Author:

Keywords:

Social Sciences, Psychology, Multidisciplinary, Psychology, Experimental, Psychology, Digital games, Perceived realism, Virtual environments, VIDEO GAMES, MORAL DISENGAGEMENT, AGGRESSION, ENJOYMENT, MODEL, 0806 Information Systems, 1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Sciences, Education, 4608 Human-centred computing, 5201 Applied and developmental psychology, 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology

Abstract:

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd Perceived realism is a key concept in explaining the mental processing of media messages and the societal impact of media. Despite its importance, few studies have examined its conceptualization and dimensional structure from an empirical point of view, especially with regard to digital games. In this paper we present three studies aimed at 1) validating a dimensional structure of realism judgements on shooting games and 2) creating a valid measurement instrument. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses support five dimensions of perceived game realism that are commonly presented in previous studies. An investigation of the internal reliability and psychometric properties of the constructs reveals that the measurement instrument conforms to a large extent to the requirements of scale validation.