Open AccessReal and virtual worlds alike: Adolescents' psychopathology is reflected in their videogame virtual behaviors
Author(s) -
Aviv Segev,
Hila Gabay-Weschler,
Yossi Naar,
Hagai Maoz,
Yuval Bloch
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0181209
Subject(s) - psychopathology , adventure , psychology , game play , facet (psychology) , cognitive psychology , social psychology , developmental psychology , computer science , multimedia , clinical psychology , personality , artificial intelligence , big five personality traits
Current research refers to videogames as a constant variable. However, games today are designed to be highly interactive and versatile: two players may be using the same videogame, but as a result of different using patterns, the game will not necessarily encompass the same content and gameplay. The current study examined the possible relationship between psychopathology and in-game playing patterns. We hypothesized that adolescents would play videogames differently, in a manner that would reflect their particular psychopathologies. We examined 47 male adolescents from three diagnostic groups: those suffering from externalizing psychopathologies, internalizing psychopathologies and controls. We performed a high-resolution examination of their gameplay, using in-game quantitative statistics mechanisms of two fundamentally different games, a structured racing game and an unstructured adventure game. While there was no difference in the groups' using patterns of the structured game, there was a high variability between the groups' using patterns when they were using a non-structured game. These findings suggest that virtual behavior in unstructured games is reflective of adolescent-players psychopathology, and might shed light on an unexplored facet of videogames research. Possible implications are discussed.