Videogames and Motivational Persistence: A Preliminary Study

Journal title RICERCHE DI PSICOLOGIA
Author/s Matteo Soldi, Simona Sciara, Elena Resta, Giuseppe Pantaleo
Publishing Year 2019 Issue 2019/1 Language Italian
Pages 15 P. 27-41 File size 322 KB
DOI 10.3280/RIP2019-001002
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The experiment (N = 20) tested the hypothesis that the use of an interactive videogame (Cat Mario) would generally enhance motivational persistence, also in domains not directly related to the gaming context. One half of the sample (n1 = 10) was randomly assigned to a gaming training condition; the other half (n2 = 10) to a condition of simple passive exposure to a video reproducing the same gaming section. Results confirmed that the motivational training systematically enhanced motivational persistence in a brain teaser task, both in terms of more time spent in solving the brain teasers, and in terms of a comparatively higher number of tasks resolved. The main results of this experiment, as well as their major limitations and implications, are highlighted and discussed with respect to their potential benefits for research and society.

Keywords: Videogames, individual and social motivation, motivational persis-tence.

  1. Baumeister, R. F., & Tierney, J. (2011). Willpower: Rediscovering the greatest human strength. New York: The Penguin Press.
  2. Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Funder, D. C. (2007). Psychology as the science of self-reports and finger movements. Whatever happened to actual behavior? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 396-403.
  3. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191–215.
  4. Boot, W. R., Kramer, A. F., Simons, D. J., Fabiani, M., & Gratton, J. (2008). The effects of video game playing on attention, memory, and executive control. Acta Psychologica, 129, 387-398.
  5. Brom, C., Preuss, M., & Klement, D. (2011). Are educational computer micro-games engaging and effective for knowledge acquisition at high-schools? A quasi-experimental study. Computers & Education, 57, 1971-1988.
  6. Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  7. De Charms, R. (1968). Personal causation: The internal affective determinants of behavior. New York, NY, Academic Press.
  8. Deci, E., & Ryan, R. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York, NY: Plenum Press.
  9. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Self-determination theory: A macro theory of human motivation, development, and health. Canadian Psychology, 49, 182–185.
  10. De Mojà, C.A. (1995). Manuale di psicologia agonistica. Padova: Piccin.
  11. Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: Defining gamification. Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning future media environments, Tampere: Finland. DOI: 10.1145/2181037.2181040
  12. Donato, S., Parise, M., Pagani, A. F., Sciara, S., Iafrate, R., & Pantaleo, G. (2018). The paradoxical influence of stress on the intensity of romantic feelings towards the partner. Interpersona: An International Journal on Personal Relationships, 12, 215-231.
  13. Dudley, N. M., Orvis, K. A., Lebiecki, J. E., & Cortina, J. M. (2006). A meta-analytic investigation of conscientiousness in the prediction of job performance: examining the intercorrelations and the incremental validity of narrow traits. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 40-57. DOI: 10.1037/0021-9010.91.1.40
  14. Eastin, M. S. (2007). The influence of competitive and cooperative play on state hostility. Human Communication Research, 33, 45-466.
  15. Ewoldsen, D. R., Eno, C. A., Okdie, B. M., Velez, J. A., Guadagno, R. E., & DeCoster, J. (2012). Effect of playing violent video games cooperatively or competitively on subsequent cooperative behavior. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15, 277-280.
  16. Ferguson, C. J., & Garza, A. (2011). Call of (civic) duty: Action games and civic behavior in a large sample of youth. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 770-775.
  17. Ferguson, C. J., & Olson, C. K. (2013). Friends, fun, frustration and fantasy: Child motivations for video game play. Motivation and Emotion, 37, 154-164.
  18. Festinger, L. (1942). A theoretical interpretation of shifts in level of aspiration. Psychological Review, 49, 235 -250.
