The Cultivation Hypothesis

Cultivation theory has been around for about four decades now. What is it? The idea is that if you consume some kind of media consistently, you'll start thinking that the real world is more like the media one.

The classic case is television news. People who watch a lot of it were supposed to think that their neighborhoods were more dangerous. Only the studies were generally trashed in one of the better academic food fights that my field's ever had. One particularly devastating critique showed the the zodiac signs of the people in the studies were a better predictor than what they watched. So for years we've thought that the theory, while appealing, was probably a load of baloney.

The problem is, I found cultivation in an MMO.

Freshly published article here (5th item down, note publishing legalese below).

Readers of this space will likely know that I do, among other things, the dreaded "media effects" research. As in, I see if media affects people in both good and bad ways. This includes video games and MMOs. I'm on record as saying that games research has not shown aggression effects, but I've always been careful to not say that they don't do anything, or never will be shown to. Still, when my research showed a big cultivation finding, I was a bit surprised. Maybe I shouldn't have been.

The idea behind cultivation is that if you see a lot of something and it's fairly consistent, it's easy to remember. TV has always been awful for this research because it has a lot of variety. I think that in comparison, a gamer's MMO diet is probably a lot more consistent: one thing, played a lot, over a long time.

So what exactly did I find? I had people playing an MMO (Asheron's Call 2, we hardly knew ya) for one month. At the same time I had a group not playing an MMO. I asked both groups about the likelihood of violence in the real world along four dimensions: assault with a weapon, murder, rape, robbery. As it turns out, only one of those occurs in AC2, and that's assault with a weapon. I think it's no stretch to claim that weapons are a central focus in that and many MMOs. So what's wild is that after the study ended, the people who played AC2 thought that getting assaulted with a weapon in real life was much more likely than those who didn't play.

Think about that. Playing the MMO actually changed the players' perceptions of reality.

Now I know what your reaction is right now. It's Wait a minute, wait a minute, let's not have any more of this crazy effects nonsense and let's not hear about why games are bad anymore. Only I think that's wrong on both points. The study is pretty solid. Control group, strong statistics, the works. No other possible explanations for the findings.

Now as for the good vs. bad, here's where I think it gets interesting. Let's say you are with me and you buy the findings. I think they aren't necessarily good or bad. Consider the person who thinks that there is a lot of weapon-based assault going on--more in fact than actually exists. They play and their level of suspicion goes up. In a word, they get paranoid. Yet consider the person who didn't think that it was as likely as it really is. That person gets corrected upward to the right degree. In effect, they become appropriately cautious.

Now, if you're ready for the head-spinner, consider that the thing that generated cultivation could be good or bad. What if a game generated trust? Do we want people to become more trusting from playing MMOs? The answer depends on whether they were overly or under-trusting beforehand. I think. And of course the kinds of cultivation could vary quite a bit from title to title.

From the paper:

"Last, there is the important issue of the various types of cultivation that might
occur in video games. As cultivation researchers have found, all effects need not be
negative or solely concerned with violence and fear. When digital worlds can be
anything, the effects could be negative or positive. Shrum’s heuristic-recall model
suggests that the frequent occurrence of an action or pattern could inform the
player’s perceptions of offline life. For example, a virtual world in which players
continually see cheaters prosper might well cause a decrease in general trust
because the player could begin to suspect real-world people of cheating. In contrast,
one that stresses the importance of ethical behavior might well cause an
increase in the perception of others as ethical in the real world. Ultima Online,
for example, is well known in the gaming community as a title that preaches ethical
behavior.

Perhaps virtual cultivation could improve human relations. Lai (2003) has
shown how American MMRPGs stress racial diversity. Could spending time in
diverse worlds improve real-world perceptions of other racial groups or lead to
ethnic tolerance? Or could it foster stereotypes (Nakamura, 2001)? Can time spent
in a prosocial environment featuring sharing, altruism, and generosity improve our
perceptions of others offline? Many games make a point of rewarding virtuous
behavior, although a handful, like the Grand Theft Auto series, glorify antisocial
behavior."

I'm still wrapping my head around this finding, even though it's in print. Is this a good thing or bad? Should developers consider it? What games are causing what kinds of cultivation out there?

Comments

[Edward Castronova]

1.

When society broke down after Katrina, I remember saying 'Civilization is the exception, not the rule,' in response to those who expressed shock. Of course it was the war of all against all - that's default human behavior. And yet because we are fortunate to live in a web of constraints against personal violence, many of us forget that that web is even there, and begin to presume that most people will be nice to each other when the law goes away.

