Ethical Behaviour and Moral Decision Making within Virtual Worlds

<p>This thesis explores how immersion in a virtual world (video games and virtualreality) affects moral decision making. In this work, two studies were conductedto explore the effects of each of these virtual worlds.To explore the effects of immersion in video games, participants were given one oftwo surveys. One survey focused on their personal moral decision making, andthe other focused on their video game characters moral decision making. Littledifference was seen between the choices in each survey, saving the majority wasthe most significant and common choice made, and the immersion of their videogame characters proved to have no effect on their moral decision making. Thissuggests the immersion as their characters has no affect on their moral decisionmaking within hypothetical moral dilemmas.To explore the effects of immersion in virtual reality, two well-known moraldilemmas known as the “Trolley Problem” and the “Fat Man Problem” wererecreated for the study, and contained several variations. A variety of factors thatmay influence the moral decision making were considered, such as the charactersused in the dilemmas, gender differences, involvement and more. A majority ofparticipants made similar choices throughout the “Trolley Problem” with slightvariations seen in the “Fat Man Problem”. The driving factor for these moraldecisions appeared to be the character involved and the individuals attitudetowards the simulation.The main difference found throughout these studies was between the choices madein hypothetical dilemmas (first study) and practical dilemmas (second study),due to the level of immersion, involvement, and attitudes of the participants.</p>