The Motivational Pull of Video Games: A Self-Determination Theory Approach

Four studies apply self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000) in investigating motivation for computer game play, and the effects of game play on well-being. Studies 1–3 examine individuals playing 1, 2 and 4 games, respectively and show that perceived in-game autonomy and competence are associated with game enjoyment, preferences, and changes in well-being pre- to post-play. Competence and autonomy perceptions are also related to the intuitive nature of game controls, and the sense of presence or immersion in participants’ game play experiences. Study 4 surveys an on-line community with experience in multi-player games. Results show that SDT’s theorized needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness independently predict enjoyment and future game play. The SDT model is also compared with Yee’s (2005) motivation taxonomy of game play motivations. Results are discussed in terms of the relatively unexplored landscape of human motivation within virtual worlds.     

The Incompleteness of Theories of Games

We first state a few previously obtained results that lead to general undecidability and incompleteness theorems in axiomatized theories that range from the theory of finite sets to classical elementary analysis. Out of those results we prove several incompleteness theorems for axiomatic versions of the theory of noncooperative games with Nash equilibria; in particular, we show the existence of finite games whose equilibria cannot be proven to be computable.     

Role Asymmetry and Code Transmission in Signaling Games: An Experimental and Computational Investigation

In signaling games, a sender has private access to a state of affairs and uses a signal to inform a receiver about that state. If no common association of signals and states is initially available, sender and receiver must coordinate to develop one. How do players divide coordination labor? We show experimentally that, if players switch roles at each communication round, coordination labor is shared. However, in games with fixed roles, coordination labor is divided: Receivers adjust their mappings more frequently, whereas senders maintain the initial code, which is transmitted to receivers and becomes the common code. In a series of computer simulations, player and role asymmetry as observed experimentally were accounted for by a model in which the receiver in the first signaling round has a higher chance of adjusting its code than its partner. From this basic division of labor among players, certain properties of role asymmetry, in particular correlations with game complexity, are seen to follow.     

Leveling Up Your Game: The Use of Video Games as a Therapeutic Modality

This article introduces and begins to explore the use of video game technology in a therapeutic setting, providing context, rationale, and an introduction to the culture of video game players. Through the lens of play therapy, authors seek to create an awareness of the potential effectiveness of video games as a means of fostering safe self-exploration for the client. An introductory course on gaming culture and terminology is offered to better aid in the therapist’s integration and facilitation of this new modality into practice.     

儿童公平行为的发展——来自博弈实验的证据

公平正义一直是人类不懈追求的目标,是心理学、经济学等多个学科共同关注的一个重要课题。发展心理学常采用故事法对儿童的公平认知进行研究,博弈范式的引入则为研究儿童的公平行为提供了新的方法和角度。该文主要介绍了独裁者博弈和最后通牒博弈中儿童公平行为的发展趋势,并对已有的矛盾性结论进行了原因分析,探讨了公平行为的内团体偏差效应、公平的本质是意图公平还是结果公平、以及心理理论与公平行为的关系等问题。最后,该文指出今后对儿童公平行为的研究应充分考虑社会情境与社会认知能力的影响。     

亲社会视频游戏对玩家人性化知觉水平的影响

为了探讨亲社会视频游戏对玩家人性化知觉的影响, 研究以大学生为被试, 通过两个实验, 分别采用自陈报告法和单类别内隐联想测验技术考察了亲社会视频游戏对玩家自我及他人外显及内隐人性化知觉的影响。结果发现:(1)相对于中性游戏, 不论是普遍人性, 还是独特人性, 亲社会视频游戏均可提高玩家对自我及他人外显的人性化知觉水平;(2)相对于中性游戏, 亲社会游戏可显著提高玩家对自我及他人独特人性的内隐知觉水平, 也可提升对自我普遍人性的内隐知觉水平, 但对他人普遍人性的内隐知觉的效应不明确。这些结果表明, 亲社会视频游戏对于提升玩家对自我和他人的人性化知觉水平具有重要作用。     

Sport,Girls, Trouble and Humour: Black and Indian Boys Negotiating Gender,Race and Class in a Formerly White Single Sex School in South Africa

