ABSTRACT: Emerging perspectives in media psychology have begun to focus on enjoyment and appreciation as unique reactions to entertaining media fare. As two types of media effects, one might expect the constituent elements of each to be rooted in satisfaction of different sets of psychological needs –such as autonomy and competence needs explaining enjoyment experiences (pleasures associated with gameplay and challenge) while relatedness and insight needs explain appreciation experiences (pleasures associated with narrative experiences). The current study expands this logic by suggesting that elements of one’s attachment to their game character might explain unique enjoyment and appreciation experiences. Indeed, increased sense of control over character actions was significantly associated with enjoyment experiences while increased feelings of responsibility for a character’s well-being was significantly associated with meaningfulness experiences. CITATION: Bowman, N. D., Rogers, R., & Sherrick, B. I. (2013, April). “In control or in their shoes”: How character attachment differentially influences video game enjoyment and appreciation. Top paper in “Media and the Self” research category, Broadcast Education Association Research Symposium “Media and Social Life: The Self, Relationships, and Society.” [Download for Audio Narrative Overlay]

1. IN CONTROL OR
IN THEIR SHOES?
HOW CHARACTER ATTACHMENT
DIFFERENTIALLY INFLUENCES VIDEO
GAME ENJOYMENT AND APPRECIATION
Bowman, Rogers, Sherrick*
*Assist by Woolley, Chung

2. VIDEO GAMES
• Games are fun, but what is a video
game?
– Video: medium of content/message
delivery
– Game: bounded rationality,
challenge and skill system
• We play games, we process content

3. ENJOYMENT IN GAMES
• Fun!

4. APPRECIATION IN GAMES
• Insightful!

5. χ2/df = 2.07, p = .02;
CFI = .99; RMSEA = .05
.36***
.24*** R2 = .35
.12** .25***
.19***
.25***
.19***
.05*
.12**
.27***
R2 = .75
.51***
.13***
.11**
.30*** .59***

6. CHARACTER ATTACHMENT
• A “psychological merging of player
and character” in a video game
– Identification
– Suspension of Disbelief
– Control
– Responsibility

7. CENTRAL QUESTIONS
• RQ1: Do dimensions of character attachment
explain unique variance in game enjoyment?
• RQ2: Do dimensions of character attachment
explain unique variance in game
appreciation?

8. METHOD
• Online survey (N = 512), randomly assigned to
tell us about:
– Your most enjoyable gaming experience (n = 249)
– Your most meaningful gaming experience (n =
263)
• Snowball sampling, 10 participants given $50
USD Amazon.com card

9. DESCRIPTIVES
• Enjoyment: M = 6.68, SD = .56, α = ,82
• Appreciation: M = 4.48, S = 1.72, α = .84
• CA:
– Identification: M = 2.79, SD = 1.28, α = .85
– Suspension: M = 4.02, SD = 1.36, α = .75
– Control: M = 5.20, SD = .82, α = .73
– Responsibility: M = 4.22, SD = 1.39, α = .81

10. CA & ENJOYMENT/APPRECIATION
Enjoyment Appreciation
Step 1: Controls
Gender -.05 -.22***
Age -.09 -.10+
∆R2 .01 .06***
Step 2: Intrinsic Needs
Competence .47*** -.02
Autonomy .13* .02
Relatedness .01 .36***
Insight -.05 .58***
∆R2 .28*** .69***
Step 3: CA
Identification -.08 -.01
Suspension of Disbelief .00 .03
Control .12* -.06+
Responsibility -.08 .10**
∆R2 .02+ .01+

11. DISCUSSION
• CA dimensions explain unique
variance in enjoyment and
appreciation
– + control  + enjoyment
“Pleasure of Control”
– + responsibility  +
appreciation
“Pleasure of Cognition”

12. DISCUSSION
• Small contribution to unique variance
– Multicollinearity?
• No needs = +8% enjoyment, +26% appreciation
• Data despite lack of discrete referent
character
• Need for temporal causal ordering

13. TO READ
• Enjoyment
– Tamborini R, Bowman N D, Eden A, Grizzard M, Organ A. Defining media
enjoyment as the satisfaction of intrinsic needs. Journal of Communication
2010; 60.4: 758-77.
• Appreciation
– Oliver MB, Raney AA. Entertainment as pleasurable and meaningful:
Identifying hedonic and eudaimonic motivations for entertainment
consumption. Journal of Communication 2011; 61: 984-1004.
• Character Attachment
– Lewis ML, Weber R, Bowman ND. “They may be pixels, but they’re MY
Pixels”: Developing a metric of character attachment in role-playing
video games. CyberPsychology and Behavior 2008; 11.4: 515-8.

14. FOR MORE INFORMATION
PLEASE CONTACT:
Nicholas David Bowman, Ph.D.
Nicholas.Bowman@mail.wvu.edu
http://nmediatheory.blogspot.com
http://ndbowman.info
@bowmanspartan