A Study of the Effect of Social Influence on the College Student’s Attitude and Behavior for Playing Online Games

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of social influence on college students’ attitude and behavior to play online game by examining the moderating effect of gender. First, a two-stage sampling was proceeded to send out 300 questionnaires, including 211 valid questionnaires and 89 invalid questionnaires. According to the result analysis, social influence significantly influenced female college students’ attitude but not significantly influenced male college students’ attitude toward playing online game. Informational social influence had a significant influence on college students’ behavior intensity but not on their behavioral frequency, and normative social influence significantly influenced behavioral intensity and frequency both. For the purpose of exploring the reasons, this study picked 7 male college students to join an online focus group discussion for further interview. The subject of discussion focused on the effect of social influence on attitude and behavior of playing online game. The participants were asked questions about their feelings and real behavior. Then their answers were gathered to undertake a descriptive analysis. The analysis results showed that the inconsistency between male college students’ social influence acceptance and attitude might be caused because of three major causes: 1) their level of involvement and flow in playing online games; 2) they see online game playing as a positive behavior (e.g. to ease their pressure; to while away their extra-time); 3) they could earn psychological benefit from playing online game (e.g. the sense of achievement).