http://psychcentral.com/news/2006/12/27/video-games-satisfy-basic-needs/
Video Games Satisfy Basic Needs
By: Psych Central Senior News Editor on Wednesday, Dec, 27, 2006 Reviewed by: John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on June 21, 2007 at 12:59 pm
As researchers study the video-game phenomena, an activity often blamed for a variety of societal woes, scientists posit the reason the games are so compelling is because the fun of playing is rooted in fulfilling basic psychological needs.
Psychologists at the University of Rochester, in collaboration with Immersyve, Inc., a virtual environment think tank, asked 1,000 gamers what motivates them to keep playing.
The research found that games can provide opportunities for achievement, freedom, and even a connection to other players. Those benefits trumped a shallow sense of fun, which doesn’t keep players as interested.
“It’s our contention that the psychological ‘pull’ of games is largely due to their capacity to engender feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness,” says Ryan. The researchers believe that some video games not only motivate further play but “also can be experienced as enhancing psychological wellness, at least short-term,” he says.
Four groups of people were asked to play different games, including one group tackling “massively multiplayer online” games—MMO for short, which are considered the fastest growing segment of the computer gaming industry. MMOs are capable of supporting hundreds of thousands of players simultaneously. For those playing MMOs, the need for relatedness emerged “as an important satisfaction that promotes a sense of presence, game enjoyment, and an intention for future play,” the researchers found.
Though different types of games and game environments were studied, Ryan points out that “not all video games are created equal” in their ability to satisfy basic psychological needs. “But those that do may be the best at keeping players coming back.”
Source: University of Rochester
Le suivant est en lien direct avec L'Éloge de la fuite et l'anxiété sociale...
Public release date: 23-Oct-2007[
Contact: Michael Bourguignon michael.bourguignon@mcgill.ca
514-398-8305 McGill University
Video game shown to cut cortisol
Playing social-intelligence game reduces stress hormone by 17 percent
A video game designed by McGill University researchers to help train people to change their perception of social threats and boost their self-confidence has now been shown to reduce the production of the stress-related hormone cortisol. The new findings appear in the October issue of the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
“We already knew that it was possible to design games to allow people to practise new forms of social perception, but we were surprised by the impact this had when we took the games out of the lab and into the context of people’s stressful lives,” said McGill psychology professor Mark Baldwin.
Prof. Baldwin and his team – McGill PhD graduates Stéphane Dandeneau and Jodene Baccus and graduate student Maya Sakellaropoulo – have been developing a suite of video games that train players in social situations to focus more on positive feedback rather than being distracted and deterred by perceived social slights or criticisms. The games are based on the emerging science of social intelligence, which has found that a significant part of daily stress comes from our social perceptions of the world.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-10/mu-vgs102307.php
pour un exemple du jeu social "positif" : www.mindhabits.com.
