How Motivation and Digital Affordances Shape User Behavior in a Virtual World

IF 3.4 2区 心理学 Q1 COMMUNICATION
Joomi Lee, A. Eden
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

ABSTRACT Video game players actively interact with the virtual world, altering the content of the environment and their subsequent behaviors in meaningful ways. This study investigates how motivational processes shape user behavior, based on a framework combining approach-avoidance motivation and game affordances. The primary hypotheses predicted that in-game threats and resources shape the initial motivation to explore game affordances at variable patterns. Using a custom-designed game with varying threats and resources, an experiment (N = 125) examined user behavior during various motivationally relevant in-game contexts (e.g., night, day, low-threat, and high-threat). We found that players adaptively employ game affordances to gain benefits and avoid threats, and individual differences in trait-level motivational reactivity moderated these effects, forming distinctive behavioral patterns in creative activities and combat. These findings clarify motivation and affordances as key shapers of user behavior in games and demonstrate that gameplay is made up of discrete, environmentally adaptive behaviors.
动机和数字支持如何在虚拟世界中塑造用户行为
摘要电子游戏玩家积极地与虚拟世界互动,以有意义的方式改变环境的内容和随后的行为。本研究基于一个结合方法回避动机和游戏可供性的框架,调查动机过程如何塑造用户行为。主要假设预测,游戏中的威胁和资源塑造了以可变模式探索游戏可供性的最初动机。使用具有不同威胁和资源的自定义设计的游戏,实验(N = 125)检查了在各种动机相关的游戏内环境(例如,夜晚、白天、低威胁和高威胁)期间的用户行为。我们发现,玩家适应性地利用游戏可供性来获得利益和避免威胁,而特质水平动机反应的个体差异调节了这些影响,在创造性活动和战斗中形成了独特的行为模式。这些发现阐明了动机和可供性是游戏中用户行为的关键塑造者,并证明游戏是由离散的、环境适应性的行为组成的。
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来源期刊
Media Psychology
Media Psychology Multiple-
CiteScore
8.60
自引率
7.10%
发文量
30
期刊介绍: Media Psychology is an interdisciplinary journal devoted to publishing theoretically-oriented empirical research that is at the intersection of psychology and media communication. These topics include media uses, processes, and effects. Such research is already well represented in mainstream journals in psychology and communication, but its publication is dispersed across many sources. Therefore, scholars working on common issues and problems in various disciplines often cannot fully utilize the contributions of kindred spirits in cognate disciplines.
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