This article reports on an interview study conducted by Deevia Bhana and Rob Pattman of Grade 11 (16–17 year old) boys attending different kinds of public schools in the Durban, South Africa. It investigated their accounts personal lives and identities as young men and women in and outside their schools. We conducted semi-structured interviews with the participants to determine how they experienced school and how they presented themselves in the interviews, their interests, aspirations, relations with other boys and girls in and out of school, and the kinds of identifications they made. The data for this are from two interviews conducted with black and Indian boys at Elmsdale, a formerly white boys' high school near Durban with an excellent academic and sporting reputation. We analyzed the data using narrative and discourse analysis. Concerns about being marginalised in school were expressed by both the black and the Indian boys. Issues of gender, race, class, sexuality and power were prominent in the interviews, notably when the boys were discussing sport, trouble, being funny and girls.     

Creativity in Medical Education: The Value of Having Medical Students Make Stuff

What is the value of having medical students engage in creative production as part of their learning? Creating something new requires medical students to take risks and even to fail--something they tend to be neither accustomed to nor comfortable with doing. “Making stuff” can help students prepare for such failures in a controlled environment that doesn’t threaten their professional identities. Furthermore, doing so can facilitate students becoming resilient and creative problem-solvers who strive to find new ways to address vexing questions. Though creating something new can be fun, this is not the main outcome of interest. Rather, the principle reason we recommend devoting precious curricular time to creative endeavors is because it helps medical students become better doctors.     

电子游戏的消极影响及争议

国内外的心理学者对暴力与非暴力电子游戏的消极影响做了大量研究, 随着一般学习模型的出现, 电子游戏的积极影响研究开始兴起, 同时也产生了对电子游戏消极影响的激烈争议。通过对近年来电子游戏消极影响研究中存在的问题进行分析, 认为争议的原因主要在于相关研究未能与真实社会情境结合, 研究设计与方法存在异议, 研究范围狭窄, 研究结果相互矛盾等。将研究领域扩展至电子游戏积极影响方面, 以及大范围的纵向研究将是解决这一争议的关键和这一领域未来的研究方向。     

Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers

Two hundred twenty-five console video game covers obtained from online retail sites were examined for portrayals of men and women. We hypothesized that males would be portrayed more often, but that females would be portrayed in a more hyper-sexualized manner. Male characters were almost four times more frequently portrayed than female characters and were given significantly more game relevant action. However, in spite of their less frequent appearance, female characters were more likely to be portrayed with exaggerated, and often objectified, sexiness. Further, violence and sexiness was paired more frequently for female characters than violence and muscular physiques for the male characters. The potential influence these negative portrayals could have on gamers is discussed.     

视频游戏对成功老龄化的影响

老龄化已成为世界性问题, 数字化技术的发展以及视频游戏的迅速普及, 使视频游戏对老年人的影响也逐渐为研究者所关注。游戏中认知功能的训练能有效延缓认知老化; 游戏中体验到的积极情绪以及与其他玩家的互动可以提高心理健康水平; 网络视频游戏还能增加老年人的社会交往, 扩大社交网络, 增强社会功能; 此外, 互动视频游戏还能使老年人进行更多的身体锻炼。未来研究应进一步探讨视频游戏对成功老龄化更全面的影响, 老年玩家在视频游戏中的性别差异, 如何在中国文化背景下理解视频游戏带来的积极影响以及进行应用研究, 针对老年人的实际需要为游戏开发提供建议。     

The Real Value of Fake Teams: An Ethical Defense of Fantasy Sports

ABSTRACT

In the only two articles on the topic of which I am aware, Chad Carlson and Scott Aikin have leveled three objections against fantasy sports—namely, that participation in fantasy sports elicits (1) a distortion of the virtue of loyalty, (2) an ethically problematic failure of understanding, either of morally valuable parts of games and/or of games as coherent wholes, and (3) a failure to respect the game in that participants desire to see play that is good for their fantasy team rather than play that makes for a good game. This paper defends fantasy sports against those objections. I argue that once the ethical values underlying objections (1) and (2) are identified and plausibly interpreted, we see that fantasy sports pose no threat to those values, but rather provide participants with an alternative, and in some cases superior, means of realizing the relevant values. Participation in fantasy sports is in unavoidable tension with the obligation at work in objection (3), but that obligation is so weak that its failure is easily compensated for by the realization of an ethical value that is central to fantasy sports, yet has been overlooked by both critics—namely, human flourishing in the form of the emotional and intellectual virtues which fantasy sports challenge participants to develop and display.     

