The Psychology behind taking a life (long read)

[Goldstein (DayZ) 46]

I had ideas for how this would function ingame. Most other aspects of our health are simulated, psychological isn't though.

Inconsistency arises from our characters having no repercussions for their actions. I don't want a big brother situation, but if I'm going around playing captain goody-pants, I would expect suddenly shooting a bunch of defenceless survivors to somehow effect my character.

I'd further elaborate, but long story short: people hate this idea because it would restrict their ability to act like a battlefield terminator.

It's the realism vs. sandbox situation. (Options are great, they're rediculous out of context though)

[Hawk24 94]

The people who want to just run around and shoot everyone and have no downside are like a child who wants a puppy.

Nobody says killing other people should have no downsides

What I'm saying is that killing other people should have no ARTIFICIAL downside

No gameplay mechanic judging your actions or telling you to not do bad stuff

That is the sandbox enviroment that Rocket is trying to achieve

A sanity meter based on a random number is just an artificial wall telling you to not shoot that guy over there, because the numbers told you so

You talk about it like it'd be a risk-reward mechanic, eat now and go insane or starve to death

But in the end it's just a message telling you "HALT RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM"

[Theonerayman 0]

I honestly have no idea how this guy majored in psych. I think you're failing to realize that the world has been infested with zombies and all morals would be completely dropped in a real life scenario if you were a survivor living for more than 2 weeks. So all of these statistics mean absolutely nothing in a zombie apocalypse.

There are people in this world when given the chance were unable to kill someone who was threatening to kill their entire family..and as a consequence the entire family was killed because the father, even with a gun was unable to pull the trigger (it was a case we studied in which a convicted murder told the story in which he said that he had wished the man had shot him, because now he was serving life in prison and saw the faces of the children he murdered every time he closed his eyes). So the father doesn't kill the murderer and his entire family died because of it. You still think just because there are zombies in the world that everyone is suddenly immoral, forgot everything they had ever been taught and will just kill anyone and everyone to survive when this man couldn't shoot a stranger to not only protect himself but his family?

[tomasz.k.gac@gmail.com 0]

I really like the screamer idea, not that it would get implemented ;).

In order for the experiment to be accurate, we don't need to simulate impact on the human psyche, we just need to bring down the number of psychopaths to a realistic level. Possible solution would be tying the zombie detection range to humanity value - if you have low morality, zombies are more likely to spot you. This would be a solution for "kill on sight" players, and possibly macaroni rambo spawners (if they intend to play a survival game later on, not just CoD at Elektro).

[Outlaw (DayZ) 1]

In a zombie apocalypse more then 15% of the survivors would kill you for food or your gun or whatever. More realistic would be like 90% bandits (groups) and less then 10% nice people. After 6 month most of the nice people would be dead anyway.

[ragequitalready 18]

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Edited October 25, 2012 by ragequitalready

[tehreaver 0]

I honestly have no idea how this guy majored in psych. I think you're failing to realize that the world has been infested with zombies and all morals would be completely dropped in a real life scenario if you were a survivor living for more than 2 weeks. So all of these statistics mean absolutely nothing in a zombie apocalypse.

There are people in this world when given the chance were unable to kill someone who was threatening to kill their entire family..and as a consequence the entire family was killed because the father' date=' even with a gun was unable to pull the trigger (it was a case we studied in which a convicted murder told the story in which he said that he had wished the man had shot him, because now he was serving life in prison and saw the faces of the children he murdered every time he closed his eyes). So the father doesn't kill the murderer and his entire family died because of it. You still think just because there are zombies in the world that everyone is suddenly immoral, forgot everything they had ever been taught and will just kill anyone and everyone to survive when this man couldn't shoot a stranger to not only protect himself but his family?

[/quote']

He would only last for a few days then. So let me say it again. If you "survived" for 2 WEEKS in a zombie apocalypse you are going to need to drop your morals in order to survive that long or you are just a worthless husk that will most likely be capped in a bar.

[deweyhewson 1]

If you get into character' date=' this response is already felt.