  19. Fox, N., & Mathers, N. (1997). Empowering research: Statistical power in general practice research. Family Practice, 14, 324-329.
  20. Granic, I., Lobel, A., & Engels, R. C. M. E. (2014). The benefits of playing videogames. American Psychologist, 69, 66-78.
  21. Green, C. S., & Bavelier, D. (2012). Learning, attentional control, and action video games. Current Biology, 22, 197-206.
  22. Kato, P. M., Cole, S. W., Bradlyn, A. S., & Pollock, B. H. (2008). A video game improves behavioral outcomes in adolescents and young adults with cancer: A randomized trial. Pediatrics, 122, 305–317.
  23. Kruglanski, A. W., Bélanger, J. J., Chen, X., Köpetz, C., Pierro, A., & Mannetti, L. (2012). The energetics of motivated cognition: A forcefield analysis. Psychological Review, 119, 1-20.
  24. Lewin, K., Dembo, T., Festinger, E. L., & Sears, P. S. (1940). Level of aspiration. In J. McV. Hunt (Ed.). Personality and the behavior disorders (Vol. l). New York: Ronald Press.
  25. Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting and task performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
  26. Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2006). New directions in goal-setting theory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 265-268.
  27. McClelland, D. C. (1961). The achieving society. New York, NY: Simon and Shuster.
  28. Mischel, W. (1996). From good intentions to willpower. In P. M. Gollwitzer & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior (pp. 197-218). New York: Guilford Press.
  29. Moè, A. (2010). La motivazione. Bologna: il Mulino.
  30. Ovsiankina, M. (1928). Die Wiederaufnahme unterbrochener Handlungen [La ripresa di azioni interrotte]. Psychologische Forschung, 11, 302-379.
  31. Pantaleo, G., Miron, A., Ferguson, M., & Frankowski, S. (2014). Effects of deterrence on intensity of group identification and efforts to protect group identity. Motivation and Emotion, 38, 855-865.
  32. Petruzzi, V. (2015). Il potere della Gamification: Usare il gioco per creare cambiamenti nei comportamenti e nelle performance individuali. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  33. Poropat, A. E. (2009). A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 322-338.
  34. Richter, M., Gendolla, G. H. E., & Wright, R. A. (2016). Three decades of research on motivational intensity theory: What we have learned about effort and what we still don’t know. Advances in Motivation Science, 3, 149-186.
  35. Russoniello, C. V., O’Brien, K., & Parks, J. M. (2009). EEG, HRV and psychological correlates while playing Bejeweled II: A randomized controlled study. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 144, 189-192. DOI: 10.3233/978-1-60750-017-9-189
  36. Ryan, R. M., Rigby, C. S., & Przybylski, A. (2006). The motivational pull of video games: A self-determination theory approach. Motivation and Emotion, 30, 347-363.
  37. Salminen, M., & Ravaja, N. (2008). Increased oscillatory theta activation evoked by violent digital game events. Neuroscience Letters, 435, 69-72.
  38. Sciara, S., & Pantaleo, G. (2018). Relationships at risk: How the perceived risk of ending a romantic relationship influences the intensity of romantic affect and relationship commitment. Motivation and Emotion, 42, 137-148.
  39. Shah, J.Y., Friedman, R., & Kruglanski, A.W. (2012). Forgetting all else: On the antecedents and consequences of goal shielding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1261-1280. DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.83.6.1261
  40. Ventura, M., Shute, V., & Zhao, W. (2013). The relationship between video game use and a performance-based measure of persistence. Computers & Education, 60, 52-58.
  41. Xu, A. J., & Schwarz, N. (2018). How one thing leads to another: Spillover effects of behavioral mind-sets. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27, 51-55. DOI: 10.1177/0963721417724238

  • Handbook of Research on Establishing Digital Competencies in the Pursuit of Online Learning Vincenza Barra, Maria Annarumma, pp.267 (ISBN:9781668470107)

Matteo Soldi, Simona Sciara, Elena Resta, Giuseppe Pantaleo, Videogiochi e persistenza motivazionale: uno studio preliminare in "RICERCHE DI PSICOLOGIA " 1/2019, pp 27-41, DOI: 10.3280/RIP2019-001002