Cognitive dissonance in games

[the1ultimate]

This applies primarily to games with choices, although I suppose it could theoretically apply to a purely linear game. Here's a <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance>Wikipedia link for those of you who who'd like to know what I'm talking about.

If you have ever noticed the ways your brain tries to resolve conflicting ideas, by changing your perspective, then you may know what I'm talking about. Cognitive dissonance is the way your mind changes your opinion in order to keep your "self" consistent.

Anyway, I was playing Dragon Age: Origins the other night, and after completing the first quest as a mage, and helping a friend out, I found myself justifying my friend's actions (in the dialogue at the end of the quest). I spent all that time on the quest, so I guess in the end it's not surprising that I would end up sure that I was right, and that my friend deserved to be helped.

For a more generic example, in Rapture, did any of you try to justify killing the little sisters? This may not be the best example since

Spoiler

you get about the same amount of ADAM anyway (at least in the original Bioshock, I haven't played 2)

and of course people who simply consider their character evil or indifferent face no dilemma.

Another example: In Oblivion and Fallout 3, have you ever seen a choice not work out the way you want to? If you decided to play through did you ever find a reason, or adjust the way the story played out in your mind, without changing any of the specific details (i.e. motivations changed, NPCs re-interpreted, emotional response adjusted)?

The point is, that cognitive dissonance is a glimpse into how the mind really works, and if it can really apply to a character within our mind as well as to our mind itself, then surely this would be an interesting thing to research? And if applied to games, then surely it would provide greater understanding of what options to give the player, and what the player will likely be thinking after a segment of the game?

It certainly seems to me that Cognitive dissonance is one of those ways that the mind itself works towards greater immersion in the gameworld. I'd say all it requires is for you to put a little bit of yourself into your character.

So, what are your thoughts?
Has anyone else noticed anything like this while they were gaming?
Do you have a specific example?
Could this help improve moral choice systems in games?
Should this be studied, or has it been already?
Have I got the concept completely wrong?

 

[Ironic Pirate]

I would say I justify my actions, but more with ammo and weapon purchases. "I want to sell it, but it looks so damn cool" for example. Not so much with moral choices, as I lack empathy for most people. Those characters I do have it for I will protect no matter what, which is a form of justification, I suppose.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I guess I am not all that self aware of this sort of thing and would probably need a professional to point it out to me.

I think that diplomacy in Civ 4 might be good for this. You start out competing with all the nations but they start asking for small things and offering slightly disadvantageous trades. If you share a state religion they show up as being friendly to you. You have to keep in mind that they are simple AI opponent who are trying to compete to win the same game as you and that they have some sort of relationship of cooperation with you.

 

[About To Crash]

The problem that I see is that when I'm given choices, none of them are exactly what I want. They can be pretty varied, but a lot of the time I wish there something better.
I don't really feel that I justify those choices to myself, though. Using your example of Bioshock, I harvested all of the little sisters the first time through, but since there wasn't really any discernible reason to feel bad, I didn't need to justify anything until later. Now, I understand that killing little girls is evil, but I think because I didn't have to see them after they died, and no one talked to me about it after the first time, there was no reason to care or stop.
So, I think that I only care to justify my actions if there's actually some active element that tells me about the repercussions. Fallout 3 does that alright, but I never really get the options I really want, like I said.

 

[the1ultimate]

I would say I justify my actions, but more with ammo and weapon purchases. "I want to sell it, but it looks so damn cool" for example. Not so much with moral choices, as I lack empathy for most people. Those characters I do have it for I will protect no matter what, which is a form of justification, I suppose.

Well, that's interesting, since that seems more like a real-world example, but in a game, i.e. you have X amount of currency, so of course you want to make the best purchases. In some cases this can mean that you decide the purchases you make are the best ones.
Okay, that just sounds like tautology.
Your example is good, but the more interesting (and more potentially dissonant) ones are the ones where you adjust your opinion after the fact.

I guess I am not all that self aware of this sort of thing and would probably need a professional to point it out to me.

I think that diplomacy in Civ 4 might be good for this. You start out competing with all the nations but they start asking for small things and offering slightly disadvantageous trades. If you share a state religion they show up as being friendly to you. You have to keep in mind that they are simple AI opponent who are trying to compete to win the same game as you and that they have some sort of relationship of cooperation with you.

Wow, are you talking about an RTS? I have to admit, I only considered possibilities where you fully immerse yourself as a character in the game.


But I see where you are both coming from. Both of your examples are about resource management, rather than moral choice, but they're good examples. Thanks for pointing them out.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Wow, are you talking about an RTS? I have to admit, I only considered possibilities where you fully immerse yourself as a character in the game.