Read this, for example: http://www.dayzdiary.com/2012/05/chapter-5-my-soul-for-a-can-of-beans/

And no, that's not a shameless plug; it's directly relevant to the subject at hand. In fact, I tweeted only yesterday that, having studied psychology in-depth myself, it is both fascinating and exhilarating to see how it plays out within the confines of the DayZ world.

Artificial game mechanics intended to represent real world human psychological effects would be a mistake, in my opinion, because they could never come close to the real thing. I find that human psychology already is playing a huge role in the world, even from those who don't even begin to try to get into character.

[/quote']

Forgive me if I am assuming here, but it seems to be that you are implying that since the system wouldn't be perfect and exactly life like that it shouldn't be implemented. And again if I am wrong I will apologize. But look at our current food and water system. You have to eat and drink roughly every 2-3 hours in game. The human body can go much longer without food, and dieing of hunger is far from horrid and painful. Your body releases endorphin as it breaks down its own organs for food. And there have been numerous cases in which people have gone a few days without water and survived. Yet the system is there in its current incarnation and we accept it. The new weather system, the odds of you catching a cold on a sunny day because you stood in the rain for a little bit are very small..but stand outside in the rain to long and your temp drops and eventually you get sick. Its not perfect but we all understand. This would be no different, a system while not perfect is there to mimic a much more complicated real life process.

The problem is that those other mechanics are direct reflections of the real world:

You don't eat, you get hungry.

You don't drink, you get thirsty.

You are exposed to the elements, you risk getting sick.

It's all logical, and realistic, even if slightly exaggerated in the game (and perhaps that exaggeration should be changed). But one of the enormous reasons DayZ is so fantastic, and interesting from a psychological standpoint, is that it's all happening to you, the character, as a direct, natural result of your choices. It makes it immersive, and makes you, the player, feel a part of the game world.

But when you kill somebody in the game, you feel...what exactly? Should you feel good? Should you feel bad? Something in-between? The answer is any and all of them, perhaps some all at once. This is really the essence of human behavior and psychology, everybody is monumentally different, has different motives for what they do, and will feel different emotions and reactions to those choices.

A game mechanic intended to simulate real world effects would be taking that choice, and natural consequence, away from the player, and making the judgment call for them following the logic that, since most people feel this about that, you, the player, will also feel this about that.

Not only is a game mechanic entirely ill-equipped to represent, or accurately gauge, the spectrum of human emotion and behavior, but it would detract from the realism, and therefore the immersion, and thus detract from the entirety of DayZ itself.

[Theonerayman 0]

The people who want to just run around and shoot everyone and have no downside are like a child who wants a puppy.

Nobody says killing other people should have no downsides

What I'm saying is that killing other people should have no ARTIFICIAL downside

No gameplay mechanic judging your actions or telling you to not do bad stuff

That is the sandbox enviroment that Rocket is trying to achieve

A sanity meter based on a random number is just an artificial wall telling you to not shoot that guy over there' date=' because the numbers told you so

You talk about it like it'd be a risk-reward mechanic, eat now and go insane or starve to death

But in the end it's just a message telling you "HALT RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM"

[/quote']

Well then, if NO body is saying there shouldn't be downsides then it should be easy for Rocket to come up with something that handles the situation. But I'm hearing "No one says there shouldn't be downsides. But those shouldn't come from the game itself. They should come from something else. Again no one is saying there shouldn't be something, just not something that hampers our want to have our cake and eat it to"

[Outlaw (DayZ) 1]

2 month in the zombie apocalypse, only groups of bandits will be left. The people that are unable to kill anyone will be eaten by Zeds in the first few days.

[ragequitalready 18]

.

Edited October 25, 2012 by ragequitalready

[rukqoa 4]

He would only last for a few days then. So let me say it again. If you "survived" for 2 WEEKS in a zombie apocalypse you are going to need to drop your morals in order to survive that long or you are just a worthless husk that will most likely be capped in a bar.

