Priscilla Zamora: Summary/Response 4

“The Ideal Self at Play.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences, journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797611418676.

Link: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797611418676

Summary:

In this article, two studies have been made to see whether video games allow players to be their ideal-selves. The first study was made to see if games allowed players to experience their ideal-self characteristics and in turn, seeing if that motivated them to play. To do this, they recruited undergraduates to play three different video games and then had them complete questionnaires. The second study’s hypothesis was to find out whether gameplay would make the players’ game-self-ideal-self greater. In this study, people were only allowed to participate if they had previously played video games at least one month prior. The subjects then had to answer more questionnaires. In the end, their hypothesis was correct: video games do allow players to be their ideal selves.

Response:

I think that the method of asking the subjects what they thought of themselves before they conducted their tests was key to their study because studies like this could not be coherent without understanding the subjects’ ideal-self and actual-self characteristics. If I were doing a similar study, I may have done the same. It’s important to know how a person feels about themselves when you’re trying to figure out who they are and/or who they aspire to be.

Self-confidence is key when it comes to any type of identity. The same holds true for the identity we have in the digital (video game) world. I believe that the avatars we create, the type of games we play and how we play said games has a lot to do with our ideal-self and actual-self characteristics. This article has confirmed for me the fact that it is our self-confidence that dictates both our ideal-self and actual-self.

Quotations:

“Video-game players can act in ways that are congruent with idealized views of the self and can experience abilities and satisfactions that are difficult to access in everyday life” (70).

“…convergence between people’s experience of themselves during play and their concept of their ideal selves was related to enjoyment of play…” (74).

“…virtual environments, like close relationships, may be motivating to the degree that they allow individuals to experience ideal aspects of themselves” (74).

“…games provide players with access to ideal aspects of themselves…” (75).

Terms:

Ideal-self characteristics- how people would like to experience themselves

Game-self characteristics- how individuals experience themselves when playing video games

Actual-self characteristics- how people are in their everyday lives

Game-self-ideal-self convergence- the overlap between a player’s ideal-self characteristics and those that he or she experiences while playing video games