research-article

Open access

Increasing Donating Behavior Through a Game for Change: The Role of Interactivity and Appreciation

Authors:

Sharon T. Steinemann,

Elisa D. Mekler,

Klaus OpwisAuthors Info & Claims

CHI PLAY '15: Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

Pages 319 - 329

https://doi.org/10.1145/2793107.2793125

Published: 05 October 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Games for change have attracted the interest of humanitarian aid organizations and researchers alike. However, their effectiveness to promote behavior such as donating remains unclear. Furthermore, little is known about how key game properties interactivity and presentation mode impact the effectiveness of these games, or how player attitudes and experiences relate to the interplay between game properties and donating behavior. In this study, experimental conditions were systematically varied in their interactivity and presentation mode. Thereby, 234 participants played, watched, or read through one of six variations of the narrative of the game Darfur is Dying. Following this, they were asked to choose the percentage of an unexpected bonus to donate to a charity. While interactivity increased donating by an average of 12%, presentation mode had no significant impact on the percentage donated. Thus, between presentation mode and interactivity, interactivity was found to be the more impactful game property. Moreover, appreciation fully mediated the relationship between interactivity and donating, hinting at its relevance for the evaluation of the effectiveness of games for change.

References

[1]

Ajzen, I. Attitudes, personality and behaviour. McGraw-Hill International, 2005.

[2]

Andersen, M. H., Mathisen, L., Øyen, O., Wahl, A. K., Hanestad, B. R., and Fosse, E. Living donors' experiences 1 wk after donating a kidney. Clinical transplantation 19, 1 (2005), 90--96.

[3]

Apter, M. J., Spirn, N., Sveback, S., and Apter, M. Motives for donating blood. Stress and health: A reversal theory perspective (1997), 145--156.

[4]

Baddeley, A. Working memory. Science 255, 5044 (1992), 556--559.

[5]

Bartsch, A., and Hartmann, T. The role of cognitive and affective challenge in entertainment experience. Communication Research (2015), 0093650214565921.

[6]

Bartsch, A., Kalch, A., and Oliver, M. B. Moved to think: The role of emotional media experiences in stimulating reflective thoughts. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications 26, 3 (2014), 125.

[7]

Bogost, I. Persuasive games: The expressive power of videogames. Mit Press, 2007.

Digital Library

[8]

Bopp, J. A., Mekler, E. D., and Opwis, K. It was sad but still good: Gratifications of emotionally moving game experiences. In Ext. Abstracts CHI '15, ACM (2015), 1193--1198.

Digital Library

[9]

Chatterjee, P., Rose, R. L., and Sinha, J. Why money meanings matter in decisions to donate time and money. Marketing Letters 24, 2 (2013), 109--118.

[10]

Cho, J. Disentangling media effects from debate effects: The presentation mode of televised debates and viewer decision making. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 86, 2 (2009), 383--400.

[11]

Clark, J. House money effects in public good experiments. Experimental Economics 5, 3 (2002), 223--231.

[12]

Cohen, E. L. What makes good games go viral? the role of technology use, ef?cacy, emotion and enjoyment in players' decision to share a prosocial digital game. Computers in Human Behavior 33 (2014), 321--329.

Digital Library

[13]

Cohen, J. Defining identification: A theoretical look at the identification of audiences with media characters. Mass Communication & Society 4, 3 (2001), 245--264.

[14]

Coutu, W. Role-playing vs. role-taking: An appeal for clarification. American Sociological Review (1951), 180--187.

[15]

Davis, M. H. Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of personality and social psychology 44, 1 (1983), 113.

[16]

DeScioli, P., Massenkoff, M., Shaw, A., Petersen, M. B., and Kurzban, R. Equity or equality? moral judgments follow the money. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281, 1797 (2014).

[17]

Eisenberg, N., and Miller, P. A. The relation of empathy to prosocial and related behaviors. Psychological bulletin 101, 1 (1987), 91.

[18]

Fazio, R. H. Multiple processes by which attitudes guide behavior: The mode model as an integrative framework. Advances in experimental social psychology 23 (1990), 75--109.

[19]

Gee, J. P. Deep learning properties of good digital games: How far can they go. Serious games: Mechanisms and effects (2009), 67--82.

[20]

Gerling, K. M., Mandryk, R. L., Birk, M. V., Miller, M., and Orji, R. The effects of embodied persuasive games on player attitudes toward people using wheelchairs. In Proc. CHI '14, ACM (2014), 3413--3422.

Digital Library

[21]

Iacovides, I., and Cox, A. L. Moving beyond fun: Evaluating serious experience in digital games. In Proc. CHI '15, ACM (2015), 2245--2254.

