Playing Nice

This study examines whether adolescent videogame players maintain the same values and ethical priorities in game spaces compared to their home lives. We presented a group of adolescent World of Warcraft players, a MMO game in which the participants play together to accomplish shared goals, with ethics-based scenarios to determine whether there is a difference in their values in game play compared to out-of-game. Our results indicate that adolescent players are more willing to abdicate control to authority in the context of the game, whereas they are more assertive about their personal rights in a home-based context.