Measuring the response rate of verbal statements while playing competitive and non-competitive video games

Abstract

Playing video games has become increasingly popular as a leisure activity, especially among youth. Video games have become an arena for socializing on par with activities such as playing football and going swimming. For individuals who might struggle with problem behaviors such as social avoidance, mental health issues, or addiction, there is an opportunity to use this arena to learn new behaviors or maintain behaviors that may generalize to other social arenas such as school, work, or contributing to the local community. Previous research on video games has emphasized how it might be detrimental to the development of these problem behaviors, but few have commented on how using video games may be helpful for behavioral change. This paper explores which environment serves as more reinforcing for social behavior by examining the response rate of verbal statements (tacts, mands, and intraverbals) in competitive and non-competitive video games, and compares which environment leads to a higher rate of responding. There was consistently a higher response rate, higher total responses, and a higher average number of responses when the participants were playing the competitive video game compared to playing the non-competitive video game. These findings suggest that playing competitive video games reinforce social behavior more effectively than non-competitive video games. Choosing the more appropriate type of video game during therapeutic gaming sessions might be beneficial in a therapeutic setting. Keywords: Competitive video game, Non-competitive video game, Social avoidance, Verbal statements, Applied behavior analysis, Reversal design.