Digital Library

[22]

Klimmt, C. Serious games and social change: Why they (should) work. Routledge, 2009, 248--270.

[23]

Klimmt, C., Hartmann, T., and Frey, A. Effectance and control as determinants of video game enjoyment. Cyberpsychology & behavior 10, 6 (2007), 845--848.

[24]

Lin, J.-H. Do video games exert stronger effects on aggression than film? the role of media interactivity and identification on the association of violent content and aggressive outcomes. Computers in Human Behavior 29, 3 (2013), 535--543.

Digital Library

[25]

Marsh, T., and Costello, B. Experience in serious games: between positive and serious experience. In Serious Games Development and Applications. Springer, 2012, 255--267.

Digital Library

[26]

Mayer, R. E. Multimedia learning and games. Computer games and instruction (2011), 281--305.

[27]

Mekler, E. D., Bopp, J. A., Tuch, A. N., and Opwis, K. A systematic review of quantitative studies on the enjoyment of digital entertainment games. In Proc. CHI '14, ACM (2014), 927--936.

Digital Library

[28]

Mitgutsch, K., and Alvarado, N. Purposeful by design?: a serious game design assessment framework. In Proc. FDG '12, ACM (2012), 121--128.

Digital Library

[29]

Montfort, N. Twisty Little Passages: an approach to interactive fiction. Mit Press, 2005.

Digital Library

[30]

Myrick, J. G., and Oliver, M. B. Laughing and crying: Mixed emotions, compassion, and the effectiveness of a youtube psa about skin cancer. Health communication, ahead-of-print (2014), 1--10.

[31]

Neys, J., and Jansz, J. Political internet games: Engaging an audience. European Journal of Communication 25, 3 (2010), 227--241.

[32]

Nummenmaa, L., and Niemi, P. Inducing affective states with success-failure manipulations: a meta-analysis. Emotion 4, 2 (2004), 207.

[33]

Oliver, M. B., and Bartsch, A. Appreciation as audience response: Exploring entertainment gratifications beyond hedonism. Human Communication Research 36, 1 (2010), 53--81.

[34]

Peng, W., Lee, M., and Heeter, C. The effects of a serious game on role-taking and willingness to help. Journal of Communication 60, 4 (2010), 723--742.

[35]

Ratan, R., and Ritterfeld, U. Classifying serious games. Serious games: Mechanisms and effects (2009), 10--24.

[36]

Ritterfeld, U., Cody, M., and Vorderer, P. Serious games: Mechanisms and effects. Routledge, 2009.

[37]

Ritterfeld, U., Shen, C., Wang, H., Nocera, L., and Wong, W. L. Multimodality and interactivity: Connecting properties of serious games with educational outcomes. Cyberpsychology & Behavior 12, 6 (2009), 691--697.

[38]

Ruggiero, D. The effect of a persuasive social impact game on affective learning and attitude. Computers in Human Behavior 45 (2015), 213--221.

Digital Library

[39]

Stoianova, V. Private funding: An emerging trend in humanitarian donorship. Global Humanitarian Assistance (2012).

[40]

Sweller, J., Van Merrienboer, J. J., and Paas, F. G. Cognitive architecture and instructional design. Educational psychology review 10, 3 (1998), 251--296.

[41]

Tsvetkova, M., and Macy, M. W. The social contagion of generosity. PloS one 9, 2 (2014), e87275.

[42]

Van Wassenhove, L. N. Humanitarian aid logistics: supply chain management in high gear. Journal of the Operational Research Society 57, 5 (2006), 475--489.

[43]

Wilson, G. V., and Kerr, J. H. Affective responses to success and failure:: a study of winning and losing in competitive rugby. Personality and Individual Differences 27, 1 (1999), 85--99.

[44]

Wouters, P., Van Nimwegen, C., Van Oostendorp, H., and Van Der Spek, E. D. A meta-analysis of the cognitive and motivational effects of serious games. Journal of Educational Psychology 105, 2 (2013), 249.

