Eudaimonia and Behavior Change: Incorporating negative feelings into game design elements

Behavior Change is presently an important objective in the multidisciplinary field of healthcare HCI, and Gamification is one of the most satisfactory ways to address it. However, for a Behavior Change adequate Gamification processes to happen, we have to take into account the occurrence of negative feelings and discomfort that can interfere with reaching their goals. In this paper, we present a pertinent way to embody these antagonistic emotions into the design of a game. We started from the known fact that the primary function of games lies not only in providing fun, but also in teaching players how to positively manage difficulties. This idea is consistent with the tenets of Distributed Cognition, which state that external tools and representations afford the perception, the manipulation, and the sharing of inner thoughts, just like successful games for Behavior Change should do. This paradigm in turn, could represent a way to deal with Cognitive Dissonance and, in particular, with Self-Discrepancy, that are usually occurring during the processes of Behavior Change.