Notes on Positive Psychology and Wellbeing of Gaming
Overview
This set of notes synthesizes the material from a presentation on Positive Psychology and the Wellbeing of Gaming & Video Games. The core message is that video games and gaming practices can contribute to positive wellbeing when viewed through a Positive Psychology lens, particularly via connection, belonging, meaning, engagement, and accomplishment. The content integrates theory from Seligman’s Positive Psychology, Allen’s sense of belonging, and related research that explores how gaming functions in everyday life, therapy, and social contexts. Throughout, emphasis is placed on how gaming can be a source of recreation, coping, social connection, and personal growth, while acknowledging potential risks and the need for balanced, ethical approaches and co-design with stakeholders.
Key Concepts and Theoretical Foundations
Video games can influence wellbeing in multiple domains. Positive Psychology defines wellbeing as more than the absence of distress; it involves positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. This framework, often summarized as PERMA, provides a structure for evaluating how gaming may contribute to wellbeing. The PERMA model comprises five core elements:
\text{PERMA} = (P, E, R, M, A)
$P$: Positive Emotions – experiences of joy, contentment, and other favorable affective states.
$E$: Engagement – being deeply involved, immersed, and in a state of flow during activities (e.g., gaming).
$R$: Relationships – social connections and supportive interactions with others.
$M$: Meaning – sense that one’s activities are part of something larger or purposeful.
$A$: Accomplishment – pursuing and achieving goals, a sense of mastery and completion.
Wellbeing, as defined in the literature cited, includes positive emotions and moods, reduced negative emotions, life satisfaction, fulfillment, and positive functioning. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe wellbeing as a combination of these components, which can be supported by engaging experiences such as gaming when framed constructively.
Beyond PERMA, several related constructs are central:
Sense of Belonging (Allen, 2020): a fundamental human need evidenced by a positive, though dynamic, connection to others, places, and experiences. Allen outlines four components: Competencies for Belonging, Opportunities for Belonging, Motivation to Belong, and Perceptions of Belonging.
Motivation to Belong: the drive to be accepted, belong, and seek social interactions; gaming platforms can fulfill this need by providing spaces for acceptance and shared interest.
Flow and Mindful Gaming: the experience of being “in the zone”—immersive, focused, and absorbed in the activity, often associated with high levels of engagement.
Passion Types: Harmonious Passion (positive, autonomous engagement) vs. Obsessive Passion (rigid, controlled engagement). Structural models (e.g., Mandryk et al., 2020) explore how these passions relate to loneliness and wellbeing.
Social Presence Theory (Short, Williams, &olly, 1976): mediated communication can influence the salience of participants and the resulting interpersonal connections.
Meaning and Narrative in Games: some games offer opportunities for meaning, including therapy-related benefits (e.g., veterans’ use of games for coping and recovery).
A broad neuroscience reference is briefly acknowledged (e.g., dopamine pathways) to situate how neural reinforcement supports gaming-related motivation, though the primary focus remains social-psychological and holistic explanations.
Historical Context and Evolution of Gaming
The presentation situates gaming within a broad historical timeline and culture:
Early interactive systems: ELIZA (1966) as an early natural language processing program that mirrored Rogerian counseling techniques, illustrating the long-standing interest in computer-mediated interaction and its therapeutic potential.
Timeline of gaming technologies and platforms spans from PONG in the 1970s to modern consoles and online ecosystems (e.g., Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation), with the rise of online gaming (e.g., World of Warcraft, Steam) and streaming/social platforms. The timeline also includes examples of AI-driven games and chatbots (e.g., early mentions of Eliza’s influence on human-computer interaction).
A contemporary focus on gaming devices and modalities (console-based, mobile, PC) and how these modalities influence access, engagement, and wellbeing.
The presentation notes that contemporary discussions often separate gaming from other forms of digital activity (e.g., social media) and emphasize gaming modalities and device ecosystems as the primary vehicles for wellbeing-related outcomes.
Why Talk About Gaming and Wellbeing?
Technology and gaming culture have transformed rapidly, and gaming has become a norm in many people’s lives. Over the past five decades, gaming culture has evolved, expanding in reach and diversity.
