Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Psychological aspects of Squash (Game)'

In this dissertation, the relationship between flow state, serious games, and learning was examined. Serious games, which are games that convey something other than enjoyment (e.g., learning), are increasingly popular platforms for research, training, and advertisement. The elements that make serious games useful to researchers, trainers, and practitioners are closely linked to those that make up the positive psychology construct of flow state. Flow state describes an optimum experience that is encountered when a variety of factors are met, and is characterized by high focus, engagement, motivation, and immersion. While flow state is often discussed in the serious games literature, in-depth empirical examinations of flow state remain elusive. In this dissertation I addressed this need by conducting a thorough literature review of flow, serious games, and game-based learning in order to propose a new model of flow in games. Two studies were conducted in support of this model. The first experiment consisted of the creation and validation of a play experience scale. Based on the data from 203 Study 1 participants, the Play Experience Scale was validated for use with video games. The 14-item version of the Play Experience Scale was composed of the components of freedom, lack of extrinsic motivation, autotelic experience, and direct assessment of play. The scale was reliable, with a calculated alpha of .86. In the second study, the newly developed scale was used alongside an immune system serious game to examine the impact of play, in-game performance, and emotional experience on flow in games. In an effort to provide a more symmetrical version of the scale, two items were added to the scale, resulting in a 16-item revision. Based on the empirical results obtained from Study 2's 77 participants, the proposed model of flow in games was revised slightly.; Though Study 2 only examined a subset of the overall model of flow in games, the evidence suggested the model was a good theoretical match. Further, the two added items of the Play Experience Scale were valid, providing a final 16-item version of the scale. Play and in-game performance were key predictors of game-based learning. Additionally, play, video game self-efficacy, and emotional experience exhibited a reciprocal relationship with flow state. Implications for serious game development, scientific research into games and learning, and industry testing of game playability were provided. Following these implications, conclusions were presented alongside suggestions for further research.
ID: 029051055; System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader.; Mode of access: World Wide Web.; Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Central Florida, 2010.; Includes bibliographical references (p. 163-184).
Ph.D.
Doctorate
Department of Psychology
Sciences
Applied Experimental and Human Factors

Psychological momentum (PM) is often regarded as an important phenomenon that influences athlete performance. Nevertheless, conceptualisations of PM are criticised for being speculative, vague and impractical for scientific inquiry. In contrast, self-regulation is a long-standing, well researched concept used to explain performance outcomes, yet not clearly integrated in current PM conceptualisations. Hence, this thesis explores self-regulation relative to PM. Golf was considered to be an appropriate context for the empirical inquiries on the basis that it serves as a metaphor for managing life’s challenges. Three studies were conducted. The first study entailed a systematic conceptual analysis of PM based on previous conceptualisations and studies in relevant scientific literature. Self-regulatory processes were identified among the key psychological mechanisms and moderators related to PM. The second study aimed to identify key self-regulation strategies in PM experiences among 16 golfers. A mixed method approach including novel “walk-along” and “think aloud” data collection techniques was used. An inductive thematic analysis yielded a comprehensive typology golfing strategies. Nevertheless, the study did not find consistent strategy patterns in positive or negative PM phases. The third study explored the self-regulation of identity (ego-regulation) in relation to PM phases. A staggered multiple-baseline single-case research methodology was used with five golfers (three professionals and two amateurs). Ego-regulation was manipulated through a mindfulness-based schema mode program tailored to golf (Mindfulness for Golf; MFG). Pre-, mid- and post-intervention data showed positive changes among the participants on two dimensions of PM as well as performance outcomes. Overall the results suggest that golfers use idiosyncratic self-regulation processes to facilitate performance, but these are not directly linked to PM phases. Nonetheless, there are promising indications that enhancing ego-regulation through the MFG program facilitates positive momentum among golfers. Based on the results of the studies in this thesis, and for the sake of scientific parsimony and pragmatism, it is recommended that self-regulation models incorporating motivation are used to explain momentum in athletic activity. In this view, PM has the function of describing, not influencing, goal-driven performance