I believe Dmitri's finding. In my experience, those who have been immersed in human societies that operate under open PvP rules, seem to have developed a much more accurate sense of the true character of homo sapiens when not in captivity: savage.

[Mike Sellers]

2.

Dmitri if you're surprised by this, I'm guessing you've never seen a rose while walking through a neighborhood and thought, "hey! mageroyal!" ;-)

I'm pretty much already in the cultivation camp - while the environment (e.g. TV) is noisy, promoting many different messages and thus diluting any observable cultivation, it doesn't surprise me in the least that a fairly consistent environment creates/catalyzes expectations in line with that environment. And yes, surely, this can be used for good or ill (and I believe game developers have a social responsibility to consider this).

What this really makes me wonder about isn't assault with a weapon, but long-time players' perceptions of conditions like the value of work and the elasticity of a local economy (e.g, making and selling 10,000 shirts at a fixed price). Are such players more likely to believe that they really could quit their lousy job and make their own business (a good, class-crossing thing), or that in starting a business all you need to do is create a monotonous product and it will somehow generate sales and profits (a bad, dream-crushing thing) or even that it's better and easier to just loot the bodies instead of doing all that work (a psychotic, sociopathic thing)?

[bllius]

3.

I'd like to see the followup results for this. Is it possible? How long does this change in perception hold? Does it drift back to the baseline? Also, one month is very short. What happens afte a year of gameplay?

Also, try this with a "positive" perception change. I'd like to see if the same holds true, otherwise you should not be able to extrapolate from the negative (participants playing a violent MMO showed increased expectation for assault with a weapon) to the positive (participants playing a flower power MMO will showed increased trust levels).

[Michael Chui]

4.

Heh... I don't remember where I said it, but it was along the lines of "MMORPGs these days produce cynics." It's nice to know that, as much of a sweeping generalization that is, I'm right; it's also not nice to know I'm right. And I don't even remember why I said it.

[Torley Linden]

5.

While not an MMO, I remember playing Rise of Nations from the beginning of the timeline, and one of the things that stood out the most readily to me was how while the cultures begin so uniquely with different aesthetics and attributes, by the 21th century, even the Aztecs have soldiers--that aren't particularly remarkable, and just have a different name of "Jaguar". For a "What if?", I found this to be pretty bland!

I think what bothered me about GTA was I couldn't really choose a VIRTUOUS path to go on, if I wanted to. Yes, there were bonus missions like the ambulance one--but this wasn't the "meat" of the game.

I think that's why Deus Ex stands out as a legend to me, because it's very possible to play the whole way through and kill very few people. In effect, a peaceful solution, a "moral pathway" if you will. I wasn't as happy with the sequel, altho to its credit, it followed the same philosophical route. After that, I hung around waiting for rumors of a Deus Ex (or any cyberpunk that'd appeal to me) MMO.

It did not come in time, but by then, I had found out about Second Life--where our Community Standards emphasize tolerance, being good to one another, and soforth. And while there are no forced "goals in the system", despite the fantasy aspect some really immerse themselves into, using a scripted gun to shoot someone else is frowned upon--unless you do it in an area that clearly permits combat. There's a real emphasis on worldbuilding and collaborative creation.

I think in SL, someone who does weapons play in the right places yet is peaceful elsewhere, has likely got a good grasp on what constitutes "fun" and what may be seen as harmful and antisocial behavior. But money's a different matter, as I haven't come across anyone who's roleplayed a "scamming casino for the vicarious thrill of it all" yet.

[Safety Neal]

6.

That is a fascinating post. But I wonder about the issue of self-selection by gamers. Perhaps the people who gravitate towards fantasy games have a fetish for swords and knives which affects their perception of assault with a weapon?

I love GTA, but I am a gun nut and I had mild anti-social tendencies long before I played my first video game.

[Bruce Baugh]

7.

It's probably worth noting that civilization did not break down after Katrina. The vast majority of reporting about violance and chaos turns out to have been founded on precisely nothing but rumor. See, for instance, this interesting personal account from a Times-Picayune reporter, or this well-sourced brief article in the BBC.

Edward Castronova may be demonstrating the thesis.

[Aaron Delwiche]

8.

Dmitri,

Congratulations on being the first person to discuss MMOs in the pages of the Journal of Communication.

For those of us situated within communication departments, your article helps to legitimize research on virtual worlds. This accomplishment is comparable to Kurt and Gladys Lang placing their article "The Unique Perspective of Television and Its Effect: A Pilot Study" in American Sociological Review back in 1952. Very cool!

