The Effects of Using Games to Treat Social Anxiety
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Kimberly Charran
Department of Behavioral Sciences
INTRODUCTION
• 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.
OBJECTIVES
• 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.
MATERIALS & METHODS
CONCLUSIONS
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.
RESULTS
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
to determine how social they were.
Figure 2: This pie chart shows the
correlation of how the anti social kids
felt like they improved more after the
games than the ones who were already
social.
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.
IMPROVEMENT WITH SOCIALIZING
Already Social
46%
Anti-social
54%
• 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.
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.
REFERENCES
• Gabbiadini, A., & Greitemeyer, T. (2016). Personality and
Individual Differences. Uncovering the association between
strategy video games and self-regulation: A correlational
study, 129-136.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.07.041
• 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, 113123. doi:10.1007/978-981-10-0861-0_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), 726-734. doi:10.1080/00952990.2016.1188934
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.