Role: Research, Design, Interactive Storytelling

Year: 2021

An individual's anxiety can be reduced significantly by combining playfulness along with addressing anxiety. Several studies had documented that individuals benefited from playfulness (Chang et al., 2013; Frank, 2018; Versluys, 2017) and benefited when anxiety was addressed (BetterHealth, n.d.). However, no known empirical research has focused on exploring the relationship between playfulness and addressing anxiety (i.e., topic congruence). 

This study focuses on the following research question: "Do playfulness and addressing anxiety within an interactive digital narrative (IDN) affect self-reported anxiety levels?". 

A 2 x 2 between-subjects experiment was conducted, 122 participants were evenly distributed over four IDN conditions (i.e., Topic Congruence-Playful, Non-Topic Congruence-Playful, Topic Congruence-Non-Playful, and Non-Topic Congruence-Non-Playful). 

Anxiety state was measured pre- and post-manipulation using the STAI-6 scale and later compared using a dependent t-test. The factorial ANOVA used the post-manipulation anxiety scores, and the data demonstrated no significant effect of playfulness on the anxiety state of the participants, nor was there a significant effect of topic congruence on the anxiety state of participants. 

However, the findings indicated a significant interaction effect between the Topic Congruence and Playfulness condition. Participants exposed to the playfulness condition could better regulate their emotions compared to the other conditions. These findings can contribute to a better understanding of combining and implementing playfulness and topic congruence in a narrative to lessen anxiety. The research results represent a further step towards developing IDNs as self-help tools that strive to reduce an individual's anxiety state.

If you would like to know more about this research, the file has been attached to this page.