The cultural impact of gaming on society is substantial today, and there is interest in how future developments (e.g., AI, graphics, new consoles) will shape gaming experiences.
By focusing on gaming modalities rather than social media in general, the discussion centers on how access to games and gaming hardware can support or hinder wellbeing.
Gaming as a Context for Psychological Functioning
Gaming is often a norm in therapy rooms and clinical settings, not necessarily as the primary problem but as a facet of the client’s life, interests, and coping repertoire.
Reasons for engagement include recreation, coping, stress relief, and social connection. Understanding the “use” of gaming helps clinicians assess its positive and negative contributions to functioning.
In clinical practice, gaming can be involved in referrals or part of the client’s daily coping strategies and social exploration with peers.
Case Illustration and Everyday Experiences
A client quote captures the emotional salience of narrative endings in games: completion and emotional investment (e.g., finishing Red Dead Redemption 2) can evoke strong feelings, illustrating how gaming experiences can have meaningful psychological effects.
Case material emphasizes that therapy can begin with games the client enjoys, using those discussions to build rapport, discuss peer connections, and gradually address broader psychosocial concerns.
From Micro (Neuroscience) to Macro (Social Context)
The micro-level reference to dopamine acknowledges neurochemical processes linked to reward and motivation in gaming, but the emphasis of the course is on broader social-psychological explanations.
The meso- and macro-level ideas center on motivation, grit (Duckworth), persistence, and accomplishment systems theory (the slide text notes “Von Banterfly” as a systems perspective), as well as sense of belonging (Allen).
Development Across the Lifespan
Gaming is not just for children; the audience and participants span generations.
Questions raised include how gaming has changed over the past 40 years, whether gaming “grows up” with its audience, and how the relationship between players and games evolves over time (growing up and growing out).
Visuals include contemporary campaigns (e.g., Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom) to illustrate the ongoing appeal and evolving design of modern games.
Demographics and Reach
General statistics highlighted include:
91\% of Australian households own a video game device.
The average video game player in Australia is 34 years old.
Nearly frac{1}{2} of players are female (approx. 50\%).
Among Australians aged 65+, about 42\% identify as gamers.
These data underscore gaming as a broad social phenomenon with significant cross-generational and gender diversity.
What’s in a Game? Examples and Scope
The presentation shows a variety of game titles and media fragments to illustrate the diversity of gaming experiences, from nostalgic or classic titles to contemporary releases. The key point is that games encompass a wide range of genres, themes, and goals, which in turn produce different psychological and social effects.
Social and Personal Benefits: Bringing People Together
Gaming is a social activity that can bring together children, adolescents, and parents, promoting mutual understanding of interests and shared experiences.
Leisure activities like gaming can contribute to personal wellbeing on an individual level and social functioning at a community level. Shared interests create opportunities for social bonding, peer interaction, and collective meaning.
The session emphasizes the dual role of gaming as a source of amusement, escapism, joy, relaxation, positive distraction, leisure, and recreation, as well as a site for skill development and social connection.
Clinical and Social Perspectives: Benefits and Boundaries
Clinically, gaming can pose challenges such as screen time management and potential addictive patterns in some individuals (e.g., Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox). The task is to understand why gaming is pleasurable and to identify when gaming contributes positively to wellbeing versus when it becomes pervasive and disruptive.
The positive perspective centers on identifying the benefits: social connection, sense of achievement, opportunities for belonging, and meaningful engagement, while remaining aware of risks and the need for balance and healthy boundaries.
Positive Psychology in Practice: PERMA in Gaming Context
PERMA stands for Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. Each component can be nurtured through gaming experiences:
Positive Emotions: games can evoke joy, satisfaction, and contentment.
Engagement: games are designed to be engaging and to promote immersion and flow.
Relationships: online and multiplayer gaming enables new and ongoing social connections.
Meaning: games can offer purpose, goals, and sometimes connections to broader narratives or communities; they can be used therapeutically to support meaning-making (e.g., veterans’ recovery contexts).
Accomplishment: games provide clear goals, progression, and feedback that foster a sense of achievement.
The model can be used to assess how specific games, genres, or play patterns contribute to overall wellbeing, and to guide interventions and program design.
