Death with a Story

This study investigates how game playing experience changes when a story is added to a first‐person shooter game. Dependent variables include identification, presence, emotional experiences and motivations. When story was present, game players felt greater identification, sense of presence, and physiological arousal. The presence of story did not affect self‐reported arousal or dominance. This study clearly demonstrates that story is something that video game players enjoy; it helps involve them in the game play, makes them feel more immersed in the virtual environment, and keeps them aroused. The greater character identification may be especially worrisome, as past research has shown that justified media violence disinhibits actual aggression on the part of the audience.     

The contagious impact of playing violent video games on aggression: Longitudinal evidence

Meta-analyses have shown that violent video game play increases aggression in the player. The present research suggests that violent video game play also affects individuals with whom the player is connected. A longitudinal study (N = 980) asked participants to report on their amount of violent video game play and level of aggression as well as how they perceive their friends and examined the association between the participant's aggression and their friends’ amount of violent video game play. As hypothesized, friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 was associated with the participant's aggression at Time 2 even when controlling for the impact of the participant's aggression at Time 1. Mediation analyses showed that friends’ aggression at Time 1 accounted for the impact of friends’ amount of violent video game play at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2. These findings suggest that increased aggression in video game players has an impact on the player's social network.     

Distraction and social comparison as mediators of social facilitation effects

Sanders and Baron (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975, 32, 956–963) suggested that increases in drive produced by the presence of others (social facilitation) are due to the tendency for others to distract task performers as they worked on a task. This Distraction-Conflict theory proposes that socially mediated drive induction will occur whenever there is some reason to shift attention from the task to the social stimuli. In the case of humans, one such reason may be the opportunity to obtain social comparison information from an audience or coactors. The present research demonstrated that social facilitation effects (improved simple task performance and impaired complex task performance produced by the presence of others) occurred only when subjects were motivated to obtain comparison information (Experiment I) and when comparison information was available (Experiment II). The availability of comparison information also led to increased accuracy in estimating the coactor's performance. This indicated that in conditions manifesting social facilitation, subjects were spending some time monitoring the coactor's work, which is an inherently distracting activity. Several supplementary measures of distraction were generally consistent in indicating greater distraction under conditions manifesting social facilitation. The present results offer no support for the explanations of social facilitation suggested by Zajonc and by Cottrell.     

The self-attention-induced feedback loop and social facilitation

It has been proposed that self-directed attention leads to the engagement of a cybernetic feedback loop, by which discrepancies between present behavior and a standard of comparison are reduced. This analysis is applied to performance facilitation effects, which are more typically explained in terms of drive theories. Though these two approaches to motivation make similar behavioral predictions in this context, they assume different mediating states. Support is noted for the assumptions that mirror presence and audience presence induce self-focus, and that they lead to comparison with salient behavioral standards. Support for the assumption that these manipulations increase arousal is also reviewed, and is challenged on methodological grounds. The attentional analysis is used to derive predictions regarding changes in physiological state over the course of a typical social facilitation procedure. An experiment is reported which confirmed these predictions. Discussion centers on how to interpret physiological changes in terms that are compatible with control theory, how to account for social impairment phenomena in terms of the present model, and the conceptual relationship between mirror presence and audience presence as experimental manipulations.     

Enhancing Immediate Retention with Clickers Through Individual Response Identification

Classroom audience response systems, in which students respond to class questions via a remote ‘clicker’ unit, are widely used as a method for increasing student participation and providing immediate feedback in the form of a group frequency distribution. The phenomenon of social facilitation shows that task performance can be enhanced with co‐action of others or with the presence of an audience. To enhance the audience effect, we employed a unique feedback system that displays each individual's response. After reading a text passage, participants responded via a remote clicker to a series of comprehension questions. Participants were provided with no feedback regarding other respondents' answers, group feedback, or individual feedback. The results demonstrated significantly higher test performance with individual response identification. Implications are discussed in terms of applied classroom settings and social facilitation with enhanced options for displaying different types of feedback with clickers during instruction. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social facilitation during the initial stage of motor learning: a re-examination of Martens' audience study

