Without a doubt, esports are experiencing constant evolution and development within the socioeconomic ecosystem. In recent years, an entire network of players, brands, technical staff, managers, etc. has developed. That they have made the emergence of a field that began in 1972 but in this last decade has experienced its stabilization and opening to the general public, taking into account that approximately 82% of young people and 52% of the general population play games. video games and esports. However, this rapid growth has shown that it is still a young ecosystem, with little structure and the need for academic research to answer some of the problems that arise. Within the area of psychology, especially sports and health psychology, with which it shares greater synergies due to its similar structure and functioning, different areas of interest have been developed depending on the needs presented by players, staff and managers, within Of this field, however, one that stands out and is maintained repeatedly is TILT, a concept that, despite being always present, few can define or operationalize it in order to work with it. Furthermore, there is a handicap in this attempt to conceptualize many of the constructs and concepts of psychology, such as the role of the psychologist, the model of psychological skills to work on or how esports players behave under pressure since they have not been investigated. in deep. For this reason, this thesis entitled TILT: Conceptualization and measurement in esports players, does not begin directly with an instrument, since the concept itself and the ecosystem are not well defined. In a first phase, the psychological aspects of esports are addressed theoretically through a review (Study 1), as an attempt to better understand which constructs and concepts are related to psychology, in addition to the role of the psychologist within the esports ecosystem. electronic sports. In a second phase, a model of psychological skills is presented (Study 2) that allows us to understand in detail how the different skills of the players are classified and how they influence performance and well-being, highlighting the role of TILT as a cognitive process. related to emotion, but significantly influencing other processes such as motivation, attention or decision making, and undoubtedly on the performance and general well-being of the players, both in training and competition situations. Once the general perspective was located, as well as where the TILT is within the entire map of cognitive abilities, its conceptualization and definition was carried out through a qualitative phase and its measurement with the development of a psychometric tool (Study 3), in addition to being able to see its relationship with other variables such as life satisfaction or internet gaming disorder (IGD). This thesis has resulted in being able to operationalize one of the most recurrent constructs within academic literature and professional practice, opening a new field of study both in its future prevention and treatment to reduce it, and in studying its effects with other cognitive processes (e.g. memory, attention, emotion, learning, decision making, etc.) and/or other problematic behaviors of the esports ecosystem (e.g. toxicity, internet gaming disorder, etc.). Finally, conclude that this thesis, based on the study of the different psychological skills, has also offered the opportunity to design a tool, adapted from the CBAS (Study 4) that allows the study of communication and its patterns, being a work extra from this research.
| Date of Award | 23 Jul 2024 |
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| Original language | Spanish |
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| Supervisor | Ander Chamarro (Director), Carles Ventura Vall Llovera (Director) & Phil Birch (Director) |
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