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CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIOR

Volume 11, Number 3, 2008


Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/cpb.2007.0045

Rapid Communication

Helping Others in Online Games:


Prosocial Behavior in Cyberspace

CHIH-CHIEN WANG, Ph.D. and CHIA-HSIN WANG, M.B.A.

ABSTRACT

This study examined the reasons players help others in the virtual space of online games. Re-
sults of an online empirical survey indicated that both altruism and reciprocity influence
prosocial behavior simultaneously. Additionally, the study found that male players are more
likely than female players to seek friendship of opposite sex.

INTRODUCTION ies might be not applicable to online game com-


munities.

F OR MANY PLAYERS, interaction among players is


more important than actually playing the online
game.1 Online game players interact with others as
Reciprocity means to benefit from other individ-
uals who expect future help from those helped by
them.4 According to the social exchange theory,
they do in the real world. Online game communities, people help others with an expectation of obtaining
more than other virtual communities, are designed to feedback or rewards.5 The feedback of reciprocity
promote a real-world look-and-feel. However, proso- may come from the entire virtual community rather
cial behavior within an online game community has than the specific person helped. Individuals in an
seldom been explored. Owing to the anonymity of cy- online game with reciprocity may expect benefits
berspace, prosocial behavior in cyberspace may be from people whom they helped. Thus, the individ-
different from that in the real world. ual who helped others may anticipate benefits or fu-
Altruism and reciprocity are two reasons for ture help.
prosocial behavior. Altruism means that an indi- This study also discusses the influences of gen-
viduals ultimate goal is to improve the welfare of der differences on prosocial behavior. Many previ-
other individuals.2 Individuals may act to im- ous studies have demonstrated that women are
prove another individuals welfare because of more likely than men to be altruistic,10 perhaps be-
their own intrinsic fulfillment gained by helping cause of womens value of socialization and life ex-
others. Altruistic individuals receive intrinsic ben- perience.6 The conventional sex-role stereotype in-
efits, rather than external rewards, from helping dicates that men usually provide financial support
others and may help others because they feel good and protection, while women provide emotional
when doing so and are interested in solving chal- fulfillment, in the relationships between people of
lenging problems.3 Because cyberspace has many the opposite sex.7 However, the virtual space may
unique properties, such as anonymity, the re- be different from the real world. Some online game
search results of previous prosocial behavior stud- participants even played avatars of opposite sex.89

Graduate Institute of Information Management, National Taipei University, Taiwan, Republic of China.

344
ONLINE GAME PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR 345

It is an interesting issue whether female participants which measured reciprocity, utilized two items
are more altruistic than male participants in the cy- modified from Wasko and Farajs3 scale. To mea-
berspace of online games. sure prosocial behavior in the cyberspace of an on-
Moreover, the difference between prosocial be- line game, this study adopted Ladebos12 scale,
havior with same-sex and opposite-sex beneficiaries which consists of six items. Moreover, to distinguish
has rarely been explored, although several studies fo- prosocial behavior, prosocial behavior with same-
cus on the difference in the degrees of altruism be- sex beneficiaries, and prosocial behavior with op-
tween male and female. Previous research reveals that posite-sex beneficiaries, this study modified
women would provide emotional support to their Ladebos scale and separately adopted the 6-item
male friends, while men seldom provide support to scale in these three parts. All responses were mea-
their same-sex friends.7 A statement made by a sured along a 5-point Likert-type scale.
woman receives a quick reply in a male-dominated This study collected data in an online game com-
arena.10 The same behavior also exists in the world of munity that is the best known game Web site in Tai-
online games. Female characters often receive greater wan. The original sample comprised 405 partici-
help and support during interaction in a male-ori- pants. Of them, 402 (301 male and 101 female) fully
ented online game.8 Thus, it is an interesting question completed the questionnaire and were adopted in
whether a male game player is much more likely to the data analysis, with the average age 18.27 (SD 
help female players than male ones, and vice versa. 5.06). The Cronbachs alpha values were 0.83, 0.73,
On the basis of the preceding discussion, this study 0.82, 0.81, and 0.83 for altruism, reciprocity, proso-
explores the influence of altruism, reciprocity, and the cial behavior, prosocial behavior for same-sex ben-
gender difference in the prosocial behavior. eficiary, and prosocial behavior for opposite-sex
beneficiary.

MATERIALS AND METHODS


RESULTS
An online questionnaire survey was employed in
this study. The first part of the questionnaire, mea- This study performed the structure equation
suring altruism, utilized 10 items modified from modeling (SEM) analysis to discuss the influence of
NEO-Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R) altruism and reciprocity on prosocial behavior. As
scale proposed by Goldberg et al.11 The second part, shown in Figure 1, both altruism and reciprocity

FIG. 1. SEM results.


346 WANG AND WANG

had a positive impact on prosocial behavior. Posi- preference to help female players results from
tive correlation (0.791; p  0.05) also was observed males desire for friendship with the opposite sex.
between altruism and reciprocity.
This study found that neither prosocial behavior
(t  0.764; p  0.05) nor prosocial behavior for REFERENCES
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of difference found in this study may be because the
average age of the participants of our survey was Address reprint requests to:
only 18.27 years old. These young online game play- Dr. Chih-Chien Wang
ers may lack life experience. Thus, the difference in Graduate Institute of Information Management
the degree of altruism between younger male and National Taipei University
female participants is insignificant. PO Box 4-1
Notably, male users prefer helping female users Sansia Township, Taipei County
to helping male users, while the gender of the ben- Taiwan, Republic of China 23799
eficiary makes no difference to female users. This
study concludes that male online game players E-mail: wangson@mail.ntpu.edu.tw

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