A Reason Why Video Games Are Hard To Give Up Addicting Game News
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 results published in the journal Motivation and Emotion
this month suggest that people enjoy video games because they find them
intrinsically satisfying.
"We think there's a deeper theory than the fun of playing," says Richard M.
Ryan, a motivational psychologist at the University and lead investigator in the
four new studies about gaming. Players reported feeling best when the games
produced positive experiences and challenges that connected to what they know in
the real world.
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.
Ryan and coauthors Andrew Przybylski, a graduate student at the University of
Rochester, and Scott Rigby, the president of Immersyve who earned a doctorate in
psychology at Rochester, aimed to evaluate players' motivation in virtual
environments. Study volunteers answered pre- and post-game questionnaires that
were applied from a psychological measure based on Self-Determination Theory, a
widely researched theory of motivation developed at the University of Rochester.
Read complete at: www.sciencedaily.com
