An Immersive Serious Game for the Behavioral Assessment of Psychological Needs

Irene Alice Chicchi Giglioli,Mariano Alcañiz Raya,Lucia A Carrasco-Ribelles,Javier Marín-Morales,Elena Parra

doi:10.3390/app11041971

Irene Alice Chicchi Giglioli, Mariano Alcañiz Raya + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/app11041971

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Journal: Applied sciences	Publication Date: Feb 23, 2021
Citations: 7	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Universitat Politècnica de València

Abstract

Motivation is an essential component in mental health and well-being. In this area, researchers have identified four psychological needs that drive human behavior: attachment, self-esteem, orientation and control, and maximization of pleasure and minimization of distress. Various self-reported scales and interviews tools have been developed to assess these dimensions. Despite the validity of these, they are showing limitations in terms of abstractation and decontextualization and biases, such as social desirability bias, that can affect responses veracity. Conversely, virtual serious games (VSGs), that are games with specific purposes, can potentially provide more ecologically valid and objective assessments than traditional approaches. Starting from these premises, the aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of a VSG to assess the four personality needs. Sixty subjects participated in five VSG sessions. Results showed that the VSG was able to recognize attachment, self-esteem, and orientation and control needs with a high accuracy, and to a lesser extent maximization of pleasure and minimization of distress need. In conclusion, this study showed the feasibility to use a VSG to enhance the assessment of psychological behavioral-based need, overcoming biases presented by traditional assessment.

Highlights

Motivational psychology is a broad branch of psychology that studies human needs and their fulfillment for mental health and well-being [1,2,3]
Number of variables randomly sampled as candidates at each split both categories. * Relationship questionnaire (RQ) was not numeric, so theSupport numbervector of subjects in each category Cis the original one
The purpose of the present study was to explore the feasibility of a virtual serious games (VSGs) to assess the four basic psychological needs of attachment, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and stress avoidance according to the consistency model [3]

Summary

Introduction

Motivational psychology is a broad branch of psychology that studies human needs and their fulfillment for mental health and well-being [1,2,3]. Motivation can be defined as an unobservable and internal psychological process that drives observable human behaviors in order to satisfy needs [1,2]. 20 years ago, the psychotherapist Klaus Grawe proposed a new theoretical model, named the consistency model, which conceives mental functioning as the interaction between motivational schemas and the satisfaction of four psychological needs: attachment, self-esteem, orientation and control, and maximization of pleasure and minimization of stress (Figure 1) [3]. Environmental and interpersonal factors perceived to satisfy these needs moderate the maintainment and enhancement of the self, whereas those that impede need satisfaction foster distress and mental illness [3].

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