AS Edexcel Psychology - Study Into Modern Gamers (2010)

REPORT CONTENT PAGE
INTRODUCTION 2
 The Aim
 The Hypothesis
METHOD / PROCEDURE 3–7
 Introduction 3
 Experiment Advertisements (Images) 4–5
 Ethics: Disclaimer 6
 Ethics: Further Explained 7
THE QUESTIONNAIRE (ANNOTATED) 8 – 14
 Online Questionnaire (Screenshot) 13

 Images Used 14
RESULTS 15 – 20
 Stratified Sample
CONCLUSIONS 21
EVALUATION 22
BIBLIOGRAPHY / CREDITS 23
 Feedbacks From Participants
1 Social Psychology Study Into Gamers | Ian Lai & Amir Abdullah Sani
INTRODUCTION
From the 3rd to 9th of October 2010, Muhammad Amir Abdullah Sani and Ian Lai carried out an online
questionnaire to study console gamers. The questionnaire conducted focused on investigating the
in-group attitudes from a group of gamers towards an out-group of non-gamers or gamers with an
entirely opposing choice of gaming genre, and vice versa.
Amir and Ian: Study Into Modern Gamers (2010)
The Aim
The sole purpose of this experiment was to investigate if the formation of social groups is instigated
as a result of games, the roots of conflict between different groups of gamers and whether or not,
prejudice is present as a result of different types of games.
The Hypothesis
Before the start of this experiment, Muhammad Amir Abdullah Sani and Ian Lai predicted that:
 “There is a difference in attitudes and people prefer those who share a similar gaming
preference compared with those that have a highly dissimilar gaming preference or none at
all.”
 “The in-group would generally discriminate and act prejudice towards members of an out-
group due to their contrasting gaming preferences, and vice versa.”
THE METHOD
The online questionnaire was constructed on the popular ‘LimeSurvey’ web software. In order to
satisfy the ethical guidelines, a detailed disclaimer was used on the front of the questionnaire that
requested the participant’s acceptance before proceeding with the questionnaire.
The questionnaire consists of 15 questions divided into 5 distinct categories of:
 Background: questions relating to the participant.

 Gaming Preferences: questions relating to the participant’s gaming background.
 Gaming Attitudes: questions relating to how a participant feels about certain games or the
people playing these certain games.
 Gaming Opinions: questions on a participant’s opinion pertaining to 4 different games.
 Conclusion: closing questions to consolidate the participant’s answers.
The questions were organised from the less sensitive to the more sensitive questions. A few controls
were introduced in the process in order to sustain the experiment’s reliability, such as:
 Private Access: the questionnaire was set on private to prevent contamination of the
results, as the experiment required responses from specific groups of people that were well-
informed of the questionnaire’s aims.
 One Chance: participants were only allowed ONE attempt in taking the questionnaire to
prevent a possible contamination of the results through ‘retakes’.
 Survey Tokens: tokens were used by the participants to unlock the private questionnaire
and to allow categorization of the participants.
Three different sampling methods were used, as followed:
 Stratified Sampling
The questionnaire was advertised on different locations including a web community that
focused strongly on one game and a web community that focused on a range of different
games. On the community that focused strongly on one game, they were assigned a survey
code of, ‘3455’, on the other community, they were assigned, ‘3411’.
 Volunteer / Self-Selected
A group of random participants also participated in the questionnaire. They consisted of
people from websites including: Twitter, Facebook and viewers of Ian’s personal website.
These participants were assigned the survey code ‘2772’ and ‘4141’.
 Opportunity Sampling / Grab Sampling

