DON'T WAIT FOR THE MONSTERS TO GET YOU : A VIDEO GAME TASK TO MANIPULATE APPRAISALS IN REAL TIME

A pacman type video-game paradigm is introduced for the manipulation of appraisals in an ongoing active-coping task. Differences in current appraisal conceptions and their implications for experimental approaches to the manipulation of appraisals are discussed. Furthermore, the advantages of using concurrent physiological measures are outlined. The features of the game aMAZE and a shell program called PLAYGAME are described. The programs are available at no cost for researchers interested in using the paradigm.