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Extra Lives

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Video Games and Well-being

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Cyberpsychology ((PASCY))

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Abstract

This chapter discusses the importance of stories in portraying factors of resilience in overcoming posttraumatic reactions that may result from the experience of potential trauma events. Video games, especially, offer the opportunity to explore our own sense of resilience through the lens of interactive fictional characters. This chapter examines posttraumatic reactions and potential trauma events as well as discusses the differences between typical posttraumatic reactions versus long-term pathology resulting from potential trauma events. Resilience and vulnerability to long-term posttraumatic effects are also discussed, highlighting various pre-event, peri-event, and post-event factors. The chapter concludes by outlining the interrelated nature of meaning-making and posttraumatic growth and how they may aid in resilience and growth.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It bears noting that much of the posttraumatic growth research is based on retrospective self-reports from those who survived PTEs (Jayawickreme & Blackie, 2014). In other words, people answer the question, “Do you think you’re doing better than before?” Jayawickreme & Blackie (2016) suggest that ongoing research is needed to further solidify our understanding of whether or not people’s positive self-perceptions conform with the perceptions of others or even against a baseline measure of something like interpersonal relationships prior to the PTE.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Take This, Seattle, WA, USA

    Raffael Boccamazzo

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  1. Raffael Boccamazzo
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Correspondence to Raffael Boccamazzo .

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  1. Take This, Seattle, WA, USA

    Rachel Kowert

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Boccamazzo, R. (2020). Extra Lives. In: Kowert, R. (eds) Video Games and Well-being. Palgrave Studies in Cyberpsychology. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32770-5_10

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