Shoulder-to-Shoulder

The Shoulder-to-Shoulder project investigates the potential that pinball provides for emotional self-disclosure. Observing that (a) young boys generally have a preference for friendships
that are based on shared activities, and that (b) pinball is a safe and shared play environment with a high probability of participants experiencing a sense of social closeness within that environment, a pinball play environment may indeed be particularly successful in increasing self-disclosure for young boys. As such, our main research question is to investigate to what extent pinball experiences can trigger emotional self-disclosure of male children of age 8-11 (RQ1), and of male children of age 12-15 (RQ2).

Pinball Research at School

Utrecht University performed play experiments at Basisschool De Odyssee (Utrecht) to understand the positive effects of playing for children. To what extent does playing together promote self-disclosure? Specifically, the researchers were interested in to what extent playing together creates feelings of safety and social connectedness for children, and to what extent those feelings promote self-disclosure,

dr. Sander Bakkes
14-02-2025 // Insights, News // Play Research, Player Research and Psychology