This study partially replicated Martens' (1969a) social-facilitation study of motor behavior. His very robust performance findings provided impressive confirmation for Zajonc's hypothesis, and his arousal findings have since been used as evidence for a nonlearned-drive basis for social facilitation. The present study also extended Martens' investigation by examining the separate and combined effects of an audience and videotape camera. The effects due to the presence of the audience and camera were not additive; instead, the audience detrimentally affected subjects' performance consistency and the camera resulted in more trials with errors greater than 30 msec after the performance criteria had been attained. Martens' most robust findings for constant error were not replicated, nor were some of his physiological arousal findings. His pattern of constant error results over all trials is atypical of known learning strategies that subjects use to reduce error over successive trials. Overall, audience effects accounted for only a very small portion of the variance.     

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.     

Gender and Video Game Performance

We investigated potential gender differences in video game (pong) performance in university students. In Experiment 1 men (N = 16) performed significantly better than women (N = 16). Experiment 2 was similar to the first, but used 14 men and 14 women who were matched carefully on previous video game experience. In spite of the matching, results replicated those of the first experiment. In Experiment 3 we evaluated the effect of an audience (male, female, none) on pong performance in 42 men and 42 women. We also assessed trait competition anxiety (Sport Competition Anxiety Test scores), sex role identification (Bem Sex Role Inventory scores), and video game experience. Both genders showed significantly poorer performance when they played pong in the presence of a female audience. Overall, males outperformed females as in the first two experiments. Examination of individuals with low, medium, and high levels of sport competition anxiety and videogame experience reveals persistent gender differences in performance, seemingly independent of levels of anxiety and experience. In all three experiments, both men and women showed significant improvement in performance over trials.     

Social Facilitation: A Test of Competing Theories1

Evaluation–apprehension and distraction–conflict have typically been treated as alternative explanations for social facilitation. The present study tested both theories under a single design. The study examined (a) whether each explanation predicted social‐facilitation performance outcomes and (b) whether combining evaluation and distraction manipulations produced even greater performance outcomes. The present study also explored whether physical presence is necessary to produce social‐facilitation effects when evaluation and distraction manipulations are already present. The study found significant facilitation effects on the simple task only in the evaluation–apprehension condition. Significant performance impairment was found for both evaluation and distraction. Combining evaluation with distraction led to greater effects only on the complex task. Furthermore, physical presence does not appear necessary to produce social‐facilitation effects.     

Friends, fun, frustration and fantasy: Child motivations for video game play

Although a considerable amount of attention has examined potential positive and negative consequences of video game play in children, relatively little research has examined children’s motivations for using games. The current study hopes to address this gap in the literature by examining children’s motivations for video game play in a large sample of youth (n = 1254). Results indicated that video game use was common, and often a social activity. Social play was mainly predicted by motivations related to socialization, fun/challenge and current stress level. Preference for violent games was more common in males and predicted by fun/challenge motivations and beliefs such games could be cathartic for stress. Children with clinically elevated levels of depressive and ADHD symptoms did not play more games, or more violent games, but were more inclined to endorse catharsis motivations for video game use. Results from this study provide understanding of what motivates children to use games, and how the motivations of children with symptoms of psychosocial problems (as identified via subscales of the Pediatric Symptom Checklist) may differ from others.     

Task performance and perceptions of anxiety: averaging and summation in an evaluative setting

Suggests that individuals' "stage fright," or perceptions of anxiety and performance, is a function of tendencies to both average and summate the impact of audience members. We found that under certain conditions adding an evaluative member to an audience decreased anxiety, whereas in other conditions the addition of evaluative members increased anxiety. These results are not expected from social impact theory or social facilitation research and suggest that individuals do not react to groups of individuals in a manner analogous to the way in which trait information is typically averaged in forming impressions of individuals (Anderson, 1981). An averaging-summation model that does account for these findings is presented. This research has implications for research on crowding, stress, social influence, and affective responses.     