Actually, the people most likely to survive an apocalyptic event (IMO) would be soldiers. Because they have guns, and most other people don't. And most soldiers (at least from where I'm from) actually have high moral standards.

Even if we take soldiers out of the equation, the people most likely to survive are people who work well with others. Which would again imply not bandits.

People don't just drop their lifelong morals in 2 weeks. Soldiers who undergo months of training and years of combat still undergo negative psychological impacts from killing.

Also, it's ridiculous to suggest that people would feel remorse in game that equates to remorse in real life.

[Outlaw (DayZ) 1]

You are right that soldiers would be the first organized bandit groups that will steal,rape and kill.

(history: WW2 and other total wars)

[Theonerayman 0]

If you get into character' date=' this response is already felt.

Read this, for example: http://www.dayzdiary.com/2012/05/chapter-5-my-soul-for-a-can-of-beans/

And no, that's not a shameless plug; it's directly relevant to the subject at hand. In fact, I tweeted only yesterday that, having studied psychology in-depth myself, it is both fascinating and exhilarating to see how it plays out within the confines of the DayZ world.

Artificial game mechanics intended to represent real world human psychological effects would be a mistake, in my opinion, because they could never come close to the real thing. I find that human psychology already is playing a huge role in the world, even from those who don't even begin to try to get into character.

[/quote']

Forgive me if I am assuming here, but it seems to be that you are implying that since the system wouldn't be perfect and exactly life like that it shouldn't be implemented. And again if I am wrong I will apologize. But look at our current food and water system. You have to eat and drink roughly every 2-3 hours in game. The human body can go much longer without food, and dieing of hunger is far from horrid and painful. Your body releases endorphin as it breaks down its own organs for food. And there have been numerous cases in which people have gone a few days without water and survived. Yet the system is there in its current incarnation and we accept it. The new weather system, the odds of you catching a cold on a sunny day because you stood in the rain for a little bit are very small..but stand outside in the rain to long and your temp drops and eventually you get sick. Its not perfect but we all understand. This would be no different, a system while not perfect is there to mimic a much more complicated real life process.

The problem is that those other mechanics are direct reflections of the real world:

You don't eat, you get hungry.

You don't drink, you get thirsty.

You are exposed to the elements, you risk getting sick.

It's all logical, and realistic, even if slightly exaggerated in the game (and perhaps that exaggeration should be changed). But one of the enormous reasons DayZ is so fantastic, and interesting from a psychological standpoint, is that it's all happening to you, the character, as a direct, natural result of your choices. It makes it immersive, and makes you, the player, feel a part of the game world.

But when you kill somebody in the game, you feel...what exactly? Should you feel good? Should you feel bad? Something in-between? The answer is any and all of them, perhaps some all at once. This is really the essence of human behavior and psychology, everybody is monumentally different, has different motives for what they do, and will feel different emotions and reactions to those choices.

A game mechanic intended to simulate real world effects would be taking that choice, and natural consequence, away from the player, and making the judgment call for them following the logic that, since most people feel this about that, you, the player, will also feel this about that.

Not only is a game mechanic entirely ill-equipped to represent, or accurately gauge, the spectrum of human emotion and behavior, but it would detract from the realism, and therefore the immersion, and thus detract from the entirety of DayZ itself.

The part where you say that humans are monumentally different is where you go off course and your line of thought I am sorry to say falters. Humans, aren't that different. Its the reason that companies run ads on TV for products the way they do (there are entire courses in Psychological Marketing), its the reason that people from ALL walks of life get caught up in Ponzi schemes, or get taken by confidence men. Mankind as a whole are actually dangerously similar. Want another example? Guyana South America 18 November 1978, over 900 people drank the literal cool aid (actually flavor aid but I digress) because a man named Jim Jones knew just how similar people were (these were rich people, poor people, doctors, lawyers, and laborers). And before you go thinking that the People's Temple was just some cult do your reading. Especially about the good that they did in the mid 70s in San Francisco. Rev. Jim Jones knew how to exploit people, were not that different.

[ragequitalready 18]

.

