A new video game could reduce the level of stress and could increase the esteem of oneself. It is what a set of five studies published in October 2007 indicates, in the Newspaper of Personality and Social Psychology.
One of the studies has been led by a group of workers submitted to a lot of pressure and stress: 23 sellers of an enterprise of telemarketing of Montreal.
Lasting one week, in the beginning of his/her/its quarter of work, a part of the group played during 15 minutes a video game conceived for the survey. The objective was to click as quickly as possible on smiling faces in a grid of frowning faces.
The second part of the group had to click on flowers to five petals appearing in a grid of flowers to seven petals. All filled a form of assessment to establish their level of stress and confidence before and after their work day.
The results show that while training to recognize the smiling faces quickly, the sellers of the first group, according to their assessment, increased their esteem of oneself and their confidence. Their rate of cortisone. the hormone of stress. decreased 17%. Besides, their sales were more important than those of the group having clicked on flowers. The game would not have non had of effect on the confidence and the esteem of oneself among the sellers of the second group.
To break the vicious circle
When a person feels stress, he arrives that she grants an attention exaggerated to potentially menacing signals of his/her/its environment. These signals generate more stress then again and drag the person in a vicious circle, specify Mark W. Baldwin, professor to the Department of psychology of the McGill university and researcher responsible of the set of study.
While training to concentrate on the smiling faces, the players break this vicious circle and learn to concentrate on the signals positive of their environment, like the support offered by their colleagues, explain the professor.
The general public can make the test of this game vidéo2 that addresses to all those that must compose with stress, indicate Mark W. Baldwin.
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