自我监控性作为性别助长效应的干涉变量

采用双手调节器操作任务进一步验证“性别助长”假设。20个自我监控者与20个我行我素者(男女各半)分别按抵消顺序接受两种实验处理：男性观众和女性观众。结果表明,异性观众可以助长男性被试的操作速度,而削弱女性被试的操作速度;对于作业效绩也存在着同样的交互作用;自我监控性是性别助长效应的一个重要干涉变量,男自我监控者表现出明显的异性助长,女自我监控者表现出明显的异性抑制,而我行我素者没有表现出明显的观众效应。由于自我监控性对相应的异性效应有一种放大作用,可知性别助长效应的基础是以印象管理动机为主。     

Individual differences in the social facilitation effect: A review and meta-analysis

The present study reviews the social facilitation literature and identifies two overarching responses to social presence: negative-apprehensive and positive-self-assured. These responses correspond to two general orientations toward the social environment described in current personality literature: a negative orientation, comprised of neuroticism and low self-esteem; and a positive orientation, comprised of extraversion and high self-esteem. A meta-analysis reveals that social presence is associated with performance impairment for negatively oriented individuals, and with performance improvement for positively oriented individuals. Additional analysis reveals that personality is a more substantial moderator of the effect of social presence than is task complexity. The results of this study open a new avenue in the research on social facilitation, encouraging a closer inspection of the meaning that various individuals attribute to social presence.     

The lone gamer: Social exclusion predicts violent video game preferences and fuels aggressive inclinations in adolescent players

Violent video game playing has been linked to a wide range of negative outcomes, especially in adolescents. In the present research, we focused on a potential determinant of adolescents’ willingness to play violent video games: social exclusion. We also tested whether exclusion can predict increased aggressiveness following violent video game playing. In two experiments, we predicted that exclusion could increase adolescents’ preferences for violent video games and interact with violent game playing fostering adolescents’ aggressive inclinations. In Study 1, 121 adolescents (aged 10–18 years) were randomly assigned to a manipulation of social exclusion. Then, they evaluated the violent content of nine different video games (violent, nonviolent, or prosocial) and reported their willingness to play each presented video game. The results showed that excluded participants expressed a greater willingness to play violent games than nonviolent or prosocial games. No such effect was found for included participants. In Study 2, both inclusionary status and video game contents were manipulated. After a manipulation of inclusionary status, 113 adolescents (aged 11–16 years) were randomly assigned to play either a violent or a nonviolent video game. Then, they were given an opportunity to express their aggressive inclinations toward the excluders. Results showed that excluded participants who played a violent game displayed the highest level of aggressive inclinations than participants who were assigned to the other experimental conditions. Overall, these findings suggest that exclusion increases preferences for violent games and that the combination of exclusion and violent game playing fuels aggressive inclinations.

     

Gut or Game? The Influence of Moral Intuitions on Decisions in Video Games

Recent theorizing on the role of morality in media entertainment suggests morality serves as a guiding force in audience reactions to content. Using moral foundations theory as a base, research has found significant associations between moral salience and audience preferences for and responses to film and television varying in their presentations of morality. Our study extends this work by testing the same relationship in video games. Because a distinguishing factor between video games and traditional media is interactivity, our study focuses on how moral salience predicts decisions made in a video game. We find that increased moral salience led to a decreased probability of moral violations, while decreased moral salience led to an observed random (50%) distribution of violations. This finding was largely stable across different morality subcultures (German, United States) and age groups (adolescents and elderly), with deviations from this pattern explained by theory. We interpret this as evidence for a gut or game explanation of decision making in video games. When users encounter virtual scenarios that prime their moral sensitivities, they rely on their moral intuitions; otherwise, they make satisficing decisions not as an indication of moral corruption but merely as a continuation of the virtual experience.     