Cited By

Errey NLiang CLeong TChen YVally HBennett C(2024)Nudging with Narrative Visualization: Communicating to a Young Adult Audience in the PandemicProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869508:CSCW2(1-21)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686950
Grasse KJunius NWeatherwax KSisodiya SMartin ACarstensdottir E(2024)Pseudo-Scientist: Towards Narrative Interventions for Imposter SyndromeProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36770998:CHI PLAY(1-29)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3677099
Kammermann BTürkay SJohnson DTobin S(2024)Virtual Rewards, Real World Impact? Investigating the Prosocial Effects of Videogame Reward SalienceInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.2425730(1-22)Online publication date: 21-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2425730
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Increasing Donating Behavior Through a Game for Change: The Role of Interactivity and Appreciation
1. Applied computing
  1. Computers in other domains
    1. Personal computers and PC applications
  2. Law, social and behavioral sciences

Recommendations

Choosing to Help Monsters: A Mixed-Method Examination of Meaningful Choices in Narrative-Rich Games and Interactive Narratives
CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

The potential of narrative-rich games to impact emotions, attitudes, and behavior brings with it exciting opportunities and implications within both entertainment and serious game contexts. However, effects are not always consistent, potentially due to ...
Negative Emotion, Positive Experience?: Emotionally Moving Moments in Digital Games
CHI '16: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Emotions are key to the player experience (PX) and interest in the potential of games to provide unique emotional, sometimes uncomfortable experiences is growing. Yet there has been little empirical investigation of what game experiences players ...
The Winner Gives It All': Preliminary Results on The Role of Game Outcome on the Effectiveness of a Game for Change
CHI PLAY Companion '16: Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts

To date the impact of game outcome on prosocial behavior and attitude change has went unexamined. Especially in the context of games trying to increase prosocial behavior and attitude change, understanding this connection may hold great potential. ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CHI PLAY '15: Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

October 2015

852 pages

ISBN:9781450334662

DOI:10.1145/2793107

General Chairs:
Anna L. Cox
University College London, UK
,
Paul Cairns
University of York, UK
,
Program Chairs:
Regina Bernhaupt
IRIT, France
,
Lennart Nacke
University of Waterloo, Canada

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Sponsors

SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 05 October 2015

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Badges

Best Paper

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Funding Sources

Fakultät für Psychologie der Universität Basel

Conference

CHI PLAY '15

Sponsor:

SIGCHI

CHI PLAY '15: The annual symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

October 5 - 7, 2015

London, United Kingdom

Acceptance Rates

CHI PLAY '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 40 of 144 submissions, 28%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 421 of 1,386 submissions, 30%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

49
Total Citations
View Citations
1,657
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)207
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)28

Reflects downloads up to 05 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Errey NLiang CLeong TChen YVally HBennett C(2024)Nudging with Narrative Visualization: Communicating to a Young Adult Audience in the PandemicProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869508:CSCW2(1-21)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686950
Grasse KJunius NWeatherwax KSisodiya SMartin ACarstensdottir E(2024)Pseudo-Scientist: Towards Narrative Interventions for Imposter SyndromeProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36770998:CHI PLAY(1-29)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3677099
Kammermann BTürkay SJohnson DTobin S(2024)Virtual Rewards, Real World Impact? Investigating the Prosocial Effects of Videogame Reward SalienceInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.2425730(1-22)Online publication date: 21-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2425730
Nunes da Conceição Duarte Pinheiro MCiancia M(2024)Unravelling the Educational Power of Interactive Digital Narratives in Childhood LearningInteractive Storytelling10.1007/978-3-031-78453-8_12(181-198)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-78453-8_12
Lagrange V(2024)Fostering Empathy Through Inclusive Interactive Digital NarrativesInteractive Storytelling10.1007/978-3-031-78450-7_16(224-231)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-78450-7_16
Quick BMorrow EBigman CReynolds‐Tylus TWilliamson L(2023)An evaluation of the license to save lives program to promote organ, eye, and tissue donation among teenagersClinical Transplantation10.1111/ctr.1518338:1Online publication date: 9-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1111/ctr.15183
Pietrantoni N(2023)HELP! It's up to YOU to DONATE - A Structured Literature Review on Conversational Agents and Promoting Donation Behavior2023 Fourth International Conference on Information Systems and Software Technologies (ICI2ST)10.1109/ICI2ST62251.2023.00013(39-45)Online publication date: 22-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICI2ST62251.2023.00013
Gursesli MTaveekitworachai PAbdullah FDewantoro MLanata AGuazzini ALê VVillars AThawonmas R(2023)The Chronicles of ChatGPT: Generating and Evaluating Visual Novel Narratives on Climate Change Through ChatGPTInteractive Storytelling10.1007/978-3-031-47658-7_16(181-194)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-47658-7_16
Lee EAbdollahi MAgur C(2022)Conceptualizing the Roles of Involvement and Immersion in Persuasive GamesGames and Culture10.1177/1555412021104957617:5(703-720)Online publication date: 30-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120211049576
Kao DRatan RMousas CJoshi AMelcer E(2022)Audio Matters Too: How Audial Avatar Customization Enhances Visual Avatar CustomizationProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3501848(1-27)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3491102.3501848
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten