Psychosocial outcomes of Esports players in Portugal

• Autor(a) principal: Santos, Pedro Miguel de Oliveira Alves Simões dos
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/33400
• topic: Esports; Psychosocial outcomes; Stress; Social connectedness; Psychological wellbeing; Indicadores psicossociais; Conectividade social; Bem estar; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Psicologia

Esports is the term used to describe organized and competitive videogaming, meaning “electronic sports”. This study focused on the psychosocial characterization and description of Esports players in Portugal. Specifically, the main objectives were to characterize the motivations, feelings and experience of these practitioners, while at the same time measure their perceived stress, psychological wellbeing and social connectedness levels. Being the first study on Esports Psychology in Portugal, an exploratory, mixed-method approach was chosen, to gather as much data as possible about the population. A sociodemographic questionnaire and a specific questionnaire with questions about Esports was used, as well as three different psychological instruments for the three principal variables in study: the Perceived Stress Scale, the Flourishing Scale and the Social Connectedness Scale-Revised. The results go in line with the international literature, with participants having a moderate-high level of perceived stress, high levels of social connectedness and high levels of psychological wellbeing. Both high levels of social connectedness and lower levels of perceived stress predicted participants’ psychological wellbeing, explaining 60.9% of its variance, something that goes in line with the answers given on the qualitative questions and the literature. A thematic analysis was made to these answers on Esports, revealing the perceptions about the advantages, disadvantages, and motivations that this practice entails, with participants reporting their friends and social groups, the playing itself and the competitive aspects as the most rewarding parts of participating in Esports competitions. Limitations and suggestions for future research are pointed, such as broader experimental studies, with a bigger sample size and different variables.