Video game addiction often leads to a tremendous burden on those afflicted with the condition, draining their time, resources, and life away until they have nothing left. To further elucidate the problem of video game addiction, the current research examines the level of video game addiction of 111 participants, along with their motivation for their addictive behaviors, the quality of life of addicted individuals, and possible relations between video game addiction and other forms of addiction. Results of the current research indicate a correlation between addictive video game use and depression, alcohol use, a desire for escapism, a need for social interaction, and lack of self-control. The results of a multiple regression indicate that, amongst the various research factors, depression is the factor with the most significant link to addictive video game use, implying a dangerous correlation between mental health and an addictive behavior that some erroneously disqualify as a true addiction.

This thesis identifies and explores the types of communication modes that exist in video games. Different types of communication are identified and discussed based on Frye's audience centered theory of modes. The inferior communication mode, the mimetic communication mode, the leader-centered communication mode, the romantic communication mode, and the mythical communication mode are all explained. A convenience sample of six video game players were interviewed about video games. An analysis of their self-identification statements revealed that players seek a high level of romantic communication when playing video games. The romantic communication mode makes the video game world an idealized place where the players are able to manipulate their circumstances or show more intelligence than the user in reality. Uses of the communication modes are also explained.
Department of Telecommunications

Thesis (MA (Psychology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie verkennende studie is onderneem om die rol van fisiese welstand rakende algehele geestesgesondheid te ondersoek. Die hoofdoelstelling is om vas te stel of daar verskille is tussen die selfkonsep en veerkragtigheid van ‘n groep individue wat kompeterend aan muurbal deelneem (vir ten minste die afgelope 12 maande) en ‘n ander groep wat geensins aan enige fisiese oefening deelneem nie (ook vir die afgelope 12 maande). Beide die groepe behoort tot die ouderdomsgroep van 50- tot 60 jariges. Hierdie navorsing is aangepak binne die positiewe paradigma van sielkunde as die wetenskaplike bestudering van die oorspronge, die prosesse en meganismes rakende optimale vlakke van menslike funksionering. Binne die kwantitatiewe benadering is ‘n vergelykende navorsingstipe gebruik. Sestig deelnemers is vir die doel van die studie gebruik. Die deelnemende groep (n=30) neem op ʼn gereelde basis aktief deel aan georganiseerde muurbal in die Meestersliga van die Westelike Provinsie se Muurbalunie. Die nie-deelnemende groep (n=30) het bestaan uit dertig individue wat glad nie aan enige fisiese oefening deelneem nie. Drie meetinstrumente is deur al die respondente voltooi, naamlik die Demografiese Vraelys, die Rosenberg Selfkonsepvraelys en die Veerkragtigheidsvraelys. Statisties beduidende verskille is gevind tussen die selfkonsep en veerkragtigheid van die deelnemende groep en nie-deelnemende groep. Die deelnemende groep het ʼn hoër selfkonseptelling en veerkragtigheidstelling as die nie-deelnemende groep getoon.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This explorative study was undertaken to investigate the role of physical well-being regarding mental wellness. The main objective was to establish whether there is a difference in the self-concept and resilience of a group of individuals who participate in squash on a competitive level (for at least the past 12 months) and an age equivalent that does not take part in any physical exercise (for also at least the past 12 months). Both these group’s members belong to the age group of 50 to 60 year olds. This research was located in the paradigm of positive psychology as the scientific study of the origins, processes and mechanisms regarding the levels of optimal human functioning. In this quantitative approach a comparative research method was used. Sixty persons were included in the sample of the study. Members of the participating group (n=30) take part in organised squash actively in the Masters League of the Western Province Squash Union on a regular basis. The non-participating group (n=30) consisted of individuals that do not take part in any physical exercise. Three measuring instruments were completed by all the respondents, namely the Demographic Questionnaire, the Rosenberg Self-Concept Questionnaire and the Resilience Questionnaire. Significant statistical differences were found in measures of the self-concept and resilience between the participating group and the non-participating group. The participating group showed a higher self-concept score and resilience score than the non-participating group.

