B.F. Skinner, Gaming, and You!

In case you never took a Psych course or perhaps a class in high school let me tell you a little something about Mr.Skinner. To summarize, and keep this post from getting too long, Skinner is most known in the world of Psychology and behaviorism for his research on what is called operant conditioning.

Operant conditioning is a learning/behavioral method that occurs through using rewards and punishments for specific behavior. By using this one can make an association between a behavior and a consequence for any behavior which occurs.

Notable example: A mother gives her child a cookie every time they he/she does their chores for the day. The child associates doing chores with earning a cookie. Most likely the child will continually do chores and expect a cookie as a reward so the behavior that comes from this will continue unless the reward is not given or changed to something the child may not like.

Positive and negative reinforcement are two aspects of operant conditioning that are used in every day situations. Positive reinforcement is where something of a reward is given for performing a certain behavior, like the cookie example I listed. By reinforcing a behavior with a positive outcome it will probably continue.

Negative reinforcement is the opposite though where a behavior is continued in order to avoid anything that may cause an unpleasant outcome. Like for example, say there's an office worker who hates having to talk to a his boss who always happens to be in the exact area he needs to walk through to get to his desk to work. To avoid the annoyance of having to interact with his boss the worker will  always walk the other way or find a way around so he doesn't take the path that leads him into his boss. This behavior of always using other paths to avoid his boss will continue until his boss stops hovering around his work area.

I hope this is somewhat informative so far. So onto the games. Now what do games have to do with Skinner's research? Well, operant conditioning is very important in gaming you see. Players are rewarded for performing certain behaviors like making achievements, collecting gold/points to get an item they always wanted, beating another player in a game or beating a game itself. They are also punished for certain behaviors like cheating or "trolling". Gamers are constantly going through operant conditioning situations. By adhering to the research of operant conditioning it's more than possible to effect a player's behavior for whatever game they may be playing like PvPs, cards, video games, etc.