PERMA Details: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment
Positive Emotions and Engagement: Games are designed to be engaging—offering hedonic pleasure, comfort, and flow states where players experience deep absorption and satisfaction. The engagement element is reinforced by the multi-age, multi-million dollar game design industry that fosters immersive experiences.
Relationships: Humans are social by nature, and gaming introduces a social dimension through online play, co-ordination, cooperation, and multiplayer experiences. Online gaming can enable relationships that cross geographical and cultural boundaries, contributing to a broader sense of belonging.
Meaning: The concept of meaning in gaming raises the question of whether a game can serve something greater than the self. Many games provide in-game goals, storytelling, and opportunities for creative expression that can anchor meaning for players.
Accomplishment: A central feature of many games is achieving goals, mastering mechanics, and completing challenges, which can translate into a strong sense of accomplishment and self-efficacy in real life contexts.
Case Example: PERMA in Action
Client perspective (Achievement & Relationships): A 14-year-old boy with learning difficulties and behavior concerns enters therapy. The gamer identity and console use (PC/laptop) serve as an entry point to engagement.
Early sessions focus on the client’s games, which helps build rapport and offers a pathway to discuss peers and social connections outside the game context.
Evidence of PERMA in practice appears as follows:
Achievement: the client expresses that schooling feels hard, but gaming provides a sense of achievement and mastery.
Relationships: the client forms social connections with peers online and in real life through gaming-related conversations and shared activities.
Meaning: engagement with gaming and related conversations (e.g., anime) provides opportunities to discuss identity, interests, and purpose.
Positive Emotion: sessions are anchored in acknowledging positive experiences in gaming and the transitional value of these experiences.
Belonging and Social Connectedness (Allen)
Allen’s framework describes Belonging as consisting of four components:
1) Competencies for Belonging: Skills that enable social interaction and identification with others, including the ability to relate to different cultural backgrounds and to express identity through online avatars. Online spaces can reflect or augment a person’s sense of belonging.
2) Opportunities for Belonging: The availability and accessibility of groups, people, places, times, and spaces for belonging. Gaming platforms can enhance opportunities to connect by providing diverse communities and activities.
3) Motivation to Belong: The need to be accepted and to engage socially; gaming platforms can satisfy this need by offering accepting environments and like-minded peers.
4) Perceptions of Belonging: The subjective sense of fitting in or belonging, which may vary across contexts and experiences.
Populations that appear to benefit from gaming-related belonging include individuals with autism and neurodiversity, insecure attachment styles, depressive symptoms, social anxiety, shy/introverted individuals, and other groups vulnerable in mental health contexts. Online and offline gaming spaces can create inclusive contexts where belonging is experienced and reinforced.
These components collectively help explain how gaming can support social integration and wellbeing, while also highlighting the need to ensure inclusive and ethical design and moderation.
Clinical and Social Realities
In clinical contexts, gaming-related conversations can involve discussing content outside the in-game world (e.g., memes, peer interactions) and recognizing the social reality shaped by gaming experiences.
Gaming experiences can contribute to nostalgia, storytelling, relearning social dynamics, and forming new social identities. For some, online gameplay becomes a shared reality that influences worldview and social perception.
The Monash community example (MEGA – Monash Electronic Gaming Association) demonstrates real-world institutional engagement with gaming communities. MEGA provides a platform for students and staff to engage in esports and gaming in a positive, community-driven environment, reflecting how institutions can support healthy gaming cultures.
Ethics, Co-design, and Future Directions
Ethical considerations include questions about the boundaries of gaming research versus game development, governance of online spaces, and the responsibility of researchers, clinicians, and developers to ensure user wellbeing.
Co-design is emphasized as essential when focusing on gaming for wellbeing. Involving players, clinicians, designers, and other stakeholders helps ensure interventions are ethical, feasible, and grounded in real-world needs.
Future directions contemplate gaming companions and AI-enabled interactions (e.g., AI companions, virtual pets, etc.), and whether technology will evolve toward more sophisticated companionship within gaming ecosystems.
The discussion also considers whether gamified wellbeing tools can meaningfully promote mindfulness, cognitive-behavioral techniques, and positive psychology principles through well-designed games and apps. Questions arise about measurement, efficacy, and the limits of what mainstream games can accomplish in promoting wellbeing.