Muhammad Amir Abdullah Sani and Ian Lai chose random participants that were online on
their instant messaging contact lists and asked if they would be willing to do a questionnaire.
These participants were given the survey code ‘1122’ if they played games often, ‘1111’ if
they do not play games often and ‘4747’ if unsure which category they best fit in.
THE METHOD: EXPERIMENT ADVERTISEMENTS
Location Image
Twitter
Facebook
Ian’s
Personal
Website
KryptoDEV
UMaple
THE METHOD: ETHICS
The experiment was conducted after close examination of major, universal ethical guidelines and
standards. Participants were consistently reminded of their rights, their privacy and the experiment
they were taking part in. Below is an image of the disclaimer used at the start of the questionnaire:
This disclaimer was prepended the beginning of every participant’s questionnaire. There were no
amendments made throughout the experiment. Participants were required to review the above
disclaimer before clicking “Next” to proceed with the questionnaire. Upon doing so, they were
prompted for a ‘survey code/token’:
THE METHOD: ETHICS (CONTINUED)
COMPETANCE
Muhammad Amir Abdullah Sani and Ian Lai are both qualified and educated AS Level Psychology
students with sufficient knowledge to carry this experiment out. The questionnaire received
numerous approvals from colleagues to confirm that it does not contain any inappropriate content
or questions.
RIGHTS TO WITHDRAW
As evident from the questionnaire’s disclaimer, participants were “free at any point of time, to
withdraw from completing our questionnaire”. The disclaimer also states, “Upon completion, you
have all rights to withdraw your submission from our study without question...” which allowed
participants to withdraw their results even after they have completed the questionnaire.
This was additionally reinforced on our advertisements (see images above) stating, “You can choose
to quit this questionnaire or withdraw at any point of time”. Thus, participants were given the
highest and optimum degree of withdrawal privileges.
This guideline was clearly in practice as there were several participants that ‘ticked’ the checkbox at
the end of the questionnaire, to opt out along with several participants that left the questionnaire
unfinished.
INFORMED CONSENT
All the participants were given complete informed consent before carrying out the questionnaire
with no specific deadlines given as to when they wish to take it. Participants self-volunteered
themselves to take our questionnaire and denied if they did not want to.
AVOIDING DECEPTION
All the participants were thoroughly briefed as to the experiment’s aims via the disclaimer (see
images above) as well as on some of the advertisements. Participants were allowed to ask questions
regarding the experiment and they were not deceived in any way.
DEBRIEFING PARTICIPANTS
Muhammad Amir Abdullah Sani and Ian Lai obtained informed consent from participants before
they began the questionnaire thus rendering debriefing unnecessary. Participants were told to read
the introduction of the study as well as the privacy policy before giving informed consent to ensure
they were in the same state after completing the questionnaire as they were before completing it.
Participants were also allowed to ask questions or provide feedback at the end of the questionnaire.
THE QUESTIONNAIRE: ANNOTATED
The following is a sample of the complete online questionnaire in print-ready format, annotated.
The questions are presented in the following manner:
Category
- Category Description
Question # [ID] – Question

- Instruction(s)
- Option(s) / Answer Block(s)
- Additional Help / Information
Background
General questions about you.
Participants were given the ability to

choose from a range of ages or specify
their current age
We included this question as it would

help us determine if age has an
influence in gaming prejudices and
whether or not they associate better
with their group due to age.
We included this question to distinguish

between opinions from females and
males, and whether or not gender has
an influence in gaming prejudices and
discrimination.
Gaming Preferences
Questions on your gaming background.
Participants were given the ability to

select their preferred types of games
and state a reason why, if any.
We included this question as it would

help us later on, access whether or not
they are prejudice or discriminatory
towards the type(s) of games they did
not select.
It would also allow us to compare and

contrast results between participants
with opposing choices of games.
We asked this question to find out

where gamers felt more comfortable
playing their games. If a large
percentage of gamers played at public
locations such as internet cafe's it
became possible to assume these
gamers would have a significantly
higher level of prejudice towards other
gamers as these gamers tend to play
in groups of players playing the same
game.
We asked this question to see how

much of a gamer the participant was.
The more hours a participant spends
playing the more loyal they become to
their favourite games. We wanted to
see if this affected their level of
prejudice towards their peers.
We asked this question to find out if
gamers that tend to play with their
friends, have a higher level of prejudice
towards others that play alone.
This question was asked to find out if

there were any recurring games that
came out more often than others in the
final results.
Gaming Attitudes
Questions relating to how you feel about certain games or the people playing these certain games.
This question allowed to us to find out

if gamers had negative attitudes
towards their 'out-group' peers and
positive attitudes towards their 'in-
group' peers.
The images required for the next set of questions (images 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 respectively) will be
appended to the end of this annotated questionnaire. On the online version, it would be present on
the question itself for participants to see (refer to the appended images at the end of this
questionnaire to see how this is achieved).
Gaming Opinions
Questions on your opinions about random games.
From questions 10 to 13, participants

were presented with an image and
description of a game. All 4 of these
games are different in terms of the
gameplay.
MapleStory is a Massively-Multiplayer
Role-Playing game (MMORPG); Call of
Duty is a First-Person Shooter (FPS);
FarmVille is a Simulation game, and
StarCraft 2 is a Real-Time Strategy
game (RTS).
Participants were asked for their

opinions based on the outlook of these
games. This was used so we could
investigate whether people who do
not play one of the games or dislike
any of them, would discriminate it and
develop biased views towards the
game as it is different from the types
of games they prefer.
Conclusion
Closing questions to consolidate your answers. Please answer with complete honesty.
These closing questions was asked

