An interdisciplinary perspective on gamification: Mechanics, psychological mediators and outcomes

Abstract

As gamification literature has matured, the gap between how different domains apply the theory has widened. This has positioned gamification as being more dependent on context, rather than being an independent theory per se. To address this notion, three concepts are identified as being central for how the designer gamifies a process. These are mechanics, psychological mediators and desired outcomes. Following this logic, a review was conducted using 79 (n) articles across seven disciplines, namely health and wellness, crowdsourcing, sustainability, computer science, software development, business, and tourism. The findings highlighted potential relationships between several concepts when gamifying a situation, context, service or/and process. This research presents an alternative and uniform perspective on the broad gamification research to better understand how gamification functions and can be employed to impact various outcomes. Furthermore, this research contributes to this rather eclectic domain, presenting a more categorized view in showing domain-specific mechanics and how these can be employed for empirical testing. Lastly, the conceptual model can be modified, employed and adjusted to investigate various effects of gamification on outcomes.