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Bachelors
Sciences
Psychology

The focus of this research is on the development of a real time application that uses a low cost EEG headset to measure a player's state of mind while they play a video game. Using data collected using the Emotiv EPOC headset, various EEG processing techniques are tested to find ways of measuring a person's engagement and arousal levels. The ability to measure a person's engagement and arousal levels provide an opportunity to develop a model that monitor a person's flow while playing video games. Identifying when certain events occur, like when the player dies, will make it easier to identify when a player has left a state of flow. The real time application Brainwave captures data from the wireless Emotiv EPOC headset. Brainwave converts the raw EEG data into more meaningful brainwave band frequencies. Utilizing the brainwave frequencies the program trains multiple machine learning algorithms with data designed to identify when the player dies. Brainwave runs while the player plays through a video gaming monitoring their engagement and arousal levels for changes that cause the player to leave a state of flow. Brainwave reports to researchers and developers when the player dies along with the identification of the players exit of the state of flow.

This thesis is a reception analysis using qualitative interviews to investigate the formation of cultural groups around computer-game LANs present in Rhodes University. It also looks at how issues of social inequalities evident on the university's campus impact on the participation of students in these LANs. The findings of this study are that the participants have established a community around the practice of computer LAN-gameplay based on values developed through the combination of the material and gameworlds. It serves as a home-on-campus for them; where they can fully explore their passion for games thus reaffirming their identity as gamers on a campus where being a gamer is viewed negatively. In this light, computer-game playing is not just a practice these participants perform, but a culture they live out every day. This is a culture predominantly lived out by men. One of the reasons for this is because most women have been raised to believe to have negative predispositions about digital gaming e.g. that it is childish, addictive and anti-social, but also that computer are meant to be used by men - women use them only when it is absolutely necessary, for example, that it is childish, for academic-related purposes. As a result, not many of them will use computers for any otherreason for fear of being socially criticised. In addition, the gaming culture being dominated by whites is due to the fact that admittance in to this community is still unaffordable for the majority of black students on the Rhodes University campus as a result of their social backgrounds.

The present study examined how a fan's desire to participate in superstitious behaviors depends on team identification, team location, and game outcome. The study is a 2 (team identification: high vs. low) x 2 (game outcome: close game vs. blowout) x 2 (location of team: local vs. distant) between subjects factorial design. Participants for the current study included 234 students, recruited from undergraduate psychology classes at Western Kentucky University. Participants completed the Sport Spectator Identification Scale, read a randomly assigned vignette differing in team location and game outcome, and filled out the Superstition Questionnaire to measure their desire to complete superstitious behaviors based on the vignette. They also filled out the Desirability of Control Scale, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales to account for the possible covariates of desirability of control and anxiety level. An analysis of the covariates showed that there were no significant correlations between desirability of control or anxiety level and the desire to complete superstitious behaviors. Results indicated that highly identified fans reported wanting to perform more superstitious behaviors than low identified fans. However, no main effect was found for game outcome or team location, and there were no interactions. This finding reiterated the importance of team identification and its effects on the fan. The study also brought new variables to the table, game type and team type, that could be used in future research.

