The effect of moral intuitions on decisions in video game play: The impact of chronic and temporary intuition accessibility

The model of intuitive morality and exemplars (MIME) highlights the central influence of innate moral instincts (or intuitions) in media use. Recent experimental research on the MIME found that moral intuitions that are chronically accessible in video gamers are likely to influence players to uphold related moral principles in the game. This study replicated and extended this research to examine the influence of both chronic and temporary accessibility of moral intuitions. Discussion focuses on the prospect that while chronic accessibility should be a better predictor of behavior in most cases, there are proximal in-game instances where environmental cues temporarily increase the accessibility of other moral intuitions. This suggests that (a) players do not necessarily disengage their morals during gameplay, and that moral intuitions influence their in-game decisions, and that (b) this influence is not fixed, but can be continuously modulated by game design features.