Evidence of Positive Impacts and Notable Studies
A qualitative study by Carras et al. (2018) examined veterans treated for mental health problems and found connections among meaning, distraction, and social engagement in video game play, highlighting how games can support mental health recovery through connection, meaning, and distraction.
Source: Colder Carras, M. et al., 2018; published in Soc Sci Med, 216:124–132; "Connection, meaning, and distraction: A qualitative study of video game play and mental health recovery in veterans treated for mental and/or behavioral health problems".
Other research explores the violent-ethics and moral development aspects of gaming, showing how games invite players to engage with moral choices and how players frequently choose the morally “right” option, with some exploratory engagement in “bad choices” requiring subsequent attempts.
“Games for Change” and related festivals advocate for using game design to address social issues and positive social impact, with examples such as Papers Please and Escape from Woomera illustrating ethical and social dimensions of game design.
The literature on gaming as a therapeutic tool spans trauma, grief, mood disorders, social functioning, and skill-building, emphasizing the need for co-design and clinically informed development to maximize positive outcomes.
Practical Implications for Practice
Clinicians can view gaming as a diagnostic context and a therapeutic resource, recognizing both benefits and risks. A balanced approach involves exploring a client’s gaming motivations, social networks, and meaning-making opportunities, while setting healthy boundaries around screen time and ensuring that gaming does not undermine daily functioning.
Education and coaching can leverage gaming to foster belonging, collaboration, and skill-building, particularly for populations that benefit from inclusive, structured, and supportive online spaces.
Co-design with players and communities is essential to ensure that gaming-based interventions are ethical, culturally sensitive, and tailored to diverse needs.
Limitations and Cautions
Not all individuals who game will experience positive outcomes; some may encounter problematic use or addiction-like patterns. The emphasis is on healthy engagement and alignment with personal goals and real-life responsibilities.
The complexity of gaming’s effects means that outcomes depend on context, design, social environment, and individual differences. A one-size-fits-all approach is inappropriate.
Ethical considerations require ongoing evaluation of not only the benefits but also privacy, consent, and the potential for harm in online communities.
Closing Synthesis
Can video games promote positive psychology and wellbeing? The emerging evidence suggests yes, when approached through a balanced, ethically informed, and co-designed lens. Games can support Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment, thereby contributing to overall wellbeing. They can foster belonging, social connection, and purposeful engagement while offering opportunities for learning, empathy, and prosocial development. At the same time, mindful boundaries, critical reflection on usage, and ethical research and design practices are essential to ensure gaming remains a healthy, constructive influence on the human condition.
References ( Selected )
Seligman, M.E. (2011). Positive Psychology. Update on PERMA and wellbeing concepts.
Ryan, R.M., & Deci, E.L. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: The self-determination theory perspective on wellbeing.
Allen, J.J. (2020). Sense of Belonging and its components in social contexts.
Mandryk, R.L., Frommel, R., Armstrong, A., & Johnson, D. (2020). PERMA relations in gaming; structural equation modeling of Harmonious and Obsessive Passion and wellbeing. Frontiers in Psychology, 11:2166.
Carras, M.C., Kalbarczyk, A., Wells, K., Banks, J., Kowert, R., Gillespie, C., Latkin, C. (2018). Connection, meaning, and distraction: A qualitative study of video game play and mental health recovery in veterans treated for mental and/or behavioral health problems. Soc Sci Med, 216:124–132.
Leary, M.R., & Kelly, H. (2009). Motivation to belong and social connection.
Short, J., Williams, E., & Christie, B. (1976). The social presence theory and mediated communication.
Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S., et al. (2019). Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction; Games for Change context.
Kowert, R. (various works). Social dynamics of online gaming and wellbeing.
Rosser Jr., J.C., et al. (2007/2008). The impact of video games on training surgeons in the 21st century. Arch Surg.
Carras, M.C., et al. (2018). Qualitative study in veterans (PTSD) and gaming; connection and relief.
Further Reading and Resources
MEGA: Monash Electronic Gaming Association – www.mega.org.au
Nintendo Financial Reports (2021) – age and demographic insights (illustrative data from the slides)
Additional readings on Flow, Mindful Gaming, and the ethics of gaming interventions