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为何玩家会在电子游戏中做出道德选择?

发布时间:2012-09-11 14:12:37 Tags:,,,,

作者:Steganie Fogel

上个月,Telltale Games就最新的点击冒险游戏系列《The Walking Dead》发布一些统计数据,其中他们发现在需要作出艰难,通常是两难的抉择时,即使知道会危害他们的角色或者其他人,大部分玩家还是会尝试做“正确的”选择。

video game(from venturebeat)

video game(from venturebeat)

当时,Telltale Games市场营销高级总监Richard Iggo告诉媒体:“我们通过分析玩家的选择数据可知,即使他们处在危难时刻——当面对失败的境地,所有选择都是无望时,大多数玩家仍会尽可能做‘正确的’事情,即使这个决定对他们本身而言并不“正确”。

虽然Telltale的数据非常有趣,但却值得我们深思,即使错误的行为在此并不会带来任何现实后果,玩家为何仍觉得有必要在电子游戏场景中做出正确的选择。俄亥俄州立大学的沟通与心理学教授Dr. Brad Bushman认为这是个难以解释的问题。

Bushman指出:“我认为也许是内疚心理驱使这种行为的产生。我们知道内疚是一种道德情感,会激发人们做出正确的行为。”

Bushman解释说,同对人们的行为产生消极影响的羞愧不同,内疚是一种积极效应。他继续说道:“如果玩家在游戏过程中考虑到行为的结果,考虑到其行为会令其产生的感觉,我想,参与者要么是已经预见自己将会感到内疚,要么是因之前采取过同种行为而感到内疚。无论是哪种情况,我想,内疚是推动亲社会行为的强大情感。”

然而,德克萨斯州A&M International的犯罪心理学副教授Dr. Chris Ferguson认为,并不是内疚感激发玩家做出正确行为。他提到:“游戏的真正乐趣在哪?你玩电子游戏总会时时感受到内疚吗?如果你真的需要,到教堂就可以找到内疚感。”

zombiekill_screen(from venturebeat)

zombiekill_screen(from venturebeat)

相反,Ferguson相信,许多玩家通过不同于现实生活的电子游戏来探寻道德抉择。他指出:“游戏更大程度上是为了满足人们的需求(游戏邦注:他们在现实生活中无法获得这种需求)。可能是对自主性和能力的需求。因此,游戏的本质理念是……如果你一整天的工作就是把文件从桌子的一边移到另一边,虽然你能获得工资,但你无法通过这种枯燥的日常行为获得完整的内心需求,电子游戏却可以用来发泄这一状态。”

“我想,大多数人都想最大程度的获得亲社会需求,也许想成为可以做出艰难但正确选择的英雄,即使这对我们本身来说并非最佳抉择。电子游戏是很大程度地反映了我们本身。”

英国艾塞斯克大学2011年发表在《Psychological Science》的研究报告似乎支持Ferguson的观点。报告调查了全世界上百万人喜欢电子游戏的原因,结果是游戏让人们可以“尝试不同的角色”。

报告的联合作者Dr. Andrew Przybylski解释道:“一款游戏更有趣的因素在于,你有机会扮演自己理想的角色。这就是电子游戏的魅力及趣味所在。”

调查包括了上百位休闲玩家和铁杆玩家体验《模拟人生》、《使命召唤》及《魔兽世界》等游戏的过程,结果显示,采用新角色的玩家,无论扮演英雄或反派角色,他们自我感觉更好,不会产生消极心态。同时研究发现,如果玩家角色部分存在真实自我与“理想自我”的部分重叠,他们会享受到更多乐趣。

人本主义心理学家Carl Rogers指出,我们的性格是由理想自我(我们想要成为的样子)和真实自我(我们实际的状态)这两部分组成。如果某人的实际行为同他的内心标准产生矛盾,Bushman解释道,那么这个人可能会“适应自我或改变自我”,他指出:“他们可以让自己的行为同标准相符合,否则就是逃离自我意识状态。因此有些人会选择酒精、暴饮暴食、毒品甚至是自杀来摆脱自我。”

“也就是说,当玩家在体验电子游戏时,如果他们的实际行为同他们的内心标准匹配,他们会对自我感到满意,也觉得没有必要进行改变。但是如果情况相反,他们会感到紧张,并且消极地认为自己的行为无法到达自己的标准。”

Ferguson表示,电子游戏让我们有机会成为不同于理想自我的个体。“有些人喜欢挑战完全不同的事物,比如当坏蛋,刺杀警察或者其它相关事件。然而在我看来,我们大多数人倾向于做那些理想事情或正确事情,而电子游戏赋予了我们在现实世界中所无法拥有的能力。”(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Playing the Hero: Why we make good moral choices in video games

by Stefanie Fogel

Last month, developer Telltale Games released statistics on The Walking Dead, its latest point-and-click adventure game series, and found that when it came to making difficult, often morally ambiguous decisions, the majority of players tried to do the “right” thing, even if it meant endangering their characters or others.

