Getting Gamers: The Psychology of Video Games and Their Impact on the People who Play Them

The kids who stole the least were those who came to the door alone and who were robbed of their anonymity by being asked their name and address. They only stole 7.5 percent of the time… simply being in a group tripled the transgression rate to 20.8 percent… Even when alone, 21.4 percent of anonymous kids raked extra goodies, and when in a group the figure doubled to 57.7 percent (1) – page 8-9
Merely having our behavior pass through the conduit of a computer is enough for us to felt like less of an individual and part of a crowd or a part of a system. Not physically being there matters (2) – page 9 1
Those who dressed up as Ku Klux Klan members shocked subjects significantly more, but those who were dressed as nurses shocked people significantly less (3) – page 12 1
Subjects cheated more when a confederate in the room cheated first (4) – page 24 2?
People tend to cheat in video games more often when their friends cheat (5) – page 25 2
Subjects who cheated to win “tokens” instead of money were more likely to cheat (6) – page 32 2?
Participants listened to the story of an unsolved murder found it much easier to recall from memory clues that implicated the person they had fingered for the crime, even though the clues for the other guy were just as numerous (7) – page 40 3?
Subjects were asked to choose between people for roles such as coworker, roommate, etc. After their choice, they were more likely to remember positive attributes about the people they had chosen and to remember negative attributes about the people they had rejected (8) – page 40 3?
When subjects were told that they were in a study examining the effects of video games on violence, passionate gamers attempted to sabotage the results by modifying their behavior (9) – page 51 3
If we react this way to threats to high self-brand connections in order to protect our identity, taking additional steps to protect that sense of self might help us deal with negative information better… just having subjects do some self-affirmation by writing a few sentences about their best qualities let them avoid this habit…. Dislike of an insulting author was lesser when subjects were first made to think positively about their group (10) – page 51 3
Making people feel lonely made them prefer nostalgic choices (11) – page 58 4
We have a critical period during which we tend to form a strong liking for whatever things we encounter over and over again… the peak time for strong preferences is usually around 20 years old (12) – page 59 4
Getting nostalgic about the past makes us more optimistic for the future (13) – page 60 4
Subjects seek out comparisons with those who have as much as experience as they have (14) – page 74 5
We tend to compare ourselves to the person directly above us as opposed to the person below us or at the top (15) – page 75 5
Subjects who were told they were ranked fifth out of their group of five and also fifth out of ten were much more demotivated than those who were only told they were fifth overall… When people rate themselves, they think how good they are in small groups (16) – page 77 5
The difference between first and second is bigger than anything, except possibly the difference between last and second to last… People are more likely to act competitively the closer they and a rival are to a meaningful standard… People were often too competitive to cooperative if doing so meant sliding from first to second, even if they would end up with less money by staying in first… subjects were also unwilling to cooperate if it meant going from second to last to last…. On the other hand, subjects would be happy to cooperate if it was a matter of going from 202^nd to 203^rd (17) – page 80 5?
Evidence for three types of gaming motivations: social, immersion, and achievement.. To the extent these needs are met, people will play games more and enjoy them in the process (18) – page 90 6
Many gamers are attracted to achievements and quest… the ratings of how well a game satisfied this need for achievement predict how many hours someone is likely to spend with a game (19) – page 90 6
Competence needs are best satisfied when goals challenge our abilities without being too easy or too daunting (20) – page 92 6
Progress bar were very effective at getting people to complete a task if it required only a moderate amount of time and the bar filled quickly. If the bar filled up too slowly, the presence of a progress bar actually caused more people to drop out (21) – page 92 6
People want to “possess” an experience simply because it’s novel and rare, and will forgo other more rational choices in order to do it… for some people, there’s a drive to add that concept or experience to their list of “stuff I’ve done” (22) – page 100 6
Enjoyment of the game and spatial presence were strongly correlated across many game sessions (23) – page 120 8
The more spatial presence that player felt, the more likely they were to experience psychological flow when their skill was matched to the challenge of the game (24) – page 121 8
Incongruous elements, such as inconsistencies or behavior that defies expectations, can undermine spatial presence (25) – page 130 8
Subjects preferred a set of dishes with 0 cups and saucers over a set of dishes with 8 cups and saucers but some of them are broken… A 10 ounce cup filled with 8 ounces of ice cream was valued less than a 5 ounce cup overflowing with 7 ounces of ice cream (26) – page 144-145 9cc
Subjects were given free trading cards with their purchase of game… displaying a progress bar showing how much more they needed to spend to get their next card motivated some people to buy more games to complete their set (27) – page 148 9
Studies suggest a negative association between conscientiousness and impulse purchases (28) – page 167 10
People high in neuroticism may find themselves more susceptible to impulse purchases based on emotions (29) – page 167 10
Some people may use shopping as a boost to their mood (30) – page 167 10
Shoppers who used credit cards tended to buy more items and spend more money than those who used cash (31) – page 172 10?
