Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? A qualitative research on the social constructs in reality and online games

• Main Authors: (Lu) Yang, Angelica Lorraine P., Santos, Jillen Marie L., Collantes, Marien Daphne B., Manabat, Anthony John A., Reyes, Phoebe Mae U.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2015
• Subjects: Social constructionism; Computer games; Internet games; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/10527
• Institution: De La Salle University

The study discusses five social constructs namely aggression, sexism, altruism and reciprocity, pakikisama and utang na loob in relation to reality and virtual reality in the context of online gaming. The study aims to discover how these social constructs defined by people in both reality and virtual reality as well as the similarities and differences of each. This is a qualitative study focusing on two focus group discussions, one comprised of non-gamers, composed of seven (7) people, and another comprised of gamers, composed of eight (8) people. Six interviews were also made to support the data obtained from the focus group discussion. Results show different themes that emerged from each focus group discussion. Both non-gamers and gamers had similar themes indicating that there are similarities between the definitions of the groups however there were also themes that were uniquely described by one particular group providing differences between the definitions of each group. As to how each construct is expressed in either reality or virtual reality correspondingly there were numerous unique scenarios that each group defined while there were some that were similar. Overall, the study yielded results that were able to give more detail to each construct in both reality and virtual reality.