Thursday, December 9, 2010

Life is a game

A reader sent this as a follow-up to the last post, a NY Times piece on gaming:
“Gamers are engaged, focused, and happy,” says Edward Castronova, a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University who has studied and designed online games. “How many employers wish they could say that about even a tenth of their work force?
***
In the past, puzzles and games were sometimes considered useful instructional tools. The emperor Charlemagne hired a scholar to compile “Problems to Sharpen the Young,” a collection of puzzles like the old one about ferrying animals across a river (without leaving the hungry fox on the same bank as the defenseless goat). The British credited their victory over Napoleon to the games played on the fields of Eton.

But once puzzles and gaming went digital, once the industry’s revenues rivaled Hollywood’s, once children and adults became so absorbed that they forsook even television, then the activity was routinely denounced as “escapism” and an “addiction.” Meanwhile, a few researchers were more interested in understanding why players were becoming so absorbed and focused. They seemed to be achieving the state of “flow” that psychologists had used to describe master musicians and champion athletes, but the gamers were getting there right away instead of having to train for years.

One game-design consultant, Nicole Lazzaro, the president of XEODesign, recorded the facial expressions of players and interviewed them along with their friends and relatives to identify the crucial ingredients of a good game. One ingredient is “hard fun,” which Ms. Lazzaro defines as overcoming obstacles in pursuit of a goal. That’s the same appeal of old-fashioned puzzles, but the video games provide something new: instantaneous feedback and continual encouragement, both from the computer and from the other players.

Players get steady rewards for little achievements as they amass points and progress to higher levels, with the challenges becoming harder as their skill increases.

Even though they fail over and over, they remain motivated to keep going until they succeed and experience what game researchers call “fiero.” The term (Italian for “proud”) describes the feeling that makes a gamer lift both arms above the head in triumph.
The article makes a strange argument, essentially that if hardcore gamers saw real life more as a game, they might be more interested in real life. If that is the prescribed therapy for ennui or a persistent sense of the meaningless of life, then sociopaths have been self-medicating for millennia.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Cyanide and Happiness

A reader suggested this comic. Pretty charming. Can you read it? If not, go here.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Sociopath test: How to spot them before they target you

Everyone wants to know how to identify a sociopath, it's one of the most frequently asked questions I get. The problem is that no one has discovered a definitive means of identifying them, even in a clinical setting with trained psychologists, even with a brain scanner. For the average layperson, the advice for spotting a sociopath is as varied and unreliable as "evil eyes," social parasite/criminal, and (my favorite for being both too specific and overbroad) Martha's Stout's "pity play" litmus test. I had hoped that there would be physical manifestations of sociopathy, but the results, while suggestive of potential promising areas of follow-up (why don't sociopaths take cold medicine?), were far from scientific or conclusive. Still, from my own personal experience with sociopaths, I believe that there are some easily observable behaviors or traits that correlate relatively well with sociopathy. I came up with 12.
1. Sociopaths typically don't smalltalk about themselves as much as normal people do. They will direct the conversation back to the new acquaintance as much as they can.

2. A sociopath will reveal "personal" details about himself strategically, i.e. for the purposes of misdirection or a false sense of intimacy/trust. Revelations of actual truths are very rare and may be perceived as a small slip of the mask.

3. Sociopaths frequently hesitate before responding. It will be unclear to you whether they are bored, annoyed, lying, or all three.

4. No strong reactions to illogical hotbed political/social topics (e.g. Octomom or Catholic priest child molestation).

5. Monotone voice (I am told).

6. A tendency to take things too literally or otherwise not respond appropriately to small emotional cues.

7. Cold indifference to one or more family members.

8. Seemingly a different person when "distracted."

9. Disconnect between what the sociopath says and does, e.g. seems charitable but does not give money to homeless or vice versa.

10. Never shows signs of embarrassment. Easily wins over large crowds with confidence. "Poise" in this case = lack of nerves.

11. Does not fit stereotypes for gender, race, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation, or career. Could seem foreign, bisexual, older or younger, pious, wealthy or poor, but may also just seem unplaceable.
12. Can flip flop between keeping a very low profile (the observer) to being the life of the party (the actor).
I don't think all of these would apply to all sociopaths, and certainly many of them apply to people who aren't sociopaths, however they all have the advantage of being directly observable by a layperson, at least without the aid of a brain scan or 10 page questionnaire. Also, because they're seemingly inconsequential and not directly related to the classic sociopath/antisocial traits, a sociopath would have less reason to mask them.

Do some of these seem particularly predictive or not? Any other suggestions?

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Survey results

I copied the results below. I tried not to have duplicates, but I may also have inadvertently left some out. Some of the questions didn't really get enough responses to include. Some of the answer categories I grouped together, e.g. "eating to survive" included pretty much everyone who said that they typical just eat for the nutrients, although they may sometimes find pleasure in eating. Next time I'll make an actual survey form for ease of calculation. Of course this was far from reliable, but it was still interesting. I was surprised by some of the results, was not surprised by some. I'll let you speculate without tainting you with my own conclusions/theories.

1. Do you have normal average blood temperature, run hot, or run cold?
12 Cold 4 normal 2 hot

2. Do you have normal blood pressure, run high, or run low?
13 Low 2 normal 6 high

3. What is your relationship to food?
5 love 1 like 17 eat to survive

4. Do you have corrected vision, i.e. glasses, contact lenses?
9 corrected 12 none

5. What is your tolerance to pain? Low, high, or normal?
17 high 5 normal 1 low

6. Have you ever had stitches or surgery that could have been otherwise been preventable based on lifestyle choices?
10 no 12 yes

7. Would you say you look about your age, younger, or older than your age?
11 younger 8 same 3 older

8. Do you take cold medication? How soon after a cold do you start taking medication?
17 no 4 some/sometimes 1 yes

9. Do you have trouble sleeping?
8 yes 12 some/sometimes 2 no

10. Which do you crave more, salty or sweet foods?
8 salty 3 both 7 sweet 3 neither

11. Do you wake up in the morning drenched in sweat?
4 no 5 sometimes

12. Do you abuse drugs like alcohol?
3 no 7 yes

13. Do you have great admiration for the aspergers people?
5 yes 3 no

14. Creepy stare:
6 yes

15. People oriented job:
2 no

16. Do you like sun and brightness?
8 no

17. Do you eat red/bloody meat?
5 yes 1 no

18. Are you involved in or have you been involved in extreme hobbies and activities?
3 yes 3 no

19. Do you like trying new things, or are you averse to change?
6 change

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