Why do we feel emotional attachments to fictional characters?

1. Are you male or female?

Male
Female
Prefer not to say

2. On average, how many hours a week do you spend playing videogames of any sort (consoles, PC, Internet based etc)

3. Who is your favourite videogame character of all time, and why?

4. Do you find that you are closer to characters that you relate to in real life? For example, do you find yourself relating more to a character sharing the same profession or holding the same skillset as you, such as a nurse or teacher?

Please explain underneath with why you may or may not relate with characters you like.

Yes
No
Sometimes

Why is this your answer?

5. Have you ever found yourself crying/genuinely upset about the death of a videogame character? If so, who was it and why were you upset?

6. In your opinion, what is most important in making you feel an emotional attachment to a videogame character? Please rate lowest to highest

Aesthetically pleasing (i.e. they are attractive/cute/nice to look at - not necessarily sexually)
Humanoid (do they have a human-like form)
Task attractiveness (they are helpful/tend to your needs/don't interrupt gameplay)
Extroverted (are socially adept and outspoken, preferring company to solitude, sometimes cocky)
Introverted (prefer solitude, are generally quiet and thoughtful/mysterious)
Caring (Do they look out for other people/treat them like their own family)

7. When controlling a videogame character, do you feel as though you are making the decisions as the character itself, or as a guide/mentor helping the protagonist through their trials?

The player (you) and the character are one and the same.
The player (you) are a guide/mentor to the character.
Your role changes dependent on the game.

Comments:

8. When creating a character in any videogame, do you try to recreate yourself, or do you create a completely different avatar? Please explain why below.

I create a character as close to my own image as possible.
I create a character similar to myself, but a "better" version of my own being.
I create a character completely different to who I am in real life.
I rarely/never play games with character customisation.

Please explain your choice above:

9. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the real consists of our basic needs, the imaginary is how we perceive the world around us (including our own bodies) and the symbolic is our language and our laws, how the world expects us to speak/act/exist.

Post apocalyptic games explore what happens when the symbolic is lost (when law breaks down) and how the real is able to edge back into the foreground of human thought, which changes the scales of morality.

Based on the harsher environments, untrustworthy enemies and wary allies in post apocalyptic scenarios that do not exist in games focusing on the pre-apocalypse, do you find that you feel more strongly about characters in the former? Why is that?

Yes, I feel stronger toward characters in a post apocalyptic environment.
No, I feel more toward characters in a pre-apocalyptic setting.
My feelings toward characters is the same, regardless of setting.

Why is this?

Here is a picture of two characters from a post apocalyptic narrative. The following questions will reference this image.

10. Based purely on the picture of the characters above, do they illicit any emotional response from you? Do you find them attractive in any of the ways mentioned in question six? Please comment below with your thoughts and reasons.

Yes
No
I don't know

Comments:

11. The characters above are called Sera and Oliver. Sera was kidnapped from her home before an apocalyptic event, and was experimented on by scientists until the day she escaped. finding the world around her ravaged by fire. Oliver on the other hand was born after the apocalypse, and had to learn to survive on a daily basis in order to make it to his teenage years.

With this new information about the two characters, have your perceptions of them changed at all? Do you feel anything toward either of them now that their backstories have been introduced? Please leave comments below.

Yes
Slightly more
No

Please explain your choice above:

12. Based on Lacan's theory of the imaginary, I believe that the reason videogame players feel emotional attachments to fictional characters is because of how we perceive the world. We see things how we want to see them, and it is different for everyone - our morals, our views on politics, justice, injustice etc. The world we live in is a creation of our own minds, altered for each person depending on how they choose to see it.

To that effect, the reason we feel the same emotions for a fictional character as we would for a real human being is because both exist on the same mental "plane" - if the world we live in is an imaginary construct built upon the real, then the imaginary nature of much of what we see is almost identical to the imaginary characters and worlds that we are able to play through in videogames. As far as our minds are concerned, there is little difference.

Feel free to leave comments below, and let me know if you agree/disagree with my theory!

Thoughts/Feedback/Justification

13. Feel free to leave any extra feedback or thoughts in the box below. If you have none, you may leave it blank.