Interactive Narratives, Counterfactual Thinking and Personality in Video Games
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
6-9-2018
Publication Title
HCI International 2018 – Posters' Extended Abstracts
Publisher
Human-Computer Interaction
Publisher Location
Las Vegas, NV
Volume
850
First page number:
340
Last page number:
347
Abstract
Interactive narratives in video games allow players to experience a variety of storyline pathways, inviting players to think about alternative choices that might lead to different outcomes. These branching story structures can induce counterfactual thinking, the process of forming mental representations of past events to imagine alternative outcomes. Video games can be used to track and analyze behaviors during gameplay that are indicative of cognitive processes. As a gameplay analytics approach to assessing such behaviors, video games afford the measurement of factors that may influence those behaviors. Little is known about how personality influences the use of counterfactuals. As such, the focus of the present study was to investigate the effect of the Big Five personality traits (i.e., agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, and intellect) on in-game behaviors indicative of counterfactual thinking (CFT). Participants (N = 132) played an interactive, narrative-based video game twice. In-game behaviors indicative of CFT (i.e., changes in answer choices across gameplays) were coded and analyzed to determine whether they were dependent on participants’ in-game experiences (i.e., outcomes and valence of answer choices) and individual differences (i.e., personality dimensions). The outcome of failure and the valence of answer choices in the first gameplay had significant effects on CFT. The results also indicated a significant interaction between the outcome of the first gameplay and conscientiousness in their effect on CFT. Implications for these findings are discussed.
Keywords
Interactive narratives; Counterfactual thinking; Personality; Video games; Behavior regulation; Assessment
Disciplines
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Personality and Social Contexts
Language
English
Repository Citation
Bacos, C. A.,
McCreery, M. P.,
Laferriere, J. R.
(2018).
Interactive Narratives, Counterfactual Thinking and Personality in Video Games.
HCI International 2018 – Posters' Extended Abstracts, 850
340-347.
Las Vegas, NV: Human-Computer Interaction.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92270-6_49