How Playfulness can Enable Greater Understanding of Game-Based Adult Mental Health Interventions.

Playfulness is a critical term for the study of games, simulations, and mental health. In addition to formal characteristics of games, how players perceive and experience those games has shown effect on the outcomes of interventions. One experience that is critically connected to games is playfulness. Simultaneously playfulness has recently been studied in psychology for its benefits on adult mental health, both as a state of mind and a personality trait. This makes playfulness a highly valuable term to study in the context of game-based interventions that aim to affect mental health symptoms. This work addresses empirical literature that connects playfulness and mental health using a new model of playfulness as engagement seeking. By analyzing past works two primary pathways for how playfulness affects mental health emerge. Recommendations for future game-based intervention studies are made based upon these pathways and how past studies have methodologically used them.