1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & CONTACT
The Effects of Using Games to Treat Social Anxiety ]
Kimberly Charran
Department of Behavioral Sciences
INTRODUCTION
MATERIALS & METHODS
CONCLUSIONS
Social anxiety is a topic that has been commonly looked into and researchers seek to find alternatives that could reduce this anxiety. This study will examine the behavior of kids who are socially anxious and those who aren’t. After they play social games with each other, the results will give an insight of whether these games have an impact on them.
There has been some research that has been done to study how games can affect the social skills of people. One of those researches includes a similar one that was done with the Kinect games and kids with autism (Ge, 2016). This experiment was to test how social development is when kids with autism are exposed to the Kinect games. Their results showed that those games did help the kids and their overall development with skills in communication and relationships with peers.
There were more general studies, such as one that studied the relationship between playing strategy video games and self- regulation (Gabbiadini, 2016). This study showed that there was a positive correlation when looking at the people that played these games and their self-regulation, which meant that it did affect positively in self-regulation for everyday tasks.
A research was conducted to study the relationship between socially anxious students and playing drinking games (Mulligan, 2016). This study took place in universities where they conducted commonly played drinking games. The results of this study shows that those who were socially anxious played these games normally, especially if they were drinking to cope, they participated. These studies all vary with context, having different conditions and stimulants but they all show how different games can affect the behavior of socially anxious individuals.
SUBJECTS
I used 8 subjects for this trial and they were recruited by filling out a survey that identifies how social one is and how antisocial one is. Those that were most social were chosen and those that were antisocial were chosen equally, to see if the game had an effective on both types of subjects. Most subjects that were antisocial tend to be females and the more social ones were males.
APPARATUS
Materials that were used to collect data was a scoreboard to collect points for each player and an evaluation and survey before and after the game. The game was presented at the beginning when everyone was gathered and it was explained to everyone in a group. Responses were measured by observations and giving them an evaluation after the game.
PROCEDURES
Each subject was asked to socialize with the other and during the scavenger hunts perform activities with their partner which is switched up so they have to become comfortable with everyone. To collect data, observations were made and recorded during the game. All the subjects gathered together before the game so that it was explained and everyone began by introducing themselves and talking to one another. Everything was observed and those who interacted more received more stars. The students were aware of the rules of the game and that if they talked more during the gathering they get more stars. Observations were also made during the times when they were on the scavenger hunt and were at each checkpoint. By the end of the game, the second and last gathering was observed also to see how much more comfortable each subject was with talking.
There is a correlation between playing social games and becoming more comfortable with others. The results show that those who were very anti-social and usually don’t like talking to others ended up becoming very comfortable, for the most part. Many of the subjects were basically forced to interact with each other for the game and when they realized they were having fun and no one was rude to each other they all felt comfortable and socialized more than they usually do.
This experiment solves a major issue within young adolescents and teenagers for socializing. At around this age many of them have insecurities and feel like they’ll be judged so they hold back on interaction because of this fear. This experiment is similar to the common exposure therapy that’s practiced. By putting the subjects out there to do what they don’t want to (socializing) and realizing that they aren’t being judged, they felt better.
RESULTS
LIMITATIONS
A problem that could’ve occurred with this study is that the subjects could’ve been biased. Results were collected by both observation and questions given to the subjects, but they could have lied on the exam and just acted happy. Future experiments could test to see if they act the same when meeting up again for the game in a longer time period. So the game could take place and a month or two later they could be invited again to play with the same people and see how social they are. This could test to see if they really did feel comfortable or they need to break out of that shell again, and compare how well they adapt that time.
Mean= 83.75
Standard Deviation= 26.37
This data is collected from the evaluation given to each student after the game was finished. The evaluation was composed of questions that asked how well they think they improved with communicating and socializing after the game.
The mean for the students who were on the social end of the group was 77.5% of an improvement of socializing more, which means that they feel like they didn’t really improve in socializing, instead for the most part things felt the same. However the mean for the more antisocial subjects was 90%, which means that they felt as if they improved and it reflected in their actions.
Figure 1: Before the game began, subjects took the survey
Figure 2: This pie chart shows the correlation of how the anti social kids
Figure 3: The scoreboard was kept inside the room where everyone was gathered before the game and while I was observing the subjects, I prompted a helper to put a star next to the person that I felt deserved one.
to determine how social they were.
felt like they improved more after the games than the ones who were already social.
REFERENCES
OBJECTIVES
Gabbiadini, A., & Greitemeyer, T. (2016). Personality and Individual Differences. Uncovering the association between strategy video games and self-regulation: A correlational study,
Ge, Z., & Fan, L. (2016). Social Development for Children with Autism Using Kinect Gesture Games: A Case Study in Suzhou Industrial Park Renai School. Simulation and Serious Games for Education Gaming Media and Social Effects, doi: / _8
Mulligan, E. J., George, A. M., & Brown, P. M. (2016). Social anxiety and drinking game participation among university students: the moderating role of drinking to cope. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 42(6), doi: /
This study will attempt to show a correlation between a game and the behavior of socially anxious individuals. Instead of using the context that were already used in previous research this study will attempt to be more in detailed with examining every behavior that’s presented through a game that includes a scavenger hunt and working closely with peers. Current theories can be challenged by using a more qualitative approach and observations, along with recording data and quantitative results on the scores of their surveys.
This study will fill gaps by having every action be recorded and rewarding the subjects for every time they are social. By just getting scores before and after the game is performed may not be enough to determine how they behave, so every action is rewarded and taken into account. Knowing that one is being rewarded for being social could trigger the subjects to continually perform that action. Also, by watching every action performed conclusions could be made on how their behavior has changed, if it did. It is predicted that socially anxious adolescents can develop more social skills and confidence through playing social games with peers.  
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & CONTACT
I thank all subjects and helpers during the experiment for this research, along with my Professor for the guidance and all the valuable feedback from the beginning point of this research.