Edited October 25, 2012 by ragequitalready

[Hawk24 94]

The people who want to just run around and shoot everyone and have no downside are like a child who wants a puppy.

Nobody says killing other people should have no downsides

What I'm saying is that killing other people should have no ARTIFICIAL downside

No gameplay mechanic judging your actions or telling you to not do bad stuff

That is the sandbox enviroment that Rocket is trying to achieve

A sanity meter based on a random number is just an artificial wall telling you to not shoot that guy over there' date=' because the numbers told you so

You talk about it like it'd be a risk-reward mechanic, eat now and go insane or starve to death

But in the end it's just a message telling you "HALT RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM"

[/quote']

Well then, if NO body is saying there shouldn't be downsides then it should be easy for Rocket to come up with something that handles the situation. But I'm hearing "No one says there shouldn't be downsides. But those shouldn't come from the game itself. They should come from something else. Again no one is saying there shouldn't be something, just not something that hampers our want to have our cake and eat it to"

The downsides to shooting other players:

1) You make noise unless using a silenced weapons, zeds and players alike may hear you and advance on your position

2) You make yourself a target when looting, get shot in the process and loose it all

3) You may alert friends of the players you just shot, they can counter your position and end your life

4) You may waste ammo for nothing but food and water, that is not a problem unless you're running high grade military equipment with rare ammo

Nothing is forced upon you, no message popping up and telling you "HALT RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM"

Your suggestion is a mechanic that tells you not to do things because the mechanic wants you to obey

"Oh no, don't you dare to shoot that person or I will let your screen go blurry and show pictures of dead persons to 'simulate' insanity"

THIS is the definition of "artificial limits"

[cutzero 5]

I think you are right. I can't tell how often my hands started to sweat because I thought there was someone who will take my stuff. When you reached a certain point (for me it's when I get my first good weapon) my life get's more valuable than the guy I shoot. We start shooting at each other because we get more vulnerable even though we don't, because everything you find will help you getting an advantage over your opponent. So you find that surpressed M4A3? Fine. I can guarantee you that you will now shoot everything that moves just because you don't want to loose everything. In my opinion it's humanly to do that and I don't understand the people who are complaining about PvP. You think I would trust someone even though he said he's friendly? When EVERYONE can kill you in one shot you make sure that nobody comes too close.

[Drostan 0]

[ON THE TOPIC OF GAME MECHANICS SIMULATING REAL WORLD MECHANICS SUCH AS HUNGER' date= THIRST, AND SICKNESS] ...This would be no different, a system while not perfect is there to mimic a much more complicated real life process.

I didn't want to fill the page with quotes, I apologize if I took too much context out, but hunger, thirst, and even illness are rather simple biological factors, that are largely understood by science today. (Keep in mind that not having a cure for sickness doesn't mean it's not understood)

However psychology is an unfathomably complex system that is not fully understood, and vastly different in every human being. The psychological state of each individual person varies greatly, and is affected by both cause/effect, as well as genetics.

An argument you pose appears to be that the 17% of our population being bandits is entirely composed of sociopaths, which is simply not the case. A gas-station robber isn't necesarily a sociopath.

--------------------------------

In reply to rukqoa - It is also surmised that soldiers undergo this negative psychological impact, because they're expected to reintigrate into a society that both looks down upon, and scorns soldiers and the killing they perform. They do what is natural, only to be shunned by the society they need to go back in to. So again, the human mind is so complex that any simple one-cause/one-effect mechanic representing this psyche is almost insulting to the psychological community.

I'm torn. On one hand, I thought the bandit-skinning was a good enough way to discourage rampant player killing, so you had to be tactical about it. But at the same time it's not logical to have a visual representation of a murderer. I think it should be left as is. Give the game some more time to evolve before we consider anti-pvp measures.

[ragequitalready 18]

.

Edited October 25, 2012 by ragequitalready

[rukqoa 4]

No. Soldiers would organize evacuation camps, establish order, and rebuild the world.

For those reasons you could be right' date=' but in the immediate aftermath you could be wrong.