Any purchase decision is based on whether the expected pleasure would outweigh the expected pain (32) – page 172 10?
Switching from cash to prepaid cards caused people to spend more money… Customers spent more money when given a $50 gift card than when giving a $50 bill (33) – page 173 10
Subjects who used checks or cash were more likely to remember how much their purchases cost than those who used credit cards (34) – page 174 10
Subjects were asked to make a difficult call about whether a tennis ball was in or out of bounds, but for each trial one fo two possible calls was randomly made the default choice… people tended to stick with the randomly assigned default choice… going against a default choice seemed to increase the activity in the prefrontal cortex and increased exchanges between that area and the subthalamic nucleus, a chunk of great matter associated with motivated behavior…. Evaluating something besides a default option literally requires more mental energy (35) – page 181 11
65 percent of telecommunications customers would save money with a pay-per-use rate instead of a flat monthly rate (36) – page 184 11
Three reasons exist for the flat-rate bias. First, people overestimate how much they think they will use the service… people used the pricing structure as insurance against unexpected spikes in usage… metered payments decrease the pleasure because we frequently experience the decrease in pleasure (37) – page 184 11
We experience a bigger jump in displeasure between a loss of $5 and $10 then a loss of $1,005 and $1,010 (38) – page 185 11?
Disabled American Veterans increased appeals for donation from 18 to 35 percent by first giving recipients a ree set of address labels (39) – page 200 12?
Making a person envious of a successful person before taking the test caused them to persist longer at solving the puzzles relative to those experiencing malicious envy or no envy at all… making upward comparisons tends to make us feel more generally competent by association, which motivates us to try harder (40) – pages 203-204 12?
Being envious of a person is more motivating when they are similar t you but not when it seems impossible or impractical to do what the did to get their results (41) – page 203-204 12?
Subjects who were made envious of another person’s iPhone were willing to pay 64 percent more than a nonenvious control group for a new phone to narrow the gap caused by their gadget envy (42) – pages 203-204 12?
Female gamers became more accepting o rape myths and thought more about their body image when required to control an avatar that wore more sexually provocative clothing (43) – pages 215_217 13?
Researchers digitally altered photographs of people to show them holding up fictitious rands of soda… they tended to express a preference for the fake brand… after entering a virtual reality simulation with their brand on their T-shirt, they favored the brand more (44) – page 218 13
If gamers were allowed to customize their avatars, they were more excited by the game, they remembered the junk food brand better, and they said that they enjoyed the game more (45) – page 219 13?
People are more receptive to an argument if the virtual agent making it has been programmed to emulate facial expressions and head movements (46) – page 220 13?
Players that created an avatar that approximated their ideal body shapes generally felt more connected to that avatar and felt that they were more capable of effecting changes in behavior… when there was a big discrepancy between participant’s perceptions of their ideal and actual selves, there was a stronger link (47) – page 221 13
People are more likely to act prosocially after playing a game that requires cooperative or helping behaviors (48) – page 230 13?
The Half Life video game without the violence still satisfied basic physiological needs of competence and autonomy, which predicted how satisfied people were with the game and how much they wanted to play more of it… it wasn’t the violence that made the game enjoyable (49) – page 237 14
Elite Starcraft players’ brains had greater thickness in areas associated with attention shifting, inhibition of impulses, and executive functions like decision making (50) – page 243 15
Those who played the Neuroracer video game scored better on subsequent measures of multitasking ability, sustained attention, and working memory. These improvements were still present six months later (51) – page 246-247 15
Action gamers have better vision than others (52) – page 249-251 15?
Action gamers are less likely to miss something as a result of depleted emotional resources when it crosses their visual path (53) – page 249-251 15?
Action gamers develop superior visual working memory (54) – pages 249-251 15?
Those who played action games developed better visual working memories than those who played The Sims (55) – pages 249-251 15?
Action gamers develop a heightened sensitivity to the world around them and make more efficient use of their sensory evidence on judgments about what’s going on (56) – pages 249-251 15?
Boys typically excel at spatial cognition more than girls… When subjects were asked to play video games, both men and women improved spatial cognition, but the women did so significantly more than the men (57) – pages 249-251 15?
Relationships have been found between spatial cognition and exposure to video games (58) – pages 249-251 15?

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