Video Games and Attitude Change: A Meta-analysis

Abstract

Despite extensive research on attitudes and a rapid growth of the video game market, there is currently no meta-analysis mapping the link between narrative video games and attitude change. Here, we present such meta-analysis. The findings suggest that narrative video games affect players’ attitudes towards the topics depicted in games. This effect was present in studies focused on changes in both implicit (g = 0.36, k = 18) and explicit attitudes (g = 0.24, k = 101), with longer intervention duration and game mechanics such as stereotyping and meaningful feedback resulting in larger implicit attitude change. Regarding the robustness of the underlying evidence, half of the included studies were judged to be at high risk of bias. On the other hand, the impact of publication bias in this literature was found to be negligible. Altogether, this meta-analysis provides evidence that video games shape how we think about events they represent.

Is video games' effect on attitudes universal? Results from an empirical study comparing video games' impact on the attitude change of players with different backgrounds

“…Narrative video games are a broad group that can potentially deliver information about represented topics using various means. In this replication study, we focused specifically on one particular aspect of narrative video games: the game mechanic of perspective‐taking (Dishon & Kafai, 2020; Ho & Ng, 2022; Kolek et al, 2023; Todd & Galinsky, 2014). The core value of this game mechanic lies in its ability to deliver a message about the topic from multiple points of view during players' interactions with game narratives.…”

“…From the perspective of attitude change and the Associative‐Propositional model (as described in Section 2.1), this game mechanic should affect explicit and implicit attitudes differently. Regarding implicit attitude change, perspective‐taking does not create clear and frequent connections between the depicted phenomenon and some concepts of value since it usually depicts the phenomenon from different perspectives (see Todd & Galinsky, 2014 or the results from the meta‐analysis by Kolek et al, 2023). Therefore, perspective‐taking's effect on implicit attitudes should not necessarily be significant.…”

“…Regarding explicit attitude change, explicit attitudes require topic‐related information that challenges our current beliefs in order for them to change. Perspective‐taking can do this as it provides players with a complex take on the depicted topics in game narratives (Dishon & Kafai, 2020; Kolek et al, 2023). Furthermore, perspective‐taking can overcome several mechanisms, usually limiting the persuasive potential of new attitude‐related information.…”

Stress Regulation via Being in Nature and Social Support in Adults, a Meta-analysis

“…By relying on robust variance estimation, we could simultaneously account for both types of dependencies among the effects (if effects were nested within studies, this technique allowed us to estimate effects based on the same participants). Because the data on sampling correlations among effects tend to be unavailable in the individual studies, we assumed a constant sampling correlation between the effects of .5 (see also, Kolek et al, 2022. We used a robust HTZ-type Wald test to test the equality of effect sizes across the levels of the studied moderators (Pustejovsky & Tipton, 2021).…”

Shame on the Creators, Praise for the Players? On Gender Stereotypes and Subversive Gaming in Digital Games

“…A jak vyplývá z ojedinělé (prozatím preprintové) metaanalýzy(Kolek et al 2022), platí to nejen pro vzdělávací narativní počítačové hry, změna implicitních i explicitních postojů hráčů je výrazná.…”