Preliminary Evaluation of a Single Brief Session of a Novel Gamified Attentional Bias Modification for Improving Children’s Happiness: Randomized Controlled Trails (Preprint)

Abstract

Previous research has shown significant effect of gamified attentional bias modification on negative affect. However, insufficient studies have investigated the effect of gamified attentional bias modification on improving positive affect.

The study assessed the effect of novel gamified attentional bias modification on self-report positive attentional bias and subjective happiness.

Adolescents from a secondary school in Hong Kong were recruited and randomly assigned into three conditions which were negative-avoidance attentional bias modification, the combination of negative-avoidance and positive-search attentional bias modification, and placebo training. After completing the inventories to assess positive attentional bias and subjective happiness, participants engaged in a 15-minute short training session. They completed the second assessment of positive attentional bias and subjective happiness immediately after the session.

None of the conditions significantly improved self-report positive attentional bias and subjective happiness from Time 1 to Time 2. No difference was found among the training conditions.

indings suggested that a single brief session of gamified ABM was not sufficient in inducing changes in self-report positive attentional bias and subjective happiness. Adding positive-search attentional bias modification to negative-avoidance attentional bias modification did not significantly increase the effect of ABM training on self-report positive attentional bias and subjective happiness. The study implied that gamified ABM might not be an ideal attentional training for improving adolescents’ happiness.