From faux-social to pro-social: The mediating role of copresence in developing expectations of social support in a game

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-1-2016

Abstract

Social network games-games that incorporate network data from social network sites-heavily rely on helping behavior between players as a central mechanism of play. Does this "faux social" behavior still generate expectations of social support among players? An experiment (N = 88) was conducted to examine the effect of helping on copresence and perceived social support between strangers playing the Facebook game Cityville. Three types of social support were examined: instrumental support within the game, instrumental support outside of the game, and emotional support. Findings indicate that the simple action of being helped in a game generates copresence, the feeling of proximity in a virtual environment. Copresence was a positive predictor of all three types of perceived social support but had highest explanatory power for instrumental support within the game.

Identifier

84978946694 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Presence Teleoperators and Virtual Environments

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1162/PRES_a_00246

e-ISSN

15313263

ISSN

10547460

First Page

61

Last Page

74

Issue

1

Volume

25

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