Gamification has grown to the point where people have stopped reacting with questions surrounding it and have started being active in conversations about it. Study after study has come out revealing what we already intuitively know to be true: balancing challenge level with users’ skill and providing rapid feedback using game mechanics keeps users engaged, making work more exciting and enjoyable. But is that all?
Self-Efficacy
As it turns out, this study revealed that the status and success achieved in gamification systems has a hand in bumping users’ self-efficacy, a term described by psychologist Albert Bandura as the belief in one’s ability to succeed. This makes sense – when your individual actions are immediately rewarded with points and achievements, you are more likely to view hurdles as tasks to be mastered rather than obstacles to be avoided. Higher self-efficacy during a task coincides with a higher preference for that task, which means more frequent revisiting of that task: something to be coveted, especially when that task is employee training or participation in an online community.
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Goal-Orientation
Additionally, the perception of goal-orientation has been flipped on its head, and it fits the gamification model quite well. Traditionally, goal-orientation pitted the mastery-oriented (focused on learning and improvement) against the performance-oriented (focused on outcomes and outperforming others). The ideal student focuses solely on learning, without concern for outcome. Business though, by nature, unavoidably demands results. As a system dealing largely with goal setting and attainment, gamification has never fallen clearly into either category; it uses leaderboards and status to spark competition, yet it also fosters intrinsic motivation using feelings of success and enjoyment. This interplay of goal-orientations has now been acknowledged as a search for mastery in order to reach performance goals: mastering a task to outperform others, and it’s an interaction of goal-orientation achieved by gamification.
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