Post by Roli Nanna

I'm very excited to share that my dissertation received a First Class grade and won the Impact Award at this year's UCL Psychology Summer Festival! 🎉🧠📝 My dissertation, "Shameful Gaming: Shame and Toxic Behaviour in Online Gaming", explored whether shame motivates toxic behaviour in competitive online games (specifically MOBAs like League of Legends) and how game design features facilitate this. This was my first piece of fully independent research and my first time conducting qualitative research, so it really challenged me. I conducted and analysed 10 semi-structured interviews using NVivo, identifying 6 themes and 11 subthemes. Key findings included: 👾 Shame was triggered by the public exposure of failure  👩‍💻 Toxicity was driven primarily through blame externalisation as a shame-regulation strategy 👾 Game design features such as public performance metrics and ranked modes structurally amplified this 🧑‍💻 Social context and identity investment moderated the pathway Most importantly, this project showed me first-hand how design shapes user emotions and behaviour, and also allowed me to learn more about gaming (I wasn’t a gamer). Understanding the psychological impact of design decisions is key to creating fun and safe game environments. Thank you to my supervisor Martin Dechant, Ph.D. for his guidance throughout. I am really grateful my hard work paid off! #UX #UXDesign #Psychology #GameDesign #Research #UCL