Playfulness as an Organization of Experience: Prioritizing Engagement over Realness, Relevance, or Consequence
Masek, Leland (2020)
Masek, Leland
2020
Master's Degree Programme in Game Studies
Informaatioteknologian ja viestinnän tiedekunta - Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2020-05-18
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202004294458
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202004294458
Tiivistelmä
This thesis designs and conducts a multidisciplinary, phenomenological, systematic literature review upon playfulness based upon extending previous theoretical work by Jaakko Stenros. One hundred and sixty-four written works from twenty-one academic disciplines were read and analyzed for their definition of playfulness, resulting in a final list of sixty-five identified definitions used in the last five years. The methodologies used to construct these definitions were analyzed using three contextual analytical tools: theoretical direction, scope of definition, and ludicism. Using the theoretical framework of phenomenology, these sixty-five definitions were reframed in order to identify connections in modern viewpoints on the internal experience of play.
In the analysis, nine major methodologies, and six themes of phenomenological experience of playfulness are identified. In conclusion they present a unique and valuable definition of playfulness: Playfulness is an organization of experience that prioritizes engagement over realness, relevance, and consequence. Engagement is further defined as coming from attentional fullness, emotional reinforcement, recognizing and manipulating patterns, and sharing perspective. In the discussion some of the far reaching theoretical, ethical, and practical considerations of this new definition are discussed. This thesis also offers two surprising contributions. It discovers an urgent need for scholarship to expand the commonly used binary of discussing playfulness as either a personality trait or state of mind. Scholars should also consider playfulness from the perspective of a context likely to enable play and as an artifact organized playfully. The thesis also identifies an ambiguity between two separate concepts both frequently called spontaneity and argues why modern scholars should adopt an updated vocabulary.
In the analysis, nine major methodologies, and six themes of phenomenological experience of playfulness are identified. In conclusion they present a unique and valuable definition of playfulness: Playfulness is an organization of experience that prioritizes engagement over realness, relevance, and consequence. Engagement is further defined as coming from attentional fullness, emotional reinforcement, recognizing and manipulating patterns, and sharing perspective. In the discussion some of the far reaching theoretical, ethical, and practical considerations of this new definition are discussed. This thesis also offers two surprising contributions. It discovers an urgent need for scholarship to expand the commonly used binary of discussing playfulness as either a personality trait or state of mind. Scholars should also consider playfulness from the perspective of a context likely to enable play and as an artifact organized playfully. The thesis also identifies an ambiguity between two separate concepts both frequently called spontaneity and argues why modern scholars should adopt an updated vocabulary.