When games were first developed for in-home use, they were primarily targeted almost exclusively at children and males. However, today’s marketplace manifests a more diverse population plays Internet-enabled games that can be played virtually anywhere. The average gamer is now 30 years old. Many gamers, obviously, are much older. Yet more strikingly, and more germane to this study’s purpose, 47% of the U.S. gamer population is female, as compared to 40% in 2010. Despite these trends the gaming industry remains a male-dominated culture. The marketer’s job is to facilitate game engagement and to motivate gamers to play. The notion of “engagement” is not new in business. The term was developed in the last decade. Many studies were devoted to understand, explain, and define the term. It suggests that within interactive, dynamic business environments, consumer engagement (CE) represents a strategic position that companies can use to enhance their sales growth, competitive advantage, and profitability. Moreover, there are three levels of engagement in any experiential consumption (i.e., playing video game): presence, flow, and psychological absorption. The findings of this study affirm that consumer engagement, including presence, flow and psychological absorption are explanatory factors that impact gamer’s purchase intentions. Our results show that consumers experience different mental engagement in an interactive environment (i.e., playing video games) compared to passive environments (i.e., visiting a website). These findings change our understanding of consumers’ engagement and flow state. We also found that male and female gamers experience different engagement level. However, we did not find a significant result that masculinity and femininity traits impact gamers’ engagement or intention. We argue that macroeconomic factors results in sales fluctuation may have resulted in reject in this hypothesis. Thus, marketers shed a light into the consumer’s interactive environment and flow states in that environments. Consumers not only determine the value in using a product as Vargo and Lusch suggested, but they also create that value. Also, consumer experience is an ongoing process that does not have a specific point to start, making the value creation a temporally accumulative process that includes past, present, and future experience. Therefore, the value created by consumers is not created while physically interacting with a device to play, but it may include imagined and indirect interaction with the product. Therefore, consumers (i.e., gamers) need to maintain a balance between presence and psychological absorption (i.e., flow) to get the best experience in play video gaming. Empirical evidence suggest that consumers’ flow state engagement is the most important variable in determining their ensuing purchase intention for video games, regardless of game genre.

I dagens spelindustri är det allt vanligare att spel innehåller affärsmodeller som innefattar mikrotransaktioner, det vill säga köp inom spelet. Framfarten av mikrotransaktioner har skapat många skilda åsikter. Denna studie är gjord för att skapa en inblick till hur spelare uppfattar och förhåller sig till fenomenet och dessutom fördjupa förståelsen av vad spelutvecklingsföretagen gör för att få sina spelare att genomföra köp inom sina spel. För att belysa problemet formades forskningsfrågan som följande: Hur förhåller sig spelare till mikrotransaktioner och på vilka sätt påverkar spelutvecklare spelare att genomföra köp genom mikrotransaktioner? Studien utfördes med en enkät som bestod av frågor utifrån en mixad metodansats. Frågornas karaktär formades med inslag av både kvantitativa och kvalitativa ansatser. 117 respondenter svarade på enkäten varpå enkätsvaren sedan analyserades och resultatet visar på att det finns både positiva och negativa åsikter om mikrotransaktioner och att det finns flera olika angreppssätt som spelutvecklarna använder sig av för att få sina spelare att genomföra köp. Utifrån tidigare forskning påvisar denna studie att synsättet på mikrotransaktioner förändrats positivt. Framför allt för att spelutvecklingsföretagen på senare tid fokuserat på att lyssna på sina spelare och genom det utvecklat mikrotransaktioner utifrån spelarnas behov men man måste också ta i beaktande att en positivare syn på mikrotransaktioner eventuellt kan leda till olika grader av beroende. Resultaten i denna studie kan påverka läsarens syn på fenomenet. Studien lyfter en ny syn på hur spelare förhåller sig till fenomenet som både motsäger och stärker tidigare forskning, vilket eventuellt kan gynna spelutvecklingsföretagen samt vidare forskning inom ämnet.
In today’s gaming industry it’s increasingly common to use business models that include microtransactions, in short in-game purchases. The recent rise of microtransactions has created many different opinions. This thesis was conducted to provide an insight of how the players perceive and relate to the phenomenon and further deepen the understanding of what game development companies do to get their players to make in-game purchases. To highlight the problem, the research question was formed as follows: How do players relate to microtransactions and how do game developers affect players to make purchases through microtransactions? The study was conducted with a questionnaire consisting of questions based on a mixed method. The nature of the questions was shaped with elements of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. 117 players responded on the questionnaire, which was analyzed and the result shows both positive and negative opinions about microtransactions and there were several different approaches that the game development companies use to convince their players to perform in-game purchases. Based on previous research, this study shows that the view on micro-transactions has changed to the positive. In particular, game development companies have recently focused on listening to their players leading to developed microtransactions based on player's needs but it need to be considered that a more positive view of microtransactions may potentially affect different degrees of addiction. The results in this study may affect the reader’s view of the phenomenon. The study highlights a new view of how players relate to the phenomenon that both contradicts and strengthens previous research, which may benefit game development companies as well as further research on the subject.

