Reading Mind of a Video Game Character: An Antecedent and Consequence of Emotion, Cognition, and Intention Attribution

Abstract

The current study examined mind attribution to a video game character. According to communication research and psychological literature, people tend to attribute human characteristics to a virtual social agent and consider the virtual agent as a real human. Such tendency can be reinforced when people have insufficient knowledge on the virtual agent, as the lack of such knowledge promotes people to utilize self-knowledge in inferring characteristics of the agent. Building on this conceptualization, the current study proposed that lack of prior experience of video game may lead to greater attribution of human characteristics, such as emotion, cognition, and intention, to a video game character. Further, such attribution may cause people to evaluate positively the character, as it may render the character more human-like. Participants (N = 116) recruited online were asked to view a captured image of Sims, a video game character featured in a life-simulation game, Sims, and to report their attributing human mind to the character. Results showed that years of playing a video game was negatively related to attributing mind to a Sim, and the tendency was salient for male respondents. Furthermore, the mind attribution was associated with likability of the video game character, such that the stronger they attributed mind to Sims, the greater they liked the character. These findings suggest that a video game developer may utilize the underlying mechanism on anthropomorphizing video game characters, to make them more attractive to their players.