The Impact of Conflicted Moral Dilemmas on Moral Emotion and Desire to Replay in Video Games

This study aims to explore the impact of conflicted moral dilemmas in video games on guilt and desire to replay the scenario in an online experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to watching a gameplay video that either emphasized one moral foundation (overriding salience) or a gameplay clip that emphasized two moral foundations (equivocal salience). Then participants were asked to make an in-game decision as if they were the player in the game. Afterwards participants completed items measuring their perception of conflict at decision making point, guilt regarding the decision, and their desire to replay the scenario. Results suggest that participants reported experiencing more conflict in the equivocal condition than the overriding condition. Perceived conflict at the moral decision point led to greater feelings of guilt and a stronger desire to replay the game. Guilt partially mediated the relationship between perceived moral conflict and a desire to replay.