an innocent) would go to great lengths to avoid the violation. Conversely, gamers who did not feel particularly strong about the situation – that is, gamers who did not have a strong intuitive reaction to the moral presentation – were inclined to make seemingly-random decisions to violate or not in an effort to play with different outcome scenarios (Joeckel, Bowman, & Dogruel, in press - see presentation below). This observed “gut” (moral intuition-based) or “game” (experience-based) reaction is in line with current theorizing on the function of morality in entertainment media, specifically Raney’s (2010) notion of moral disengagement – that we actively suspend our moral code in order to maximize media enjoyment. Indeed, the research expands this line of reasoning further to suggest that while we initially suspend morality in favor of enjoyment, there are aspects of our moral codes that are likely non-negotiable.

Adolescents, Morality and Interactive Entertainment: The influence of moral salience on actions and entertainment experience in interactive media.

Of course, it can be argued that repeated exposure to moral violations might weaken our resolve, particularly if games reward us for committing moral violations. In his model of moral intuitions and media entertainment, or MIME, Tamborini (2011) argues that moral intuitions are initially fostered from our non-mediated cultural environment and reinforced or manipulated through long-term exposure to media content. While popular media generally adheres to rather than violates societal-level moral standards (cf. Klapper, 1960), producers will occasionally break these expectations to surprise audiences; this is particularly common in video games, where production norms associated with what is an is not acceptable content are different than in more traditional forms of media. As Tamborini and colleagues have found evidence suggesting that entertaining media content can result in shifts in moral judgment (Tamborini, Weber, Eden, Bowman, & Grizzard, 2010), a logical extension of this research may be to examine long-term influences on moral intuition stemming from video game play. The popularity of “M”-rated content is apparent, and as result we might consider the dominant narratives in games such as Grand Theft Auto to be particularly rewarding of anti-social over pro-social behavior (Bowman, in press). From this, an area of research ripe for investigation  the role of repeated exposure to scripts shifting witnessed decisions form the “game” category to the “gut” category. Assuming moral intuitions to play an important role in how we  evaluate, enjoy, and respond to anti-social models in video games, such an approach should provide a more robust explanation as to the mechanism behind the connection between morally-questionable content and observed media effect.

Disinterest as a Media Effect?

Last week, I posted about the potential for anti-social media content to have a pro-social effect on individuals in the form of eliciting feelings of appreciation and meaningfulness - that is, such content could led to moral pause rather than moral panic. Today, I consider how anti-social content can elicit feelings of disinterest; that is, virtual experiences with morally abhorring content might drive us to be disgusted by rather than engrossed in the content. These passages are excerpts from an upcoming essay on video game theory and research - rough pages here, so please feel free to comment and challenge! 


Disinterest. As entertainment software, we commonly assume video games to be inherently engaging and interesting. Yet, an often-overlooked effect of game content on individuals is that of disinterest – simply, the notion that we can become less interested or attracted towards a thought, feeling, or behavior after experiencing its mediated version. Bogost (2011) argued that gaming experiences are not inherently enjoyable, and that they can be just as include to licit shock as well as awe; that is, we can be repulsed by gaming content just as much as we can be engrossed by it. Notably, this is not a cathartic argument, as catharsis would assume individuals to have some affinity toward the content so as to expunge it in advance of real-world consequences (a concept that has been heavily critiqued in the literature; cf. Bushman, 2002). Rather, disinterest argues that video game portrayals can create or reinforce our negative gut reactions to anti-social content.

Figure 1. Screenshot from The Torture Game

An example of such disinterest can be found in the browser-based casual game The Torture Game (Figure 1), a game that invites players to take turns “tortur[ing] the poor guy using different objects” (ArcadeCabin.com, para. 2). In the game, players select from a series of brutal – nooses, guns, straight razors, chainsaws, and pikes to name a few – and are invited to use them in an effort to inflict varying amounts of damage onto the zombie-like figure (Figure 1). While the figure appears to be in a catatonic state, his health status is displayed as a smear of blood in the bottom-left portion of the screen and once depleted, the figure collapses into a bloody mess, bellows a desperate groan and is proclaimed “dead.”  Gameplay is simple, violent, and graphic, and is not justified by any narrative element. Rather, it is clearly and blatantly labeled as torture. Furthermore, gamers are given the option to replace the figure’s head with any image from their computer or the Internet, serving as a digital voodoo doll. In short, if any video game could be considered a true torture and murder simulator, The Torture Game most closely fits the bill. Reaction to the game was (and continues to be) very intense, with even avid video gamers questioning the role of such content in the general panacea of gaming. Popular video game forum Kongregate hosted a debate about the “evil or stress-relieving” qualities of this game, and a general theme of the discussion can best be summarized by user @kingbilly, who writes:

“To be honest, the concept of having torture in a flash game is sick. I’ve never played it and never will…” (Kongregate, 2008).

Yet, such repulsion is precisely what Bogost (2011) argues is both (a) a potential media effect and (b) a decidedly pro-social one. In being repulsed, gamers are reminded of their own humanistic limits, and by vicariously experiencing the role of executioner, are left with a feeling of guilt and even disgust from bearing witness to their own actions. Moreover, the real-world implications of this process are not trivial. Consider the current debate in the US regarding proper interrogation techniques of suspected terrorists. Proponents of the practice contest that such “enhanced interrogation techniques” (Nordgren, 2011) allow intelligence agents to ascertain valuable information regarding future terrorist activities against US targets. Yet, these individuals rarely have experienced the practice themselves. In fact, US human rights activist Steve Powers has already hosted public events simulating water boarding in real life, finding individuals who experience the treatment firsthand almost instantaneously reverse their support of the practice (cf. Nordgren, 2011). Video games may play an even more compelling role in this process, allowing for the simulation of similar actions and forcing individuals to cope with the consequences of their own actions. The concept of disinterest moves beyond the catharsis perspective and argues that the learning of anti-social models of cognition, affect, or behavior can result in the internalization and eventual rejection of the same – yet this claim has yet to be tested empirically.

Read more about the notion of disinterest in Ian Bogost's book "How To Do Things With Video Games" (Chapter 19), and read my review of the same in the International Journal of Communication.