«Let’s Go Deep into the Game to Save Our Planet!» How an Immersive and Educational Video Game Reduces Psychological Distance and Raises Awareness

Abstract

Climate change appears to be the ecological issue which benefits from the most attention in the literature, compared to equally alarming situations such as plastic pollution. In fact, waste management issues took a new step with the recent discovery of microplastics in human blood for the first time, as it used to be a hypothesis. Instead of separating those questions, some researchers tend to consider that a link exists between the effects of global warming and plastic degradation in the ocean. Research focusing on the construal-level theory and the psychological distance explain the lack of public interest in the environmental crisis. However, recent studies highlight the empirical support of the psychological distance instead of the CLT, especially regarding climate change, but a few studies explore the psychological distance related to plastic pollution. With that in mind, any means to reduce the perceived psychological distance regarding environmental issues such as plastic pollution might increase their sensitivity and motivation to act. Moreover, the change of habit could be induced by a new event that would disrupt someone’s daily life according to the habit discontinuity hypothesis, and the use of immersive media such as video games might be the solution. Given numerous possibilities of creation with the scenarios, gameplay, public of interest and gaming contexts, video games also influence motivation, engagement and learning ability. We can also find specific components and mechanisms from game design in media that do not focus on entertainment first but on pedagogical purpose: serious games. Thus, this study investigates how immersive media might reduce specific psychological distance dimensions and trigger emotions using an educational video game on plastic pollution, which might play a major role in changing ones’ daily habits. The research uses a qualitative method centered on semi-structured individual interviews and the experimentation of a video game named Plasticity. Results support all the propositions and show that different types of immersion might reduce each dimension of the psychological distance, which is a first, reinforcing environmental awareness and new intentions of pro-environmental behavior. Other areas of discussion are furthered explored.