But I see where you are both coming from. Both of your examples are about resource management, rather than moral choice, but they're good examples. Thanks for pointing them out.

Heh. I'm pretty sure that some war gamers get off on pretending to be Napoleon. At least that is the comic strip joke about them.

 

[Uberjoe19]

I tend to go for the one that I find most satisfying, which is usually the evil choice.

 

[Radeonx]

I don't need to justify my actions, because in most choice games, I'll normally do whatever I think looks the coolest.
I suppose that "Because it was fun" would be my justification, but I'd think that doesn't apply to in-game morals.

 

[Kortney]

Sorry, this is embarrassing, but would someone be able to explain Cognitive Dissonance to me in layman terms? English isn't my first language and the Wikipedia page is written too intelligently for me.

 

[the1ultimate]

The problem that I see is that when I'm given choices, none of them are exactly what I want. They can be pretty varied, but a lot of the time I wish there something better.
I don't really feel that I justify those choices to myself, though. Using your example of Bioshock, I harvested all of the little sisters the first time through, but since there wasn't really any discernible reason to feel bad, I didn't need to justify anything until later. Now, I understand that killing little girls is evil, but I think because I didn't have to see them after they died, and no one talked to me about it after the first time, there was no reason to care or stop.
So, I think that I only care to justify my actions if there's actually some active element that tells me about the repercussions. Fallout 3 does that alright, but I never really get the options I really want, like I said.

So do you ever justify the reasons for the choices you do make? Certainly gaming is often about a story, and you can't really tell a story properly (even to yourself) if you don't know where all the threads get tied up.

Well, sometimes I spare a few because they tug at the shivelled strings of my heart.

But I can kill children and every other resident of a game with no real trouble.

So you have complete lack of empathy with the other characters in the game?

To clarify, it's only cognitive dissonance when your mind corrects two conflicting notions by changing the way you think about something, or the story you've been telling.

For example, the white (and by white I mean morally flawless, and a paragon of good) hero who kills. Many people rationalise that he has to kill, or that he is making necessary sacrifices. Another way to resolve these to notions is to turn your white hero into an anti-hero.

If you start out without a conscience, then you aren't going to be very conflicted, are you? Unless, you know, you're wondering why you've done something good.

 

[the1ultimate]

Sorry, this is embarrassing, but would someone be able to explain Cognitive Dissonance to me in layman terms? English isn't my first language and the Wikipedia page is written too intelligently for me.

I'm not very good at explaining, and I'll probably end up repeating myself, but here goes:

Cognitive Dissonance, is the way your mind rationalises choices you've made - often just below the conscious level - and comes up with a story that accommodates both ideas. If you think of yourself as a great gambler, but then you lose, you might be inclined to decide that it was "just a bad night" or "beginners luck" on the other person's part. This is to merge your self-image with the idea that you lost (i.e. you say that you lost because of factors beyond your control, rather than the fact that you have no poker face).

What I'm trying to do is demonstrate that this happens to people when making up stories for their in-game character as well. After all, games don't always go the way we want either, so viewing game events in a different light may allow us to continue viewing our character the way we want to.

Feel free to continue to be confused at my explanation .

 

[Yunatwilight]

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool WIMP. I play through every game the first time making the moral choices that I, personally, would make if I were in the situations the game provides me. Every freaking time I get the lily-livered goody-two-shoes ending.

It's a piece of cake to try to go through a game again and make all the selfish choices, but I generally can't bring myself to take the EVUL!!!!! path. Mostly because in most games the EVUL!!!!! path isn't just selfish and uncaring, it's downright psychotic, and I do tend not to make STUPID choices in games.

Fortunately there's always YouTube out there for games where I can't bring myself to be evil (Bioshock) or where getting the best ending is fantastically time-intensive and I just can't be arsed (Final Fantasy X-2).

 

[Space Spoons]

I've noticed this myself, though in my case, it's almost never a case of moral rationalizing, but practical reasoning. I've never played a game with a morality system that has made me think about my actions beyond the mechanics of the game. For example, in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, after you defeat Symbiote Wolverine, you're given a choice in how you finish the battle; You can either tear him in half or just knock him unconscious.

I'm sure this decision was intended to be a choice between aggression and mercy, and possibly evil and nobility... But I couldn't really see it that way. The way my mind processed the decision was purely pragmatic. I chose the humane option, not because it was "the right thing to do" or because the alternative was offensive to my sensibilities. I chose it because it was the only option that would keep Spidey in Wolverine's good graces, and I knew that later in the game, Wolverine would probably make a better Assist ally than Vulture or Rhino.

