Gamers Feel Relieved When Killed
Don’t you feel relieved when you kill the other dude during multiplayer matches? Apparently, you don’t. An experiment was carried out where a group of students played James Bond 007: Nightfire while having their facial expressions and psychological activity monitored; results suggest that players would feel “anxiety, anger or both” when fragging an enemy and would feel “positive emotion” when he himself was killed.
The latter is attributed to temporary “relief from engagement” brought about by death, but the whole thing seems contradictory to what players actually feel like. Another discovery from the experiment was that players who tested higher for psychoticism experienced less anxiety from killing enemies.
So, the next time you frag someone in a multiplayer match, act all shocked and surprised.
February 26th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
So should I be worried that I need to change my underwear every time I frag someone?