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How Playfulness Can Enable Greater Understanding of Game-Based Adult Mental Health Interventions

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Simulation and Gaming for Social Impact (ISAGA 2022)

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Abstract

Playfulness is a critical term for the study of games, simulations, mental health. In addition to formal characteristics of games, how players perceive, experience those games has shown effect on the outcomes of interventions. One experience that is critically connected to games is playfulness. Simultaneously playfulness has recently been studied in psychology for its benefits on adult mental health, as a state of mind and a personality trait. This makes playfulness a highly valuable term to study in the context of game-based interventions that aim to affect mental health symptoms. Addresses empirical literature connecting playfulness and mental health using a new model of playfulness as engagement seeking. By analyzing past works two primary pathways for how playfulness affects mental health emerge. Based upon these pathways and how past studies have methodologically used them.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tampere University, Tampere, Finland

    Leland Masek

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  1. Leland Masek
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

    Casper Harteveld

  2. University of Houston - Clear Lake, Houston, TX, USA

    Steven Sutherland

  3. Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

    Giovanni Troiano

  4. University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Heide Lukosch

  5. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Sebastiaan Meijer

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Masek, L. (2023). How Playfulness Can Enable Greater Understanding of Game-Based Adult Mental Health Interventions. In: Harteveld, C., Sutherland, S., Troiano, G., Lukosch, H., Meijer, S. (eds) Simulation and Gaming for Social Impact. ISAGA 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13622. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37171-4_12

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