During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, popularity has shot up for online multiplayer video games, the most notable one being "Among Us", a game where one player secretly sabotages the rest of the group.
.png)
This is a game with an interesting social dynamic: When do people decide to turn from cooperative to uncooperative behaviour, and what factors influence it? Therefore, we were inspired to pose the following research question: does social bonding in an in-game environment positively influence the ability to achieve mutual cooperation? This question presupposes that the option to act in self-interest could produce a more optimal outcome. The main focus of this paper is on the research method: an online experiment in the in-game environment of the Nintendo Switch video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020). Our hypothesis is that social bonding of this kind indeed positively influences mutual cooperation.
.png)
.png)
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TBLA_TCFhRrUyQn1vT-fKKW8NEoACtJQ/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TBLA_TCFhRrUyQn1vT-fKKW8NEoACtJQ/view?usp=sharing)
The following tasks were executed in collaboration.