“Some of the stats we’ve seen coming back from player decisions have created a perception that even in dire times – and when faced with no-win situations where each decision is morally gray – the majority of people will try to do the ‘right’ thing if they can, even if there’s really no ‘right’ decision to be made,” Telltale Games senior director of marketing Richard Iggo told GamesBeat at the time.

Although Telltale’s statistics are fascinating, they left me wondering why many players feel the need to make good choices in video games when no real-life consequences are at stake for being bad. Dr. Brad Bushman is a professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University whose work has been featured in scientific journals, on ABC News, 20/20, and the Discovery Channel. He thinks it’s a tough question to answer.

“One thing I thought of is maybe it has to do with feelings of guilt,” he said. “We know that guilt is a moral emotion and motivates people to behave well.”

Unlike shame, which can have negative effects on a person’s behavior, Bushman said guilt is a positive. “If players are playing these games and they’re thinking about the consequences of their behavior, and how it might make them feel to engage in such behavior, I think either they anticipate feeling guilty or maybe they behaved in that way before and they felt guilty,” he said. “In either case, I think guilt is a powerful emotion that motivates prosocial behavior.”

However, Dr. Chris Ferguson, an associate professor of criminal justice and psychology at Texas A&M International, said it’s not guilt that motivates players to do good. “Where is the fun in that, really?” he said. “Would you play a video game that made you feel guilty all the time? I’m being a little bit facetious here, but you could go to church for that, essentially.”

Instead, Ferguson believes many use video games as a way to explore moral choices in a way that might be different from what they would do in their normal lives. “Games, to a larger degree, seem to be something a lot of people use to fulfill needs that they have difficulty meeting in their lives,” he said. “These may be needs for autonomy, needs for competency. So the idea is, essentially…if you’re working at a day job shuffling papers from one side of the desk to the other all day and you’re getting money…but you’re really not getting integral psychological needs met through that boring routine activity, video games can be an outlet for that.

“I think the need that most of us have is to be prosocial to a large degree, to perhaps be the hero, the person that makes sometimes difficult, but right choices, even if those aren’t the best choices for ourselves. Video games are a reflection of ourselves to a large extent, rather than something that’s done to us.”

A 2011 study by the University of Essex seems to support Ferguson’s claims. The study, published in an issue of Psychological Science, investigated the idea that millions of people around the world enjoy playing video games because they allow people to “try on different hats.”

“A game can be more fun when you get the chance to act and be like your ideal self,” explained study co-author Dr. Andrew Przybylski. “The attraction to playing video games and what makes them fun is that it gives people the chance to think about a role they would ideally like to take and then get a chance to play that role.”

The research, which involved hundreds of casual and dedicated gamers playing everything from The Sims and Call of Duty to World of Warcraft, found that players who adopted a new identity during gameplay, be it hero or villain, felt better about themselves and less negative. The study also found participants enjoyed the games more when there was at least some overlap between their actual self and their “ideal self.”

According to humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers, our personalities are composed of the ideal self (who we want to be) and the real self (who we actually are). If a discrepancy exists between a person’s actual behavior and their internal standards, Bushman explained, that person might be motivated to either “shape up or ship out,” so to speak. “They can shape up by matching their behavior to the standard, or they can ship out by escaping the self-aware state. Some people turn to alcohol or overeating or drugs or even suicide.

“[It] makes sense that people, when they’re playing a video game, if their actual behavior matches their internal standards, they’re not going to feel this need to ship out and they’ll feel good about themselves. But if they don’t, they feel anxious and [have] negative feelings that their behavior doesn’t match their standard.”

Ferguson said video games also give us an opportunity to be quite different from our ideal selves. “There are people out there that like to do things that are completely different, be the bad guy, go ahead and kill the police officers, or whatever else, just to explore that as well. But I think most of us…tend to gravitate toward doing what we would think is the ideal thing or the right thing, and video games do give us opportunity to do that when we might not have that ability in real-life.”(source:venturebeat)


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