It's like that with almost all the games I play that involve moral choice. I can understand the point they're trying to make, but when I make the decision, it never comes down to my actual morals. It's all about practicality.

 

[About To Crash]

So do you ever justify the reasons for the choices you do make? Certainly gaming is often about a story, and you can't really tell a story properly (even to yourself) if you don't know where all the threads get tied up.

Well, I don't find I've often felt the need to justify my choices. Usually I spend quite a while considering them, even when I know they'll have little to no impact on the game as a whole. I'll even spend time thinking about my choices in games like Fable, even though they're the sort of black & white obvious choices. So, I've already fully justified my choices when I make them; I feel I know the consequences and am prepared to deal with whatever outcome I prefer. The occasional problem I find is when my ethics and the developer's ethics differ. For instance, in Fable II there were more than a couple situations where I figured I was doing the right thing, the "good" option, and the game clearly disagreed when a big fat "+30 evil" appeared over my head. That's the main problem with the binary system for alignment and karma. I don't think there should be something that absolute. Overall, I thought how Mass Effect did it was a bold effort, but in that I'm sure everyone had a point where they thought they were saying one thing and it came out all wrong.
I'd say gaming should always be about a story, but if the game doesn't tie up all the loose ends somehow that's got less to do with my input and more in the designers. I'll always see any story I start through to the end, so if I feel that something hasn't been properly tied up, it's usually the fault of the writers.

 

[Altorin]

For a more generic example, in Rapture, did any of you try to justify killing the little sisters? This may not be the best example since

Spoiler

you get about the same amount of ADAM anyway (at least in the original Bioshock, I haven't played 2)

and of course people who simply consider their character evil or indifferent face no dilemma.

you get more adam harvesting the little sisters, even (and especially) in the long run. If you rescue all of the little sisters and still want to get all of the plasmids/tonics, you need to limit your health/eve upgrades. If you harvest them, you can spend your adam with reckless abandon and get all of the health/eve upgrades, along with all of the plasmids/tonics, apart from the plasmids/tonics you get from saving the little sisters.

It's mitigated by the 200 ADAM bonuses you get for rescuing sisters, but it doesn't entirely make up for it all by itself, and your ADAM will always be tighter in a "rescue" game.

As for the moral choice and my own feeling of morality... I don't know.. when I did that magi quest, I saw myself first and foremost as a member if the circle. I passed my Harrowing, and I was super stoked to be a mage. Jowan was breaking the rules and acting like a bit of a tosser.. so I ended up working for Irving to catch him red handed. I saw very little friendship in Jowan.. he was a whiner toad who wanted me to risk my lifeswork, and my life itself so that he could keep his emotions, which were truly out of control.

I felt a little bad when I sided with the Werewolves rather then the elves. It especially hurt to slaughter people I had promised to help earlier... but their Keeper was a real tool, and I wasn't going to kill Whitherfang just because he was too proud to sacrifice for the greater good... so I killed him.. and then when his camp saw that, they attacked me, and I killed them too.. I killed all of them... and not just the men.. but the women.. and the children.. I butchered them like animals...

Oh, sorry, slipped into Anakinese there for a moment.

Yeah, it was a little hard, but it had to be done I guess.. take from that what you will

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Splinter Cell: Double Agent - every choice in that game.
Who would've thought that a game of the stealth genre would have the best moral choice system I've seen since... well, the beginning of life.
Especially the last part where you have to choose

Spoiler

between killing Jamie Washington and Lambert

made me pause the game and think.

 

[arsenicCatnip]

As ridiculous as it sounds, it makes me think of the first time I played through Metal Gear Solid 2.

It's incredibly hard to explain what I mean by that, other than

Spoiler

the AI's words.

Colonel: The digital society furthers human flaws and selectively rewards development of convenient half-truths. Just look at the strange juxtapositions of morality around you.
Rose: Billions spent on new weapons in order to humanely murder other humans.
Colonel: Rights of criminals are given more respect than the privacy of their victims.
Rose: Although there are people suffering in poverty, huge donations are made to protect endangered species. Everyone grows up being told the same thing.
Colonel: Be nice to other people.
Rose: But beat out the competition!
Colonel: "You're special." "Believe in yourself and you will succeed."
Rose: But it's obvious from the start that only a few can succeed...
Colonel: You exercise your right to "freedom" and this is the result. All rhetoric to avoid conflict and protect each other from hurt. The untested truths spun by different interests continue to churn and accumulate in the sandbox of political correctness and value systems.

It took me a long time to process this, and to really look at my own beliefs on each subject stated here. And I was ashamed.