In this episode of Research Review, we are going to be looking at a 2019 article entitled “The Influence of competitive and cooperative video games on behaviour during play and friendship in adolescence.”
This article aimed to explore the influence of competitive or cooperative game play on friendship quality and pro-social behaviour among adolescent friendship dyads – friendship pairs.
The authors start with a thorough background section about the importance for a multidimensional approach to understanding gaming effects. One dimension being the social context through which games are played, which is often overlooked.
Of the work that HAS looked at the role of context, distinct effects of competitive vs cooperative play for a variety of outcomes – including aggression, prosocial behavior, and feelings of empathy and trust.
Building on this previous research, the researchers wanted to evaluate whether the MODE of gaming impacted friendship quality and prosocial behaviour afterwards with an experimental study where adolescent friendship
You know I love a good experimental study and this was just that.
Check out the video above, for all the details!