Yesterday my group played the coolest game ever: mancala.
Yeah.
The game you play with your grandma.
or at least the game I play with you grandma.
anyway, the psychological effects were earth-shattering.
what's that? you want 3 subdomains of cognitive psychology displayed during gameplay?
HERE THEY COME!
BAM!
NUMBER ONE: First and foremost, problem solving, involving goal directed behavior. Goal? beating Harry in mancala. Which bowl of tiny jewls should I pick up in order to accomplish my goal of whooping Harry? Should I pick up the one with five jewls in it so I can make it into my mancala? But then my turn would be over. Wait, are we playing Nigerian rules? Or Egyptian? So confusing! Solution: playing by adam's grandmas rules.
NUMBER TWO: Judgement and Decision. A little similar to problem solving. "Extensive analysis has identified widespread failures of rational models due to differential assessment of risks and rewards (Luce and Raiffa, 1989), the distorted assessment of probabilities (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), and the limitations in human information processing". True that. Drouble true, infact. My drive to defeat Harry often drove me to make poor decisions, which ultimately, lead to MY defeat :( I chose the wrong bowls many times, didn't take time to count the jewls, and ended up playing right into his evil plan. Had I detatched myself from the goal, I would've had a much greater chance of winning.
NUMBER 3: Reasoning. This came into play when the debate about which rules we were playing by. General Rules? No, they were way too general. Egyptian rules were fine for me, but they greatly upset Harry. He wanted to play by Nigerian rules. Nobody wanted to play by Ethiopian rules. Harry's failure to provide evidence of the fun-filled nature of Nigerian rules led to the assumption by the other group members that obviously, we should play by the rule set we all know is fun: Adam's Grandma's Rules.
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nfh&AN=200908191027575031&site=ehost-live
In this article, it is stated that families that play board games together strengthens bonds within the family. It engages them on a levels of interactiveness and closeness that otherwise would not be explored. It also states that board games provide beneficial improvement to life skills of children (social skills, concentration, cooperation...)Parents ultimately concluded that nearly 100% of the time, playing board games improved family bonds as well as their children's life skills.
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wow your subdomains and journal were interesting. I agree that playing games togethor helps strengthen bonds with other people. Your were very creative in your explanations, Good Job!
ReplyDeleteI understand what you mean on becoming distracted from playing with practicality and consistency vs. risky behavior. It's hard to play the smarter way when it's less rewarding.
ReplyDelete:D Mancala. I like how your goal is to beat Harry! I'm sorry that you didn't win. I cant believe there are so many different variations of the game though 0.o.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that board games can bring families together, but I feel like my fobby parents would not be able to play most of them :DD
It's interesting that our games only share 1 subdomain- judgment and decision making. It sucks that you lost because you made poor decisions JUST to beat Harry.
ReplyDeleteI used to LOVE playing mancala with my sisters and cousins. It's such an awesome game. In fact, it's so awesome, I asked my dad to buy me a mancala set for my birthday when I was 8 years old. My mom said it was a "bad game" and "brought misfortune and demons" to our home. She threw it away when I was asleep.
I like your approach to the game (to beat Harry), too bad it didn't work out for you. I agree with the article. my family is an avid board game playing family and it does bring us together, except for maybe my sister and I((she is just too good at everything and i am too competitive)).
ReplyDeletehaha nice adam. i liked playing by the cool AMERICAN rules best though. :)
ReplyDeleteI think that when we play games together we are able to strengthen bonds because we are overcoming a difficulty and that always brings people together.
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