to help us consolidate our results
with the question directly relating to
our hypothesis.
Online Questionnaire (Screenshot)
THE QUESTIONNAIRE: IMAGES USED
RESULTS
Throughout a period of 1 week, there were a total of 73 responses – 47 complete and 26
incomplete. All 26 incomplete responses are considered as withdrawals by the participants and will
not be included in the final results. As some questions allowed participants to skip or select, ‘No
Answer’, the total responses for each question may vary. Anomalies and responses made by
participants that requested a full withdrawal are not included.
Background
The majority of the participants were males under the age of 18 with 58% belonging to the 16 to 18
age group. The participants generally preferred First-Person Shooter, Real-Time Strategy or Role-
Playing games. In terms of favourite genre, they generally preferred military games. There was also a
higher preference for multiplayer games over single player games.
On average, 78% of the participants spend around 11.71875 hours a week playing games. The
remaining 22% of participants spends over 40 hours a week playing games. When asked, “When you
decide to play, who do you often play with?” majority of participants selected ‘Friends’, however,
86% selected ‘Home’ when asked where they would often play.
Below are common games are participants are currently playing and its type:
 Call of Duty (Modern Warfare / Modern Warfare 2) – First Person Shooter (FPS)
 Warcraft: Defence of the Ancient – Real-Time Strategy (RTS)
 MapleStory – Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG)
 Counter Strike: Source / Condition Zero – First Person Shooter (FPS)
 Starcraft 1 / 2 – Real-Time Strategy (RTS)
RESULTS
Gaming Attitudes
70
I tend to play a game cause
my friends do
60
50 My friends all share a

similar choice of games
40
I get on with everybody
30
20 I like people even if they do

not prefer my choice(s) of
10 games
I like people who prefers my
0
choice(s) of games
Strongly Disagree Not Sure Agree Strongly
Disagree Agree
Around 50% of the participants prefer people with similar choices of games. However, 88% are
comfortable with anyone regardless of their choices of games and 63% get along with everybody.
Out of all the participants, 53% shares a similar choice of games with their peers; 19% are unsure.
42% of participants agreed that they tend to play a game because of their friends; 44% disagreed
with the remainder unsure.
Gaming Opinions: MapleStory
80
I will try it out if my friends
70 asks me to
60
I would encourage others
to try this game
50
40 I think this game is fun
30
20 I am interested in knowing
more / interested in this
10 game
I have heard about / played
0 this game
Disagree Agree
The above results for MapleStory are the overall results from all the legitimate responses by our
participants. For results of our stratified samples, please refer to the end of our results page. There is
a clear balance between opposition and support for this game.
Gaming Opinions: Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2
120
asks me to
100
I would encourage others to

80 try this game
40
I am interested in knowing
more / interested in this
20
game
0
this game
Disagree Agree
Majority of the participants were strongly supportive for this game. They believed it was fun,
interesting and they would most likely encourage their friends to play it or even try it out if their
friends recommended it to them.
Gaming Opinions: FarmVille
100
90 asks me to
80
70 I would encourage others to
try this game
60
40
30
20 more / interested in this
game
10
0
this game
Disagree Agree
This game lacked popularity amongst our participants. Majority of participants were strongly against
this game and felt it was uninteresting, not fun and they would not try it or recommend it to their
friends.
RESULTS
Gaming Opinions: Starcraft II – Wings of Liberty
100
90 asks me to
80
70 I would encourage others to
try this game
60
40
30
20 more / interested in this
game
10
0
this game
Disagree Agree
Conclusion
Have you ever judged someone based on

a game they play and how?
Yes
23 18 18
No
Do you currently have a favourite game, if

so, do you think it is better than all other
games, why?
Yes
25 15 15
No
RESULTS
When asked ‘how’ the participant judged someone based on a game they play, several common
responses includes the following (in no specific order):
 People have the rights to choose a game. It is matter of opinion.

 People should be judged by their character, language, culture and other factors. The choice
of games is not an important factor of friendship.
 No. Games are just for leisure. Games are a way of people to trigger their imagination and
creativity. Just because they steal a car in GTA, doesn’t mean they will do it in real life.
 Yes. I make fun of people that play cissy games. Hard core games are the best.
 Violent games have the potential to make people violent.
 MapleStory and FarmVille are for losers.
 If they play Club Penguin or Runescape when they are 15.
 When someone plays online poker, I assume the person was confident in playing card games
and that he understood qualitative games and activities better.
 If they play too much, they have no life.
 Yes. When they suck / lie about being pro
 Blame teammates for loss.
Participants were also asked if they had a favourite game and whether or not they think it is better
than other games and why, below are a few common responses (in no specific order):
 No. I play a different game every week.