暴力电子游戏的短期脱敏效应：两种接触方式比较

比较主、被动接触暴力电子游戏的脱敏效应,以44名男性大学生为被试,利用生物反馈仪测量被试主动参与游戏或被动观看游戏录像前后,及随后观看暴力视频过程中皮电与心率的变化（脱敏效应的生理指标）。结果表明：（1）暴力电子游戏可以产生脱敏效应。接触游戏15分钟后,暴力游戏组观看暴力视频过程中皮电的增加值明显小于非暴力游戏组;（2）游戏的接触方式对于脱敏效应的程度无显著影响,但主动参与组对于游戏内容知觉到更高的愉快与更低的沮丧     

Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior: Potential Sex Differences

Evidence of the effects of playing violent video games on subsequent aggression has been mixed. This study examined how playing a violent video game affected levels of aggression displayed in a laboratory. A total of 43 undergraduate students (22 men and 21 women) were randomly assigned to play either a violent (Mortal Kombat) or nonviolent (PGA Tournament Golf) video game for 10 min. Then they competed with a confederate in a reaction time task that allowed for provocation and retaliation. Punishment levels set by participants for their opponents served as the measure of aggression. The results confirmed our hypothesis that playing the violent game would result in more aggression than would playing the nonviolent game. In addition, a Game × Sex interaction showed that this effect was larger for men than for women. Findings are discussed in light of potential differences in aggressive style between men and women.     

Cooperation in Mixed‐Motive Games: The Role of Individual Differences in Selfish and Social Orientation

In mixed‐motive games, people must choose between acting upon selfish interests and concerns for others. Yet, the consistency of people's behaviour across these various games is still unclear. If the same conflict between self and others is at the core of all mixed‐motive situations, three hypotheses can be stated: (1) behaviours in different mixed‐motive games should be substantially related; (2) all these games should substantially appeal to dispositional variables that probe in the psychological conflict between self and others; and (3) these dispositional variables should explain the shared variance among various games. These hypotheses were tested among undergraduate students (N = 219) who played seven different single‐shot mixed‐motive games and one sequential game. Social Value Orientation and the ideological attitudes Social Dominance Orientation and Right‐Wing Authoritarianism were included as dispositions. Our findings, however, showed evidence that did not fully substantiate our hypotheses, which calls into question the general idea that all mixed‐motive games render the conflict between selfish interests and concern for others salient. In the discussion, we focus on implications for research on mixed‐motive situations and elaborate on the role of ideology in this domain. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Taking the Red Pill: Using The Matrix to Explore Transgender Identity Development

This article presents a plot analysis of The Matrix and comparisons to a transgender identity development model. Major scenes throughout the movie are discussed through the lens of Devor’s transgender identity development model. The main character’s evolution from Mr. Anderson to Neo is presented, as well as how his experiences align with multiple stages in transgender identity development. Stages of transgender identity development are discussed and emphasized, including identity confusion, discovery of transgenderism, identity acceptance, transition, and transgender pride. These stages and others are discussed and related to uses in counseling sessions with transgender individuals and their family members.     

绩效薪酬对员工突破性创造力和渐进性创造力的影响

研究分别从认知评价理论和习得性努力理论视角考察了绩效薪酬对员工突破性创造力和渐进性创造力的影响及其作用机制, 并检验了变革型领导和交易型领导对上述两条路径的调节效应。基于24家企业的364对上下级匹配数据的研究结果表明：绩效薪酬对内在动机和突破性创造力没有显著的影响, 对外在动机和渐进性创造力有显著的正向影响。变革型领导调节绩效薪酬与突破性创造力的关系：高变革领导情境下, 绩效薪酬通过正向影响内在动机间接对突破性创造力产生正向影响; 低变革领导情境下, 绩效薪酬通过负向影响内在动机间接对突破性创造力产生负向影响。交易型领导调节绩效薪酬与渐进性创造力的关系：交易型领导通过强化绩效薪酬对外在动机的影响进而放大了绩效薪酬对渐进性创造力的正向效应。针对上述结果, 讨论了本文的理论与实践意义。