Benign vs Malicious Jealousy | Michael Gugel Posted on Sep 05, 2011 by Michael Gugel in Gaming, Psychology Benign vs Malicious Jealousy People expect the world to be fair. If you work hard, you’ll be rewarded for your efforts. Benign Envy: You feel benign envy when you see someone you admire and you think their possessions / status are well deserved (e.g. a person who accumulated their wealth from a lifetime of hard work).Malicious Envy: You feel malicious envy when you think someone doesn’t deserve their possessions / status (e.g. a lottery winner). Gamers feel benign and malicious envy too. Practical Advice: Don’t make it easy for users to spot the people that spent money in your game and the people that grinded their way to the top.
Neuroskeptic The psychology of... Avatars Our appearance changes every day. When we get up each morning, we decide what clothes and jewellery to wear, which hairs to shave and which to style. All of this varies by occasion, and some of us make more radical alterations as well, such as getting tattoos, piercings or cosmetic surgery. In real life, though, we’re often limited in the changes we can make to appear taller, say, or more prosperous. Researchers have been studying the reactions to our real appearance in others for a long time, but they’ve also started to seriously study the psychology of our avatars. Explaining why we adopt some the avatars we do is easy: it’s down to the demands of the game. “Studies have shown that, in general, people create slightly idealised avatars based on their actual selves,” says Nick Yee, a research scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center. Palo Alto Research Center research scientist Nick Yee and Boston College assistant professor Seung-A Jin
Mind Hacks Schema - What Is a Schema Definition: A schema is a cognitive framework or concept that helps organize and interpret information. Schemas can be useful because they allow us to take shortcuts in interpreting the vast amount of information that is available in our environment. However, these mental frameworks also cause us to exclude pertinent information to instead focus only on things that confirm our pre-existing beliefs and ideas. The History of Schemas The use of schemas as a basic concept was first used by a British psychologist named Frederic Bartlett as part of his learning theory. Theorist Jean Piaget introduced the term schema and its use was popularized through his work. Schema Examples For example, a young child may first develop a schema for a horse. Now, let's imagine that this very young girl encounters a miniature horse for the first time and mistakenly identifies it as a dog. Problems With Schemas References: Bartlett, F.C. (1932). Piaget, J. (1928). Browse the Psychology Dictionary
The Psychology of Beauty The Psychology Of: free-to-play Currently, free-to-play games are making quite the killing in the marketplace, although it’s death by a thousand microtransactions. The idea, as the name suggests, is that you can play for free, but you can also pay for in-game conveniences, such as new content and time savers. It’s been a massive success, and the model is now something of an industry darling, much to the chagrin of certain developers. In 2010, game creator and noted essayist Ian Bogost reacted to the rise of free-to-play principles by reducing them to their essence in his tongue-in-cheek Cow Clicker. Cow Clicker wasn’t a fluke. From left: David Edery, CEO of game developer Spry Fox; Ron Faber, professor of mass communication at the University Of Minnesota; and Uber Entertainment creative director John Comes who also worked as a game designer at Gas Powered Games, EA and Westwood Studios So what’s driving the model’s success? It’s a way for games to stay profitable as well.
Mind & Brain News May 19, 2017 — A new study has served to identify some genetic mutations that will help to improve the treatment of ... read more May 19, 2017 — Scientists have made an important step in understanding the organization of nerve cells embedded within the gut that control its function -- a discovery that could give insight into the origin of ... read more Scientists to Test Zika Virus on Brain Tumors May 19, 2017 — In a revolutionary first, scientists will test whether the Zika virus can destroy brain tumor cells, potentially leading to new treatments for one of the hardest to treat cancers. ... read more Female Faculty Face Strong Glass Ceiling in Male-Dominated University Environments, Study Concludes May 18, 2017 — Female faculty members hoping to advance to the highest ranks of academia face significant barriers due to male-dominated environments at colleges and universities, according to a new ... read more Consumers See Much Greater Risk Than Reward in Online Ads
A Dictionary of Video Game Theory Preface This dictionary of video game theory is a companion to my book, Half-Real. With the dictionary, I hope to provide a resource for students, researchers, teachers, and game players looking for terminological clarifications and pointers to further reading. The dictionary is not intended to be encyclopedic, but takes its starting point from the issues discussed in the book. sign indicates an issue that is elaborated in Half-Real. If there is any term that you would like to see listed in the dictionary, please send me a mail with your request . Jesper Juul, Copenhagen, November 2005. Abstract game An abstract game has rules, but no fictional world. Half-Real, chapter 4. Aesthetic index "The aesthetic index of a puzzle, as it may be called, seems to be inversely proportional to the complexity of its solution or to the obviousness of the pattern, trap, or trick it hides." Half-Real, chapter 3. Aesthetic goal Affinity between games and computers Half-Real, chapter 2. Agon Alea Ant farming Attachment
Mind Hacks The psychology of... Genres Genres, and debate surrounding them, are nothing new. When gamers disagree on these labels, it can result in diatribes, appeals to dogma, and even existential crises in extreme cases. To which genre do the Deus Ex games belong? Is thirdperson shooter a full genre or merely a sub-genre? With today’s complex range of games, wouldn’t it be easier to eschew genres and rise above petty distinctions? Well, no: we need genres and we use them in ways you may not have thought of. The first reason we need genres is that they facilitate a type of decision making that psychologists call ‘elimination by alternative’. But think about a far more complex situation, such as renting a flat. This is a decision-making process that businesses and marketers are eager to hijack, sometimes in ingenious and even helpful ways. Professor C Whan Park (left) and associate professor of communication John L Sherry
Neuroscience Blog Features - Persuasive Games: Familiarity, Habituation, and Catchiness [In his latest 'Persuasive Games' column, author and game designer Ian Bogost looks at why we should repeal Bushnell's Law and move from 'addiction' to 'catchiness' in our framing of video games.] Here's a game design aphorism you've surely heard before: a game, so it goes, ought to be "easy to learn and hard to master." This axiom is so frequently repeated because it purports to hold the key to a powerful outcome: an addicting game, one people want to play over and over again once they've started, and in which starting is smooth and easy. It's an adage most frequently applied to casual games, but it is also used to describe complex games of deep structure and emergent complexity. In the modern era, this familiar design guideline comes from coin-op. "All the best games are easy to learn and difficult to master. Computer Space was complex, with two buttons for ship rotation, one for thrust, and another one for fire. Note the subtle differences between Bushnell's take and Parker's.
The psychology of... Nostalgia Do you remember Odysseus, the protagonist of Homer’s 2,800-year-old epic poem The Odyssey? Well, he’s more relevant than you might think to all these modern reboots of older franchises, such as XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition. As researcher Tim Wildschut and his colleagues note in Nostalgia: Content, Triggers, Functions (published in the Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology), Odysseus’s ordeal is a good illustration of nostalgia as it was originally conceived. The word itself derives from the Greek words ‘nostos’, meaning ‘returning’, and ‘algos’, or ‘suffering’. Thus The Odyssey’s 10-year span can be seen as our hero experiencing a huge bout of nostalgia as he struggles to return to the way things were and get back to his wife in Ithaca. Much later, in the 1600s, a few Swiss physicians and fans of neologism coined the term ‘nostalgia’ in reference to a certain kind of homesickness. It’s a state of affairs that isn’t lost on developers and publishers.