Optimizing Esports Performance Using a Synergistic Mindsets Interventionuse asterix (*) to get italics

Maciej Behnke, Daniël Lakens, Kate Petrova, Patrycja Chwiłkowska, Lukasz D. Kaczmarek, Jeremy P. Jamieson, James J. GrossPlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"

2023

<p>Affective responses during stressful high-stakes situations can play an important role in shaping performance outcomes. For example, feeling shaky and nervous at a job interview can undermine performance, whereas feeling pumped and excited during a sporting competition can optimize performance. These observations suggest that affect regulation – the way people influence their affective responses – might play a key role in determining high-stakes performance outcomes. To test this hypothesis, we propose to adapt a newly developed synergistic mindsets intervention (Yeager et al., 2022) to high-stakes situations. This adaptation is motivated by the idea that (1) mindsets both about situations and one’s response to situations can be shaped to maximize challenge versus threat responding, and (2) challenge versus threat affective responses will be associated with enhanced performance outcomes. Our particular focus is esports, a context that permits the measurement of affective response – affective experience and real-time cardiovascular responses - and well-defined performance outcomes. After a baseline performance task, we will randomly assign gamers (N = 250) either to a synergistic mindsets intervention or to a control condition in which they will learn brain facts. After two weeks of daily gaming, players will compete in a cash-prize tournament. We will measure affective experiences before the matches and cardiovascular responses before and throughout the matches. Compared to the control condition, we hypothesize that synergistic mindset gamers will show greater challenge affective responses and superior performance outcomes. If these predictions are supported, we will seek to extend this work to other contexts.</p>

Affect, Esports, Reappraisal, Challenge, Threat, Mindset,

NonePlease indicate the methods that may require specialised expertise during the peer review process (use a comma to separate various required expertises).

Social sciences

2023-01-04 10:12:55

Veli-Matti Karhulahti