PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF CYBER-ATHLETES’ ACTIVITIES AND THE SPECIAL ROLE OF EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE IN ESPORTS
Today, 2.5 billion people in the world play video games. Tournaments in the largest gaming disciplines are conducted under the name “eSports”. The psychological features of eSports and the emotional experiences associated with it are not comprehensively understood. The aim of the study was to provide a systematic description of the professional activities of a cyber-athlete, highlighting the key requirements of the profession. The following design was developed for the study: a qualitative professional analysis of the activities of cyber-athletes (discipline CS: GO) and empirical study of emotional stability in e-sportsmen with different levels of professionalism were used. The study was conducted in twenty-three gamers, including 10 professional eSports gamers and 13 amateur gamers. The professional gamers were selected from the Monolith team supported by Skoltech. The amateurs were Skoltech students and graduate students, as well as scientific and administrative workers. The method of professiographic analysis was used to describe eSports. The professiogram was formulated by monitoring the activities and semi-structured interviews with progamers and their coach. Assessment of emotional resilience. Before and after the training game, the emotional state was assessed by the PANAS scale. After it the emotional state of cyber-athlete as a result of the game, regardless of its result was evaluated. The goals and the subject of cyber-athletes’ work, the structure of his activities, performance requirements, stressors, professional qualities were described. It is pointed to the special role of emotional resilience as a professionally important characteristic of cyber-athletes. It is shown that emotional stability directly correlates with the experience of gaming (the logarithm of the number of hours in the game) in progamers. The current analysis supports the representation of eSports as both sporting and professional activity. The analysis demonstrates the importance of cognitive abilities in eSports. Professiographic analysis demonstrates the importance of cognitive abilities in eSports. Cyber-athletes show higher level of emotional resilience than amateur gamers. The management of emotions is a professionally important characteristic of cyber-athletes and can become a target of special psychological training.