Suchergebnisse

When a moral panic happens, society believes that a group of people and/or their behaviour is responsible for a threat to society – without any evidentiary basis. How does the target group respond? In the video game context, gamers may fear that their pastime will be blamed for mass shootings leading to social stigma. Group members so threatened are hypothesized to react to protect their group identity. This leads to increased engagement in the activity under threat. In contrast, disasters that do not threaten the group would not affect the amount of video game play. We test these hypotheses by relating the amount of game play to incidents of mass shootings and non-shooting disasters for a large sample of individuals ( N = 170,000). Incidents of mass shootings that threaten the gamer community lead to increases in game playing while incidents of other disasters unrelated to gaming divert time away from gaming.

Playing host to articles written in different disciplines and perspectives on the shared subject of digital gaming, the current thematic issue means to galvanise interest in and recognition of the nascent field of games research. Despite being little more than 50 years old, the medium of digital games has seen a meteoric rise to economic and cultural prominence across the globe. A cultural shift accepting games as a worthwhile recreational activity (and more) is likewise resulting in shifting attentions within game studies. Games were seen as frivolous and even harmful, and research traditionally focused on the negative effects they were perceived to have while in the end coming up with very little reliable evidence to support this position. The current wave of games research exemplified in this issue is certainly wider: games are a cultural and often highly socialised medium that has changed the way we view the world. They are used in non-entertainment settings, helping to promote active learning in players of all ages. The medium also facilitates deeper psychological and philosophical theorizing, as researchers grapple with deeper questions on what games and play mean to each of us. Put simply: games research is not just fun and games.

Zusammenfassung: In diesem Artikel werden die Vorteile von Lesezeiten- und Blickbewegungsmethoden für Prozessanalysen in der sozialen Kognitionsforschung vorgestellt. Zunächst werden die theoretischen und methodischen Grundlagen der Messung von Lesezeiten dargestellt. Anhand von zwei Experimenten wird die Anwendung von zwei verschiedenen Methoden beschrieben. In den Experimenten wurden Unterschiede in der Verarbeitung von Personinformationen untersucht, die in Form einer Liste von personbeschreibenden Aussagen dargeboten wurden oder durch Konjunktionen miteinander sprachlich verbunden wurden. Die Analyse der Lesezeiten, die als online-Messungen erhoben wurden, zeigte, dass Konjunktionen den ersten Integrationsprozess beim Lesen der Information erleichtern, wobei die Integration der, den Konjunktionen folgenden Informationen in einem Satz beeinflusst wird. Der Nutzen der vorgestellten Methoden für künftige Forschung in anderen Gebieten der sozialen Kognition wird diskutiert.

Three studies explored whether cognitive dissonance in smokers is reduced immediately or remains constant due to the perceived health risk. Because dissonance-reducing strategies might occur very quickly and previous research has focused only on ratings concerning health risk, we additionally analyzed response latencies and psychophysiological arousal as more implicit measurements. In Study 1, 2, and 3, participants rated their smoking-related health risks twice for different diseases. Ratings, response latencies (Study 1, 2), and psychophysiological arousal (Study 3) differed during the first testing. Differences in response latencies and psychophysiological arousal diminished during the second testing, whereas ratings did not change. The results are discussed in terms of implicit methods as measurements for cognitive dissonance and in terms of prevention and intervention programs.

In a world of continuous migration, super-diverse cities consist of a multitude of migrants and non-migrants from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Yet one characteristic they all have in common is the place where they currently live. In addition, both groups are active users of social media, especially the young. Social media provide platforms to construct and negotiate one's identity - particularly the identity related to where one lives: urban identity. This article presents the results of a survey study (N = 324) investigating the relationships between social media engagement and identity construction among migrant and non-migrant adolescents in the super-diverse city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It was found that urban identity was significantly higher for migrants than non-migrants. Certain aspects of social media engagement predicted urban identity in combination with social identity. Finally, social media engagement was found to be positively related to group self-esteem.

Most studies investigating the effects of violence in digital games on aggression and physiological arousal feature two groups of participants either playing a violent or a nonviolent game. However, violent content is usually not the only dimension on which the games used in these studies differ. This raises the issue of possibly confounding variables. We conducted a study in which the displayed violence and the pace of action of a first-person shooter game were manipulated systematically through game modifications (modding), whereas other variables were controlled for. Dependent variables were physiological arousal (autonomic and behavioral) during play, and postgame aggressive behavior. Aggressive behavior was not influenced by either of the two variables. Although both violence and pace of action did not affect autonomic arousal, there was an interaction effect of these variables on behavioral measures of arousal. Playing a fast-paced game inhibited participants' body movement, particularly when the game was nonviolent. A higher pace of action and displays of violence also caused players to exert greater pressure on the input devices. The findings of our study support the assumption that research on the effects of digital games should consider more variables than just violent content. In sum, our results underline the importance of controlling potentially confounding variables in research on the effects of digital games.

This intervention study investigated how much impact a specific peer-coaching (Peer2Peer) for refugee adolescents has on different factors of well-being for both sides: refugee adolescents (peers, N = 16) and their local peer coaches (buddies, N = 16). Next to pre- and post-tests, four buddies reflected on the process via weekly media diaries. We found that higher peer-loneliness and lower self-esteem was reported for peers in the beginning but these differences disappeared. These results were confirmed by buddies' media diaries: language and communication barriers reduced and friendships between buddies and peers grew. Buddies also reported high feelings of responsibilities in their media diaries which led to worries about their peer, but also to pride due to peers' improvement. Online communication was used on an almost daily basis to stay in contact each other. Snapchat was found to influence emotional and affectionate support. In sum, Peer2Peer as a program showed positive effects for both sides. Future Peer2Peer programs should include trainings on social media as well, as most apps are able to be used independent of own language skills. Thus, social media can help to overcome language barriers and intensifies the feeling of being supported.