The link between online gaming behaviour and unethical decision-making in emerging adults: the mediating roles of game cheating and moral disengagement

Despite the substantial attention paid to the effects of game violence and game addiction, insufficient research has been conducted on other moral risks of gaming behaviour. Drawing upon the General Learning Model and the Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model, the current study utilised a survey approach to investigate the effect of online gameplay on emerging adults' real-life unethical decision-making. The mediation analyses showed no direct effect of gaming intensity on unethical decision-making, but revealed two significant indirect effects: the specific indirect effect through game cheating and the serial indirect effect through game cheating and moral disengagement. Both the indirect effects were contingent upon the moderator of peer cheating. Specifically, the relationship between gaming intensity and unethical decision-making was positively significant at low levels of peer cheating and negatively significant at high levels. In addition to contributing to a broader view of the effects of online gameplay, this study also contributes to the literature on divergent gaming behaviours and online ethics.