Playing Social-Intelligence Game Reduces Stress Hormone

Stress Hormone

A video game designed by McGill University researchers to help train people to change their perception of social threats and boost their self-confidence has now been shown to reduce the production of the stress-related hormone cortisol. The new findings appear in the October issue of the American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

"We already knew that it was possible to design games to allow people to practise new forms of social perception, but we were surprised by the impact this had when we took the games out of the lab and into the context of people's stressful lives," said McGill psychology professor Mark Baldwin.

Prof. Baldwin and his team - McGill PhD graduates St