In a 2003 study, the University of Massachusetts Medical School discovered that people with altruistic tendencies generally have higher levels of mental health and less overall life stress. We like to feel like we matter to others, and we like to feel like we are making a significant contribution to society. The final psychological human need is relatedness. They want to be in control of their destiny, and they’re verbally flexing that muscle for the first time.” What is that kid doing? The kid is showing their autonomy. It’s terrible for the parent who has to listen to their kid say ‘No’ all the time. “The terrible twos are a great example of the need for autonomy,” Rigby says. This need explains why game series that offer players a wealth of free choices – such as The Elder Scrolls or Grand Theft Auto – are so popular. The drive toward autonomy is why people instinctively dislike being manipulated it’s why imprisonment is a punishment, and why we feel an innate urge to rebel against slavery. This need pervades nearly every facet of our culture. Our second psychological need is autonomy: the desire to feel independent or have a certain amount of control over our actions. Every time we level up in Final Fantasy or defeat a challenging boss in God of War, games are fulfilling our desire to feel competent. It’s also easy to see how video games make us feel more accomplished. This need plays out in real life when people decide to switch careers or go back to school because their current job isn’t rewarding or challenging enough. People like to feel successful, and we like to feel like we’re growing and progressing in our knowledge and accomplishments. The first of these needs is a need for competence – that is a desire to seek out control or to feel mastery over a situation. Games perfectly target several of these needs.”Īccording to Rigby, Immersyve’s complex needs-satisfaction metrics narrow down to three basic categories. “These needs operate all the time – when we’re at work, or when we’re engaging in a softball league, or on weekends while we are -playing a video game. “We all have basic psychological needs,” explains Rigby, who detailed gaming’s intrinsic allure in his book Glued to Games: How Videogames Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound. Interactive, Rigby feels Immersyve has nailed down a few key motivations behind our addiction to fun. After collecting several years’ worth of behavioral data and conducting numerous in-house studies from companies like Sony, Activision, and Warner Bros. in clinical and social psychology from the University of Rochester, Scott Rigby helped found Immersyve, a research company designed to examine some of these basic human needs and discover what makes video games so appealing. The real motivations for play are far more complex, and games fulfill several real-world human needs in a number of positive ways.Īfter earning his Ph.D. We enjoy retreats to other realities – ones more fantastical than our own – but we aren’t always driven to play games because we are trying to escape our lives. In fact, the word “escape” contains some negative implications – suggesting that those who play games feel a need to break free from the mundane slavery of their reality. Gamers often throw around the term “escapism” when talking about their hobby, but this is a hollow explanation for what actually motivates us to play games. Three invisible needs Three invisible needs
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