Video Games

Abstract

Until recently, research on video games has been concerned largely with negative effects of play. Increasingly, however, a range of positive psychological effects of playing video games are being reported. Being able to identify positive impacts is an important step toward leveraging the huge appeal of game playing to aid psychological well-being. This chapter discusses a range of benefits associated with playing two genres of popular off-the-shelf video games as opposed to video games that have been constructed to specifically target education or teach health-related lessons. With the video game phenomenon set to have an ever-increasing impact across society on a global scale, knowledge of games that have the potential to meet positive psychological needs will be critical to leveraging positive outcomes from video game play.

Coping with COVID-19 pandemic stressors: Comparisons between non-players and players, and levels of Game Transfer Phenomena

“…Emotional regulation and resilience appear to be key protective factors against the adverse outcomes of high-stress levels. It has been suggested that resilience and emotional regulation skills can be trained or promoted by the use of interactive media, including video games [37] , [43] , [44] . Therefore, this study investigated resilience and emotional regulation in the context of playing video games during the pandemic.…”

“…Researchers have argued that overcoming game obstacles to progress in a game and resolving game challenges share similarities with the skills needed in real life to cope with challenges and “bounce back” from stressful situations. Moreover, role playing with video game characters who overcome adversity can positively influence a player’s self-esteem [43] .…”