Purpose. Can games provide a holistic understanding of the ethical decision-making process related to sustainability and environmental management?
Method. Thirty participants, 18 to 34 years old, were recruited. Twenty were then randomly assigned to play a popular role-playing game, which raises an issue of whether to drain or preserve a virtual lake. Ten participants were assigned to a control condition, which involved a written version of the lake dilemma. Using a researcher-developed coding scheme, this study compared the ethical thinking skills and thought processes used to approach the lake scenario.
Findings.Control condition participants more frequently chose to drain the lake than game condition participants. The top-ranked thought processes used by the control condition participants were reasoning-related only, whereas the top-ranked thought processes used by the game condition participants were both reasoning- and empathy-related, which may have related to their greater likelihood to preserve the lake. While, most game participants chose to preserve the lake (75%), game participants chose the “negative” choice in this scenario more often than any other (non-sustainability related) scenario provided in the game.
Implications. This study helps us to understand how people think through sustainability-related scenarios, and how to use games for policy making and education.
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