The people most likely to survive are those who can shake the dependence on the conveniences and luxuries granted in our modern lifestyles.

Soldiers have training to survive away from civilisation to some extent, as do some people who enjoy outdoor activities and experiences.

They would be most likely to survive because no one would be around to cultivate or farm necessary food. They would have to live off the land, make their own shelter, hunt their own food, and so on. Cities and densely populated areas would be very dangerous.

Having a gun would help but you would be safer just living quietly and avoiding attention until it either blows over or you die.

[/quote']

It really is a no-brainer. Who has a higher chance of survival? That crazy dude next doors? Or an organized military force that is trained to operate without an intact chain of command, with access to weapons we can't even buy and years of training alongside a couple thousand of similarly trained soldiers?

My guess is soldiers will evacuate danger zones, establish order, and rebuild the world. The second part, establishing order, involves a lot of bandits dying, going to jail, or hiding.

[Drostan 0]

Want another example? Guyana South America 18 November 1978' date=' over 900 people drank the literal cool aid

[/quote']

You are terrible at this, I really would like to know where you received your education.

People who have been given items such as tobacco, opium, alcohol, and so on consume them because of their effects

Kool Aid or whatever it was may not be a drug but the sugar hit it provided would have been an exhilarating new experience for those who had never experienced it before

People are not exactly the same, there are just as many (if not more) cultural differences as there are similarities.

That case was the mass suicide incident, where several hundred people drank poisoned suicide to die and move on to the afterlife he promised.

YOU SIR are terrible at this.

[deweyhewson 1]

If you get into character' date=' this response is already felt.

Read this, for example: http://www.dayzdiary.com/2012/05/chapter-5-my-soul-for-a-can-of-beans/

And no, that's not a shameless plug; it's directly relevant to the subject at hand. In fact, I tweeted only yesterday that, having studied psychology in-depth myself, it is both fascinating and exhilarating to see how it plays out within the confines of the DayZ world.

Artificial game mechanics intended to represent real world human psychological effects would be a mistake, in my opinion, because they could never come close to the real thing. I find that human psychology already is playing a huge role in the world, even from those who don't even begin to try to get into character.

[/quote']

Forgive me if I am assuming here, but it seems to be that you are implying that since the system wouldn't be perfect and exactly life like that it shouldn't be implemented. And again if I am wrong I will apologize. But look at our current food and water system. You have to eat and drink roughly every 2-3 hours in game. The human body can go much longer without food, and dieing of hunger is far from horrid and painful. Your body releases endorphin as it breaks down its own organs for food. And there have been numerous cases in which people have gone a few days without water and survived. Yet the system is there in its current incarnation and we accept it. The new weather system, the odds of you catching a cold on a sunny day because you stood in the rain for a little bit are very small..but stand outside in the rain to long and your temp drops and eventually you get sick. Its not perfect but we all understand. This would be no different, a system while not perfect is there to mimic a much more complicated real life process.

The problem is that those other mechanics are direct reflections of the real world:

You don't eat, you get hungry.

You don't drink, you get thirsty.

You are exposed to the elements, you risk getting sick.

It's all logical, and realistic, even if slightly exaggerated in the game (and perhaps that exaggeration should be changed). But one of the enormous reasons DayZ is so fantastic, and interesting from a psychological standpoint, is that it's all happening to you, the character, as a direct, natural result of your choices. It makes it immersive, and makes you, the player, feel a part of the game world.

But when you kill somebody in the game, you feel...what exactly? Should you feel good? Should you feel bad? Something in-between? The answer is any and all of them, perhaps some all at once. This is really the essence of human behavior and psychology, everybody is monumentally different, has different motives for what they do, and will feel different emotions and reactions to those choices.

A game mechanic intended to simulate real world effects would be taking that choice, and natural consequence, away from the player, and making the judgment call for them following the logic that, since most people feel this about that, you, the player, will also feel this about that.

Not only is a game mechanic entirely ill-equipped to represent, or accurately gauge, the spectrum of human emotion and behavior, but it would detract from the realism, and therefore the immersion, and thus detract from the entirety of DayZ itself.

