psychology
Culture
Game to Soldiers: Don’t Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em
2:00AM Owen Good | If it sounds absurd - a video game, costing taxpayers US$3.7 million, that nags people who do dangerous stuff all day long to quit smoking – know that “Escape With Your Life” is surprisingly effective. More »
Culture
Violent Gamers Immune to Pain — of Others
2:00AM Owen Good | More scholarship suggests playing violent video games makes one – get ready to have the song stuck in your head, too - ”comfortably numb” to others in pain and less likely to help them. More »
Metro Social Discomfort Simulator
11:30AM Stuart Houghton | In the annals of largely pointless Flash games with something to say about the hidden rules that govern social interaction… well those annals pretty much start and end with Metro Rules Of Conduct. More »
Vexed by Online Bigots’ Language? Psychologists Say They Want You to Be
3:00AM Owen Good | By now it’s sadly common experience, hearing racist, homophobic, even anti-Semitic slurs during online games. Often it’s for no apparent reason other than as a term of abuse used against competitors, that packs more of a punch than your standard four-letter word. But a couple months back, I had a different experience, and I’m sure it’s no more uncommon for others, too. In a game of Castle Crashers — cooperative multiplayer — this guy I was playing with completely proffered some rather ugly opinions of African-Americans, and needlessly heaped racial slurs on the foes we were battling. More »
What Makes Fanboys Tick?
7:00AM Maggie Greene | Building off of his essay where he asked ‘who’s winning the battle for the hardcore?’, Chris Bateman has posted an essay on ‘what makes fanboys tick?’. His answer? Much like fanatics on any side of sports rivalry, political divides, or religious divides, it’s cognitive dissonance at work. As Bateman explains, “When we come across situations that radically contradict our beliefs, we are filled with an uncomfortable feeling: to lessen this unpleasant experience (which is termed cognitive dissonance) we modify our beliefs in a way that will lessen the cognitive dissonance.” What does this have to do with console wars (and warring factions?): More »
Study Finds Racial Bias Common In Virtual Worlds
6:20AM Stuart Houghton | Anyone thinking that virtual worlds are edging towards some kind of utopia, please revise your hopes downwards. A study into the social psychology of virtual environments, by Northwestern University, indicates that people respond to the same social cues about race in virtual worlds as they do in real life. In an experiment carried out in There.com users were approached by a researcher wearing either a light-skinned or dark-skinned avatar and asked a series of questions.. The study found that when asked a fairly demanding question, followed by a less demanding request (a so-called ‘Door in the face technique‘, dark skinned avatars received a significantly lower rate of positive responses. Same old, same old. Researchers find racial bias in virtual worlds [ITNews.com.au] (image source: http://soulsphincter.blogspot.com/) More »
Bringing Sports Psychology to the Realm of Video Games
4:00AM Owen Good | It probably wasn’t coincidence that Shane Murphy returned my call just after I’d thrown my third interception in NCAA ‘09 and punched off the machine in full perfectionist disgust. Murphy, a professor and researcher of psychology at Western Connecticut State, would later explain that I exhibited classic high-ego, low-task gamer behaviour. That is, I am fixated on being seen as a winner, and not the process of becoming one. Murphy approaches video gaming as a sports psychologist, with 30 years of experience in that field. The American Psychological Association’s annual convention this month already discussed research showing the benefits video games deliver in learning and problem solving. Also at the convention, Murphy gave a presentation advocating for the study of competitive and cooperative behaviour in gamers. More »