Selection bias in social facilitation theory? Audience effects on elite biathletes' performance are gender-specific

Social facilitation proves robust in conditioning tasks (e.g., running), yet in coordination tasks (e.g., rifle-shooting) some studies report performance deterioration. Recent Biathlon World Cup data offered the unique opportunity to test this task-specificity (conditioning = cross country skiing, coordination = rifle-shooting). Audience restrictions due to COVID-19 allowed to compare athletes' performance in the absence (2020) and presence (season 2018/2019) of an audience. Gender-specific regulations (e.g., course length) necessitated the inclusion of gender as additional factor. Results of 83 (sprint competition) and 34 (mass start competition) biathletes revealed that task-specific social facilitation is moderated by gender: In the presence of an audience male biathletes showed performance improvements in the conditioning task and performance deteriorations in the coordination task; female biathletes showed the reverse pattern. This gender dependency may have gone unnoticed in the past due to sample selection bias (<1/3 female), thereby questioning the generalizability of social facilitation theory.     

Social facilitation as a function of the mere presence of others

According to R. B. Zajonc's (1965) drive theory of social facilitation, the mere presence of others increases arousal and, thereby, the frequency of dominant responses (i.e., responses with the greatest habit strength). In the present experiment, U.S. undergraduates performed a stimulus discrimination task under 1 of 2 conditions: in the presence of another individual (audience) or alone. The mere presence condition was designed to make it difficult for the participants to attend directly to the audience. The task was designed to minimize the likelihood that the specific response (numerical preference) would be attributable to a desire to respond appropriately to the audience. There was a significant difference in the mean number of dominant responses between the participants in the audience condition and those in the alone condition. The results provide support for Zajonc's mere presence drive theory of social facilitation.     

视频游戏对认知能力的影响及其神经基础

视频游戏是一类需要借助视听设备并基于一定剧情进行操作的游戏。先前研究大多关注暴力视频游戏对攻击等负面行为的影响,但本文着重探讨视频游戏对个体认知能力的积极影响及内在神经基础,以辩证看待视频游戏对个体心理和行为的作用。本文对前人研究归纳梳理发现,视频游戏训练能使个体认知能力得到持久改善,同时论述了视频游戏中脑神经基础和奖赏预期对认知能力的调控作用。未来研究应在规范视频游戏训练技术的基础上,用其干预靶脑区以提升个体特定脑功能。     

The effects of video game playing on attention, memory, and executive control

Expert video game players often outperform non-players on measures of basic attention and performance. Such differences might result from exposure to video games or they might reflect other group differences between those people who do or do not play video games. Recent research has suggested a causal relationship between playing action video games and improvements in a variety of visual and attentional skills (e.g., [Green, C. S., & Bavelier, D. (2003). Action video game modifies visual selective attention. Nature, 423, 534-537]). The current research sought to replicate and extend these results by examining both expert/non-gamer differences and the effects of video game playing on tasks tapping a wider range of cognitive abilities, including attention, memory, and executive control. Non-gamers played 20+ h of an action video game, a puzzle game, or a real-time strategy game. Expert gamers and non-gamers differed on a number of basic cognitive skills: experts could track objects moving at greater speeds, better detected changes to objects stored in visual short-term memory, switched more quickly from one task to another, and mentally rotated objects more efficiently. Strikingly, extensive video game practice did not substantially enhance performance for non-gamers on most cognitive tasks, although they did improve somewhat in mental rotation performance. Our results suggest that at least some differences between video game experts and non-gamers in basic cognitive performance result either from far more extensive video game experience or from pre-existing group differences in abilities that result in a self-selection effect.     

暴力游戏中射杀动作和血腥成分对玩家和观看者攻击倾向的影响

通过实验考察游戏中的射杀动作成分和血腥成分对玩家和观看者攻击性行为和攻击性认知的影响。被试为72名男性大学生, 选用第三人称45度角的射击类游戏, 将游戏中的射杀动作成分和血腥成分进行分离, 采用竞争反应时任务范式考察攻击性行为, 采用EAST内隐认知范式考察内隐攻击性认知, 结果表明: (1) 玩家比观看者表现出更强的攻击性, 玩家表现出的攻击性行为和攻击性认知均显著强于观看者; (2) 视频游戏中的射杀动作成分导致观看者有更高的游戏卷入, 血腥成分对被试的攻击性影响强于射杀动作成分, 并使被试倾向于将攻击性进行他人归因。