The Science Behind Shaping Player Behaviour in Online Games

Just some samples:

http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/vio-1-4-259.pdf
Shortly summed up: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2011/08/29/research-competitive-games-cause-more-aggression-violent-games#.UjidcMZBJ8E

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1127014?uid=3737880&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102658654653

http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/8/6/921

http://www.academia.edu/1129758/The_enhancement_of_competition_and_aggression_in_individuals_and_groups

https://notes.utk.edu/bio/greenberg.nsf/0/457f4c865776ef6385256459004e1ff3?OpenDocument

In the ideal world involving perfect beings there would be no aggression during competition, in fact there would be no competition. No one is perfect, the best you can achieve is seemingly flawless imperfection.

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cronk wrote:

Competition is pretty much a passive process otherwise.

Human beings biology and chemistry must have changed completely since my days in university. But, well, it`s a long time ago...Could you kindly give me a viable scientific source for your statement ?

Dear Cronk, as far as i can see, you have never been an alpha male. Plus your alpha comparison is not valid, cause it belongs to pretty out of date theories of behaviourism.

Lets go back to aggressivity. Being aggressive does not necessarily mean physical violence. I´ll try to put it in short and simple words regarding our subject competition: You want to reach a certain goal. But you are not the only one, there is another person who wants exactly the same thing as you do. So this other person is a thread to you. Depends on the passion you have to reach that goal, your brain will start the process of being "aggressive" by pushing adrenaline into your body. ( in fact its the brain´s Dopamin causing a certain part of the kidneys to produce adrenaline...but thats too much detail for this thread). Adrenalin gives your body a real power enhancement ( blood pressure, heart pump, less bloodloss when hurted and so on). Now your brain has to decide wether to fight, or to flee, both of it needs a lot of physical reserves, that are now free to be used.

In our competition here that does not mean that you jump physically on your competitor, we don´t live in stoneage any more. And dependant on how important the reach of the goal is for the individual it will produce more or less adrenaline. But still your body reactions are involved and it is not possible to regulate it by will. It is purely regulated by your emotions or better said by your passion.

So if your passion to reach the goal is a high one, in civilisation your aggressive reaction can also be expressed in a verbal way, or, alternatively you leave your PC for jogging around the blog 10 times. But as we both know gamers, probably they won´t take the alternative of jogging. Rather they will stay in the chat or forum and insult other people.( using verbal violence).

A little offtopic: In former times our working world was based upon teamwork and collaboration to produce good stuff. During the last 30 years some superclever idiots found out, that human beings in competitive situations can provide more performance. So the working world changed and nowadays the system is mainly based on competition. Among a lot other disadvantages its the worker who pays the price: His body is permanently under stress means under influence of adrenaline, a hormon that was made from nature to meet extraordinary situations. Means a permanent higher blood pressure, higher heart pump, lesser blodflow, lesser gastrointestinal activities than normal. And people wonder why they are sick.

Hope I cleared up what you are calling "a passive process". Sorry, but still smiling at this :)))

Let me give you a sentence to your behavioural theories of alpha-males: There is no social horde of animals where you have a single male ruling as absolutist. It is more a kind of oligarchy with very sophisticated structures. Usually you got one male animal, that is supported by the vast majority of high ranked males and females. If his supporters decide that alpha is no more good for the group, being either too old or loosing sympathy for other resons, it is bad luck for the alpha because the favorized high ranked male of his supporters will challenge him. If alpha is lucky, he will win the fight, if not, he will loose his rank.

Have a nice evening and fun in the game ; Peace :))

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Crackmonster wrote:

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pneuma wrote:

Punish in this sense means revoke privileges. You're not driving to their house and kicking their dog. Eye for an eye would be going onto their forum and antagonizing their users.

It's not about being annoyed and lashing out. It's about recognizing that someone was frustrated and took out their anger on others which broke the rules of the forum and created a hostile environment.

Just to clarify, what was talked about was not whether it was okay to probate people who broke the rules, it was about whether it was justified to insult someone that did so. Naturally it is okay to temporarily stop someone from posting if they do not behave well, that does not mean you should also insult them.

I read the "Go away nobody wants you here" as the perceived feelings of the person that was punished, not an outward expression by the punisher. I don't know of any moderator that has punished someone from a position of authority with an insult.