In economic games the facial attributes of counterparts bias decisions to trust and decisions to enter play. We report research supporting hypotheses that trust and reciprocation decisions in trust games are biased by mechanisms of sexual selection. Hypotheses that trust game behaviour is modulated by inter-sexual competition were supported. 1) Attractive individuals elicit more cooperation. 2) Male participants display trust and reciprocation toward attractive female counterparts in excess of perceived trustworthiness (and this display is modulated by male self-reported physical dominance). 3) Female participants appear to respond to male trust as a signal of sexual interest and are therefore more likely to exploit the trust of attractive males. 4) In explicitly dating contexts females are more likely to prefer attractive males to pay for the meal. These results indicate that participants are biased by mate choice and mating display considerations while playing economic games in the lab. Hypotheses that trust game behaviour is modulated by intra-sexual competition for resources were also somewhat supported. 1) Male participants reporting an ability to win fights with same-sex peers are more exploitative of other males. 2) Cues to current circulating testosterone level in counterpart’s faces are less trusted but elicit more reciprocation. 3) The male sexually dimorphic trait facial width-to-height ratio (a trait which is related to both aggression and dominance) is related to an increased proportion of decisions to exploit others in the trust game while also being used by others as a cue to untrustworthiness. We conclude that trusting and trustworthy behaviour in both sexes is biased by mating market considerations predicted by intra- and inter-sexual selection.

This dissertation studies statistical decision making and belief formation in face of uncertainty, that is, when agents' payoffs depend on an unknown distribution. Chapter 1 introduces and analyzes an equilibrium solution concept in which players sequentially sample to resolve strategic uncertainty over their opponents' distribution of actions. Bayesian players can sample from their opponents' distribution of actions at a cost and make optimal choices given their posterior beliefs. The solution concept makes predictions on the joint distribution of players' choices, beliefs, and decision times, and generates stochastic choice through the randomness inherent to sampling, without relying on indifference or choice mistakes. It rationalizes well-known deviations from Nash equilibrium such as the own-payoff effect and I show its novel predictions relating choices, beliefs, and decision times are supported by existing data. Chapter 2 presents experimental evidence establishing that the level of incentives affects both gameplay and mean beliefs.Holding fixed the actions of the other player, it is shown that, in the context of a novel class of dominance-solvable games --- diagonal games ---, higher incentives make subjects more likely to best-respond to their beliefs. Moreover, higher incentives result in more responsive beliefs but not necessarily less biased. Incentives affect effort --- as proxied by decision time --- and that it is effort, and not incentives directly, that accounts for the changes in belief formation. The results support models where, in addition to choice mistakes, players exhibit costly attention. Chapter 3 examines the class of diagonal games that are used in Chapter 2. Diagonal games constitute a new class of two-player dominance-solvable games which constitutes a useful benchmark in the study of cognitive limitations in strategic settings, both for exploring predictions of theoretical models and for experiments. This class of finite games allows for a disciplined way to vary two features of the strategic setting plausibly related to game complexity: the number of steps of iterated elimination of dominated actions required to reach the dominance solution and the number of actions. Furthermore, I derive testable implications of solution concepts such as level-k, endogenous depth of reasoning, sampling equilibrium, and quantal response equilibrium. Finally, Chapter 4 studies the robustness of pricing strategies when a firm is uncertain about the distribution of consumers' willingness-to-pay. When the firm has access to data to estimate this distribution, a simple strategy is to implement the mechanism that is optimal for the estimated distribution. We find that such empirically optimal mechanism delivers exponential, finite-sample profit and regret guarantees. Moreover, we provide a toolkit to evaluate the robustness properties of different mechanisms, showing how to consistently estimate and conduct valid inference on the profit generated by any one mechanism, which enables one to evaluate and compare their probabilistic revenue guarantees.