Lost in the Myst?: Narrative Video Gaming Decreases Self-Reported Propensity for Spiritual/Religious Experience
Based on the proposition that the visual "what you see is what you get" environment of video games may undermine ability/motivation for mental simulation/internal narrative, we hypothesized that exposure to virtual gaming would lead to decreased propensity for spiritual/religious experienc...
| Authors: | ; |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
2015
|
| In: |
The international journal for the psychology of religion
Year: 2015, Volume: 25, Issue: 1, Pages: 18-28 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Based on the proposition that the visual "what you see is what you get" environment of video games may undermine ability/motivation for mental simulation/internal narrative, we hypothesized that exposure to virtual gaming would lead to decreased propensity for spiritual/religious experience. Fifty-six Canadian undergraduates moderately interested in gaming completed measures of propensity for unitive (focus on connectedness) and numinous (focus on presence of Other) experiences online, and again following a randomly assigned virtual or text-based narrative gaming session. Self-reported unitive and numinous propensities both declined significantly following the virtual gaming session as expected. Mystical propensity declined following the text-based session as well, but numinous propensity tended to increase in this condition. Virtual gaming offers an absorbing "escape" narrative with comparatively little "in the head" effort that appears to diminish—at least temporarily—the propensity for spiritual/religious experience, which is predicated upon a sustained internal narrative involving the Unseen. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1532-7582 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The international journal for the psychology of religion
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/10508619.2014.884393 |