 All games are meant to be unique in their own way and shouldn’t be compared with others.
 If I had a favourite game, I would obviously think it is better. Personal choice.
 I prefer it / suits my taste / used to it.
 Strong fan base / large network / fun to interact with people and friends.
 Rich storyline and atmosphere.
 Cool, fun, amazing and better than all other s*** **s lame PS3 games or PC games out
there.
 A lot of freedom / I can do nearly anything I want / not difficult / little commitments.
 Expansive map.
 Vast features and ability to customise.
RESULTS – STRATIFIED SAMPLE
Gaming Opinions: MapleStory
Group 1 – Two Popular MapleStory Online Forums
25
20
I have heard about / played this
game
15 I am interested in knowing more
/ interested in this game
I think this game is fun
10
I would encourage others to try
this game
5 I will try it out if my friends asks
me to
0
Strongly Disagree Don't Know Agree Strongly
Disagree Agree
Group 2 – All Other Gamers
6 I have heard about / played this

game
5 I am interested in knowing more
/ interested in this game
4
I think this game is fun
3
I would encourage others to try
this game
2
I will try it out if my friends asks
1 me to
0
Strongly Disagree Don't Know Agree Strongly
Disagree Agree
CONCLUSION
Although 50% of the participants preferred people with similar choices of games, there is a tolerance
in 86% of them for people with different choices of games. As around 50% of our participants agreed
that they share a similar gaming preference or that they would tend to play a game because of their
friends, this is not enough to show the formation of groups as a result of different gaming
preferences, and hence, is not sufficient in proving any sort of conflicts as a result of different
gaming preferences.
There is a strong dissatisfaction over the game MapleStory from a group of other gamers in contrast
with a group of MapleStory community members. These 2 groups however, share a similar gaming
preference and hence, this is not sufficient enough in proving discrimination over a game as the
result of different gaming preferences. The participants’ decision to try a game is also strongly
uninfluenced by their peers. This further proves the unlikeliness of prejudice between an in-group
and out-group as participants are in an autonomous state, strongly detached from group influence.
However, due to the strong dissatisfaction over MapleStory by the in-group of gamers (the other
gamers), prejudice by the in-group may be present and based upon other factors of the game (e.g.
the features, gameplay, etc) rather than a common game theme.
There is a strong dissatisfaction over the game FarmVille by all the participants in general. There is
evidence of discrimination and prejudice over this game by the in-group (all the participants) as our
participants generally comprise of male individuals that enjoys military inclined, First-Person
Shooter, Real-Time Strategy and Role-Playing Games, with little or no support for Simulation games.
This is further evident in results from participants’ opinions on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (a
First-Person Shooter game) and Starcraft 2 (a Real-Time Strategy game). FarmVille currently has over
62 million active users worldwide which suggests the game is enjoyable and interesting. However,
this contradicts entirely with the judgements made by our participants that suggested the game was
not fun or interesting, and they would not recommend it to their peers or even try it. Therefore,
there is evidence of prejudice from an in-group towards an out-group (FarmVille) due to contrasting
gaming preferences.
Finally, through results from our conclusion, majority of our participants are prejudice and
discriminatory towards a person due to their choices of games. People will judge another person’s
personality or characteristics based on their choices of games, e.g. If you are a guy playing a girl’s
game, people would think you are soft or even homosexual. However, as the ratio of Yes to No is
almost 50:50, there is not enough evidence to prove this is generally the case with everyone and as
some participants pointed out, people have the rights to choose what games they prefer and they
should be judged on other important factors rather than the games they play.
In addition to this, there is not enough evidence to prove game favouritism will result in prejudice
and discrimination towards other games as being ‘bad’ compared to their game. Therefore, conflict
is not inevitable and as quoted from one of our participants, “All games are meant to be unique in
their own way and shouldn’t be compared with others. I might think it is better, but this is my
opinion and others may think differently too.” In conclusion, we believe that discrimination and
prejudice towards another game exists within an individual rather than a group. People’s gaming
preferences have no impact in the formation of an in-group or out-group and although people prefer
people with a similar gaming preference, they are able to get along with anyone and having a similar
gaming preference would only allow them to ‘have something in common to talk about.’
EVALUATION
There are irregularities in sampling sizes and this may affect the results. In addition to this, results
were not very gender representative and focuses mainly on the male opinion rather than the female
opinion. This is crucial as female may have a different opinion of for example, military games
compared to simulation games. In terms of cultural representative, the questionnaire was posted
online and taken by people from the United States, to Korea and the United Kingdom. It is therefore
strongly cultural representative. As there were no fix variables for the above factors, the experiment
is not really reliable and if replicated, it might not produce a similar result.
As results were being collected, there were several unfinished, vague or unbeneficial responses. This
suggest that the questions is perhaps too closed for participants to place their ideas or thoughts or
perhaps too difficult and long for them to finish. The anomalies suggest some participants did not
take the questionnaire seriously and perhaps more attention should be given in informing
participants about the seriousness of the study. The sources for the poorer or anomalous results
were also primarily from open questions that produced qualitative data. The quantitative results
however, were easier to analyse and completed more readily.
The questionnaire was highly valid however, as images were used when asking for the participant’s
opinion of a said game which allowed the participants to visualise the gameplay.
On the last 2 questions of the questionnaire, many participants did not properly address the
question which suggests the question is vaguely expressed and more detail should be included in the
future to ensure the desired responses. Quite interestingly with the opinions on MapleStory, the
group of MapleStory players selected that they were not interested in the game despite the fact
they agreed that the game was fun, perhaps there was some misinterpretation in the question.
As participants were fully aware of the study, their responses to the questionnaire may be biased
and due to social desirability, as participants may not want to be seen as being prejudice or
discriminatory over their peers based on their gaming preferences. A separate survey should
perhaps be conducted in the future in the form of a semi-structured interview.
As quoted by Jamie Madigan, the social identity theory explains or at least predicts “the Great
Console Wars of today and tomorrow.” As proven in Tajfel and Turner’s experiment, they were able
to demonstrate group favouritism within a group of boys organised through painting preferences.
Tajfel and Turner theorized that people have a tendency to construct identities based on group
membership and that we naturally want to be in a group of higher status (the in-group). However,
for a group to see themselves as a group of higher status, the in-group would have to compare
themselves with a group of lower status (the out-group) in order to raise their status.
Our experiment may not have produced the expected results as the in-group is possibly vaguely
defined. If participants were perhaps informed of the distribution of players between the 4 games
they were asked to give opinions about, this could perhaps alter the results as they would either
attempt to maintain their status or exceed the status of another group. Other key areas should also
be explored or narrowed down, such as the gaming platform or the social identity theory within a
specific game (e.g. competitions) or genre (e.g. First-Person Shooter - Counter Strike Vs. Call of
Duty).
BIBLIOGRAPHY / CREDITS
 IGN Entertainment - http://www.ign.com/
For the images used in the “Gaming Opinions” section.
 Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FarmVille
For the fact about FarmVille’s total active players.
 The New York Times -

