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RESEARCH STUDY: “Players Love the Game Not the Gore – Psychology Study Shows That Violence Does Not Motivate Video Game Players.”

February 16, 2009 by Shannon

January 16th 2009.   “These elements, said coauthor Richard Ryan, a motivational psychologist at the University, represent “the core reasons that people find games so entertaining and compelling. Conflict and war are a common and powerful context for providing these experiences, but it is the need satisfaction in the gameplay that matters more than the...

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SCIENCE NEWS: Gamers crave control and competence, not carnage

February 14, 2009 by Shannon

February 14th  2009.   Blood, guts and gore aren’t what thrill avid gamers when they slaughter zombies in The House of the Dead III video game, a new study suggests. Instead, feelings of control and competence are what the players crave. The new research, led by psychologist Richard Ryan at the University of Rochester in New...

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ScienCentral: Violence Not What Attracts Video Gamers, Says Study

January 16, 2009 by Shannon

Richard Ryan interviewed by ScienCentral on a new SDT study, released today, showing that “violence” is not what attracts players. This comes just a few days after a U.S. congressman proposed legislation that would brand violent video games with a health warning. The research could be reassuring news for parents. University of Rochester Press Release on...

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CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Why your happiness matters to the planet

July 22, 2008 by Shannon

July 22nd 2008. Scientists say this need for community may be a result of humanity’s long evolution in groups. Living together conferred an advantage, they say. In the hunter-gatherer world, relatedness, autonomy, curiosity, and competence – the very things that psychologists find make people happy – “had payoffs that were pretty clear,” says Richard Ryan, a...

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MSNBC: Doing Good Can Make You Feel Good

May 4, 2007 by Shannon

May 4th 2007. Realizing that some people may feel guilty about reporting pleasure-seeking behaviors, Steger and his colleagues then modified the survey questions slightly to make them seem less exceptionable, and asked a new group of students to perform the study again, this time over a four-week period. The psychologists got the same results. “A...

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WASHINGTON POST: Why Video Games May Be Hard to Give Up

January 16, 2007 by Shannon

January 15th 2007.    Researchers say they’ve found another reason why video games are so hard to give up: They may help fulfill basic psychological needs. In a study published in the January issue ofMotivation and Emotion, investigators from the University of Rochester and Immersyve Inc. looked at what motivated 1,000 gamers to keep playing...

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