Impact of Gaming on Human Risk Behavior

Abstract

Video games earn massive amount of money, produce heated debate, and their players spend huge amount of time on these games. These things make games one of the leading forms of personal and social entertainment. Due to the popularity of games, there is an increased interest in their design and effects on stakeholders. So far, gaming research has focused on game design, interactional issues, as well as the psychological effects on gamers. Recently, most of the gaming research has focused on players’ psychology, cultures, and games contents. However, we still need to develop a deeper understanding of ‘why people engage in gaming’? There are three reasons why gaming has received so much attention recently. 1). The size and growth rate of the gaming market; 2). Gaming popularity; and. 3). Role of gaming in human computing interaction. Scholars have argued to take gaming research seriously based on a range of social, cultural, economic and technological factors. The global gaming market is one of the largest. For example, the UK’s video gaming industry is bigger than the film and music industry. Gaming industry has also been declared as one of the most creative industries. Cognitive psychologists have been investigating the possible societal value of playing various computer games. Cognitive abilities, such as attention, concentration, reaction time, visual tracking, memory, hand-eye coordination, mathematical ability, and verbal ability are the key factors found to be influenced by gaming. Literature suggests that playing computer games may significantly increase cognitive performance. Risk taking behavior is a dominant part of human personality. It plays a vital role in various aspects of a person’s life. For example, Abstract xi investment decisions, ethical decisions, health related issues, purchasing decisions, etc. are affected by where the decision maker lays on the risk taking scale. Recent research has found that people vary in terms of their risk tolerance. Also, their risk taking tendencies differ depending on the situation. For example, a person may have a different risk tolerance when it comes to financial decisions, as compared to ethical decisions. This phenomenon is referred to as domain specific risk. Domain specific risk taking behavior has been measured in different cultures and environments. Each culture has different social values, history, and ideology; which in turn affects risk taking behavior. Cross cultural differences are also found to influence risky decision making. Hence, in the light of the emerging importance of the understanding of gaming, and emergence of role of risk behavior in human decision making, the objective of this project is to examine the role of risk behaviors on gaming habits. We do it by conducting a survey among the moderate to high level gaming professionals. During our study, we investigate three types of video games (action, puzzle and strategic) and their respective impacts on three types of risk attitudes (health/safety, social and recreational). The results of our study have validated the proposed research question that video game preferences really does affect the risk taking behaviors of individuals in their daily life. We also observed influence of gender and marital status in some domains.