The part where you say that humans are monumentally different is where you go off course and your line of thought I am sorry to say falters. Humans, aren't that different. Its the reason that companies run ads on TV for products the way they do (there are entire courses in Psychological Marketing), its the reason that people from ALL walks of life get caught up in Ponzi schemes, or get taken by confidence men. Mankind as a whole are actually dangerously similar. Want another example? Guyana South America 18 November 1978, over 900 people drank the literal cool aid (actually flavor aid but I digress) because a man named Jim Jones knew just how similar people were (these were rich people, poor people, doctors, lawyers, and laborers). And before you go thinking that the People's Temple was just some cult do your reading. Especially about the good that they did in the mid 70s in San Francisco. Rev. Jim Jones knew how to exploit people, were not that different.

The way you are dismissive of my argument without fully understanding or rebutting it, and the way you throw random events into the conversation as though they stand in place of a proper rebuttal, tells me that you really should study quite a bit more of the subject of psychology before passing an absolutist judgments on its implications and effects.

It doesn't matter if human beings are fundamentally similar; of course they are, we're the same species! The point is that each person reacts differently, even if slightly differently, to every stimuli and scenario.

Everybody has a sex drive, right? So I guess that means we all act and react to all sexual stimuli in the same manner, right? Of course not. Everybody is minutely different in each aspect of their sexuality from everyone else around them, no matter how superficially similar they may appear.

For another example, even if 99% of people experienced PTSD following traumatic events, there would still be 1% who did not; how would you implement a game mechanic reflecting that on a level that does not ruin the immersion and realism of the game for each individual player?

Simply put, you can't.

You seem to be trying to argue from some fallacious position of authority here, instead of presenting concise and rebutting comments to those who disagree, including myself, especially so far as those arguments relate to DayZ and potential changes to it. If you want changes made to DayZ, and on the basis of psychological science, it is your obligation to prove how those would, or even could, be effective down to the individual level without compromising the realistic and immersive nature of the game.

The bottom line is that, if my character in the game experiences some consequence for their choices which follow neither logical progression (such as hunger) or individualistic response (my own emotions as the player), then immersion is immediately lost, and I no longer relate personally to either my character or the game world. Trying to implement something like human psychology, in all its scope, down to the individual level, is simply not possible without seriously compromising the game world.

If you disagree, don't just throw random events at me you learned about in Psych 101; rebut my arguments and prove how they are wrong.

[Outlaw (DayZ) 1]

Just look @ WW2 Stalingrad and you will see that people will kill and then eat each other if hungry enough. Like I said soldiers will be the first ones that form bandit groups. They will protect some people in the first few weeks but after that and a few comrades dead, its very likely that they will kill anything that comes near their group, human or zed.

[Theonerayman 0]

Want another example? Guyana South America 18 November 1978' date=' over 900 people drank the literal cool aid

[/quote']

You are terrible at this, I really would like to know where you received your education.

People who have been given items such as tobacco, opium, alcohol, and so on consume them because of their effects

Kool Aid or whatever it was may not be a drug but the sugar hit it provided would have been an exhilarating new experience for those who had never experienced it before

People are not exactly the same, there are just as many (if not more) cultural differences as there are similarities.

I am guessing you don't know that the cool aid was laced with cyanide and all 900 of those people died. The drank it KNOWING that it was poison. They were people from America who moved there to start a socialist paradise. They carved a town 20 miles out into the jungle. When I saw you talking about them getting hyper because of the sugar, I literally almost wanted to cry.

[rukqoa 4]

In reply to rukqoa - It is also surmised that soldiers undergo this negative psychological impact' date=' because they're expected to reintigrate into a society that both looks down upon, and scorns soldiers and the killing they perform. They do what is natural, only to be shunned by the society they need to go back in to. So again, the human mind is so complex that any simple one-cause/one-effect mechanic representing this psyche is almost insulting to the psychological community.

[/quote']

Interesting perspective, but that doesn't explain why soldiers display symptoms of PTSD before they return home (aka society).