Confidence in esport is often seen as the truism. Nevertheless, new research starts to support this idea with real data. According to a recent study in Psychology of Sports and Fitness, self-belief is a strong predictor of success in competitive gaming.
82 men aged 18 to 32 involved in the sample participated in CS: GO for killing professional bots more quickly than the competitors.
Maciej Behnke, president of the Adam Mickiewicz University Psychophysiology and Health Laboratory in Poznań, Poland, says the use of bots “is to limit the impact of external factors.” The award winners were given the cash prize so that the stresses and expectations of an esports event were more accurately represented.
According to the report, participants were asked to assess their abilities by using a “seven-point scale ranging from one(‘ extremely low’) to seven(‘ extremely high skills’). After each round, players received evaluations of their results and some players claimed they scored better or worse than they did.
By using this approach, Behnke suggests that “the players have changed the way they assessed themselves, but this adjustment has no effect on their performance.” While the players report their talents differently according to how researchers told them they performed, their actual performance more closely mirrored their original assessment of their ability.
This finding was reinforced by a study conducted in a comparative model of 241 male players by Behnke and co. on FIFA players.
In this research, videos that induced “amusement, frustration, disappointment or excitement” were shown before every five round in pre-parallel feelings on success and players.
According to Behnke, negative emotions like cold were unhelpful but the positive emotions “increased players ‘ energy.” “Gamers may be involved in what makes them achieve better,” said Behnke.
Lukasz Kaczmarek, science supervisor of Behnke and a research collaborator, says that some people might be shocked by this connection between positive emotions and motivation in professional gamers.
“Many people (including scientists) unfamiliar with sports and gambling may think that gambling is motivated by blood-treatment, aggression, rage and other troubling motives,” said Kaczmarek. “Not true.” “They’re not real.