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/fashion/29farmville.html?_r=1
For consolidating Wikipedia’s fact about FarmVille.
 LimeSurvey – http://www.limesurvey.org
For providing us with a free web-based questionnaire solution.
 KryptoDEV – http://www.kryptodev.com
For participating in our questionnaire.
 UMaple – http://www.umaple.net
For participating in our questionnaire.
 The Psychology of Video Games - http://www.psychologyofgames.com/tag/social-

identity-theory/
‘How Social Identity Theory Predicted the Console Wars of ’07’
Feedbacks From Participants
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KryptoDEV
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METHOD / PROCEDURE 3–7

THE QUESTIONNAIRE (ANNOTATED) 8 – 14

 Online Questionnaire (Screenshot) 13

 Feedbacks From Participants

Amir and Ian: Study Into Modern Gamers (2010)

The questionnaire consists of 15 questions divided into 5 distinct categories of:

 Background: questions relating to the participant.

Three different sampling methods were used, as followed:

 Opportunity Sampling / Grab Sampling

Question # [ID] – Question

Participants were given the ability to

We included this question as it would

We included this question to distinguish

Participants were given the ability to

We included this question as it would

It would also allow us to compare and

We asked this question to find out

We asked this question to see how

This question was asked to find out if

This question allowed to us to find out

From questions 10 to 13, participants

Participants were asked for their

These closing questions was asked

Online Questionnaire (Screenshot)

50 My friends all share a

20 I like people even if they do

Gaming Opinions: MapleStory

40 I think this game is fun

I would encourage others to

60 I think this game is fun

Gaming Opinions: FarmVille

Have you ever judged someone based on

Do you currently have a favourite game, if

 People have the rights to choose a game. It is matter of opinion.

 No. I play a different game every week.

Gaming Opinions: MapleStory

Group 1 – Two Popular MapleStory Online Forums

Group 2 – All Other Gamers

6 I have heard about / played this

 The New York Times -

 The Psychology of Video Games - http://www.psychologyofgames.com/tag/social-

Feedbacks From Participants

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