Blaming the smurf

Using a novel social deception behavior in online games to test attribution theories

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6443371
AutoresCharles K Monge (0000-0001-9277-8239, The Ohio State University, autor de correspondencia), Nicholas L Matthews (0000-0003-0220-1917, The Ohio State University)
Año2024
Volumen27
Número7
Páginas4181-4204
Fecha de publicación2024-03-12
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaNew Media & Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1461-4448 • E-ISSN: 1461-7315
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14614448241235638
OpenAlexW4392715790
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas23

Despite their popularity, online video games possess pervasive toxicity. However, players do not categorically judge toxic behaviors as wrong. Attribution theories are well suited to disambiguate such judgment variance, but debate exists on the usefulness of motivated versus socially regulated blame perspectives. By exploring a new, potentially toxic behavior called “smurfing,” we innovate on methodological barriers that make experimentally disentangling socially regulated and motivated attribution perspectives difficult. In Study 1, we empirically present, describe, and explore smurfing and its perceived effects as a novel cheating behavior in online gaming. In Study 2, we extracted player-generated reasons for smurfing and manipulated the stakes of games to manipulate transgression salience (a key factor of blame attribution) across a moral continuum. By having participants use a mock crowd-sourced judgment platform, we observed the (in)stability of stakes across a continuum of reasons. We subsequently replicated our findings with a novel sample in Study 3

Attribution · Cognitive psychology · Deception · Social media · Test (biology · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology