There are a lot of interesting article summaries over at vgresearcher. Here is one that is particularly relevant to our project: “Affective response to video games: effects of personality, gender and in-game reinforcement (Chumbley & Griffiths, 2006)”
The abstract includes: ’The implications of the impact of game-play on affect are discussed with reference to the concepts of “addiction” and “aggression.” This would be a good article for our lab to read. I’ve put this on our To get list, to get from interlibrary loan…. Hm, never mind! BU subscribes to Ebscohost and I got the full text).
The authors found:
Of particular interest is the finding that, by increasing the ratio of negative to positive reinforcement, participants experienced more frustration and less excitement. In-game reinforcement characteristics were also found to have an effect on the game’s “playa-ability.” An increase in the positive reinforcement was associated with a higher propensity to continue and return to play and vice versa.
– Prof. C-H
You don’t need to go through interlibrary loans when I’m one comment away.