Impact of Video Games on Emotions and Social Behaviour

Description

Page: 422-429

Yashwini Salian¹ and Debolina Roy² (Amity Institute of Behavioural and Allied Sciences, Amity University Mumbai Maharashtra¹ and Department of Clinical Psychology, Amity Institute of Behavioural and Allied Sciences, Amity University Mumbai Maharashtra²)

In recent decades, the impact of playing video games has been a growing research field. However, little is known about video games’ impact on the emotions and social behaviour of an individual. This study majorly focuses on the positive emotions and social aspects of video games. The majority of the research papers are published on the negative impacts like anxiety, violence and addiction of gaming on an individual. Although, those researches are valuable; however, this paper argues that there should be a more balanced perspective for the same. The sample consisted of 109 participants with 82 male and 27 female participants who were examined with a Game Experience Questionnaire (GEQ) on them. The study also aimed to find the difference in emotions and social behaviour of male and female gamers along with the correlation between the different variables. Based on the findings, it was observed that there is no significant difference in the emotions and social behaviour between male and female participants. There is a significant difference in most of the variables concluding that the participants felt negative emotions in the gameplay when they felt bad, bored, frustrated, etc. However, the participants felt positive emotions in the gameplay when they felt interested, absorbed, challenged, empathetic, etc. during the gameplay. Results conclude that those who play video games experience both negative and positive emotions along with having an impact on their social behaviour. Although, the experience of emotions and social behaviour depends upon genre, nature, duration of time spent, context of the video game.