Operant conditioning and Elite Dangerous

[Sandmann]

You'll notice that in my original post I said "not even getting into positive and negative punishment", also I suggested that reputation decay was an example of negative reinforcement, not punishment. If the aversive stimulus (reputation decay) is stopped by logging in and grinding rep, then one does so more frequently in order to prevent reputation decay.

It's not a punishment, because reputation decay happens even if you do nothing.

You'd hardly classify it as a reward though would you? You've failed to note that the aversive stimulus can be also be avoided, and with greater rewards, by playing a different game that doesn't offer punishment for failure to grind. Not a good choice on FD's part because it polarises players into the two extremes of " hardcore" (who avoid decay by playing) and "disinterested" (who avoid the negative reinforcement by going elsewhere).

There's more than one way to Skinner a cat.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

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[Deadlock989]

The heavy reliance on operant conditioning is nothing but a cheap and manipulative way to keep players engaged, and often used to cover up shallow gameplay.

Whereas in ED, we don't bother to cover it up.

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Just like a kick in the face. Gotta love it.

Bit strong.

More like a quiet fart in your general direction followed by a shrug of total indifference.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

All gamers were brought up in Skinner Boxes.

 

[Surly_Badger]

The heavy reliance on operant conditioning is nothing but a cheap and manipulative way to keep players engaged, and often used to cover up shallow gameplay.

Deep engrossing fascinating gameplay is also operant conditioning. It wouldn't be engrossing, otherwise. That sense of satisfaction you feel from the fascinating gameplay: you were conditioned to it.

If you are playing a story arc in which you are saving the universe from badness, you are also responding to stimuli and conditioning -- it's just usually working on deeply embedded cultural tropes we were conditioned to as kids. We're conditioned to respond like Indiana Jones, or Justin Beiber, or whoever we see reaping social rewards for certain behaviors. A deeply engrossing game traps you in a feedback loop in which your reward structures resonate with your upbringing and culture and encourage you to engage in specific behaviors. The cultural conditioning of capitalism and wage-slavery, for example, have more to do with why some E/D gamers are "grinders" than game-play does: they have been conditioned that the life goal is a Ferrari or an Anaconda, so they "grind" for it even though they never have actually pondered what they'd do differently and how it would make them happy if they got it.

Conditioning is tricky; really when you start digging into this stuff you're picking apart the foundations of civilization.

If the aversive stimulus

Sorry. "Aversive stimulus" is punishment. The terms are interchangeable in psychology; they just don't like "punishment" any more because it sounds so aggro.

When a psych experimenter talks about "aversive stimulus" he's talking about shocking a rat or introducing a scary sound or whatever. If it's the consequence of a wrong choice or an inaction it is punishment.

 

[Sandmann]

Sorry. "Aversive stimulus" is punishment. The terms are interchangeable in psychology; they just don't like "punishment" any more because it sounds so aggro.

When a psych experimenter talks about "aversive stimulus" he's talking about shocking a rat or introducing a scary sound or whatever. If it's the consequence of a wrong choice or an inaction it is punishment.

Thankyou. I did my psych degree 20years ago when we were stll allowed to use terms like that without worrying about hurting peoples' feelings. Now if I use the terms reward & punishment at work I have clinicians scuttling in all directions like cockroaches when the light's turned on.

 

[Samosa]

I think you're both putting reputation decay in the wrong quadrant, but, you know, that's just my opinion.