In your review of the literature on cultivation theory, did you find that most of the previous studies used an experimental design? Did Gerbner use more general measures? I've always assumed that self-reported viewing hours were correlated with scores on public opinion measures about the incidence of violent crime.

Is it possible that the people who participated in the treatment condition could guess what type of effects you were investigating with the crime measures? Also, just out of curiosity, did you learn anything about their reactions to the game (and the genre) after playing AC2 for a month?

Aaron

[Indraunt]

9.

This is interesting because many years ago playing games started affecting my perceptions of reality.
I remember that at one point I was trying to figure out what I wanted for lunch. I had the choice between what I normally ate, and something a little unusual.
I actually thought to myself, "Okay, I'll try the unusual lunch. Afterall, if I don't like it, I can just reload and... oh my fucking god".
I'm not joking, I actually thought to myself that I could just go and reload if I made the wrong choice.
After that I stopped playing video games for about six years... Then WoW came along :/

[Rick R.]

10.

I think the more involved you are in the medium, the more interactive it is, the more pronounced the cultivation effect could or would be.
Watching television is primarily a passive activity. Playing an MMO, to one degree or another, is an interactive experience.

[Dmitri Williams]

11.

"I think the more involved you are in the medium, the more interactive it is, the more pronounced the cultivation effect could or would be.
Watching television is primarily a passive activity. Playing an MMO, to one degree or another, is an interactive experience."

I'm not entirely sure about this. My intuition is that "effects" occur differently when the user/player/viewer is highly aware than when they are couch potatoe-ing. Someone playing an active role may be less likely to be affected because they are aware of the unreality due to their hightened level of cognition. Or, maybe they are what Anderson & co. say, which is being affected more strongly because they are practicing behaviors. I tend to think it's answer #1, but really, no one knows or has even incorporated that idea into research yet. I hope to eventualy.

[Dmitri Williams]

12.

Mike:
"Dmitri if you're surprised by this, I'm guessing you've never seen a rose while walking through a neighborhood and thought, "hey! mageroyal!" ;-)"

Err, I'm personally probably mroe whacked than that. I consider using flash powder in meetings all the time . . .

In any case, thinking I have it vs. showing it vs. a control group to a skeptical panel of reviewers is a pretty big jump. Also, I wasn't sure exactly *how* it would happen. In the depth of the paper, there's a discussion about whether cultivation "spreads" or doesn't. That is, if one crime indicator jumped, would it bring everything else associated with crime along as well? So weapons jumped up, but the others didn't. That showed that the effect is pretty specific and doesn't "spread," which is not how a lot of people thought it works. And so, maybe people would see a rose/mageroyal, but not a sunflower and think herbalism.

[Dmitri Williams]

13.

bllius: "I'd like to see the followup results for this. Is it possible? How long does this change in perception hold? Does it drift back to the baseline? Also, one month is very short. What happens afte a year of gameplay?

Also, try this with a "positive" perception change. I'd like to see if the same holds true, otherwise you should not be able to extrapolate from the negative (participants playing a violent MMO showed increased expectation for assault with a weapon) to the positive (participants playing a flower power MMO will showed increased trust levels)."

All great questions, and I have no idea. As surprising as it is, no one had ever done a controlled experiment on any game that was longer than 75 minutes prior to this. One month was a pretty big jump, but it's also hard to pull off. Few companies help out researchers in this way, with notable exceptions. SO my data stop at one month, and that's the end of the story.

Of course, if you have a few grand lying around, I'd be happy to tell you about longer-term effects and/or positive outcomes and with different games. :)

[Mike Sellers]

14.

Good point on anecdote vs controlled study. And thanks for having a strong experimental design -- too many claims slide by based on sloshy design and bias confirmation.

Spread is an interesting question. For example (not having read the paper yet) does the increased "assault with a weapon" fear apply only to swords, or to guns (which aren't in AC2) as well? Semantic/cognitive spread is a really interesting question over all, as is the engagement vs practice effect you mentioned above. I wonder if the root here isn't internalization and identification, which could happen in either passive or interactive settings. I wonder too whether there might not be personality variables that affect the degree of cultivation (i.e., in Five Factor terms maybe higher neuroticism and lower surgency makes for increased identification and cultivation?). Many years of good papers in this, I think (and yeah, looking for a socially positive effect next would be nice).

[Dmitri Williams]

15.

Aaron: "Congratulations on being the first person to discuss MMOs in the pages of the Journal of Communication. For those of us situated within communication departments, your article helps to legitimize research on virtual worlds. This accomplishment is comparable to Kurt and Gladys Lang placing their article "The Unique Perspective of Television and Its Effect: A Pilot Study" in American Sociological Review back in 1952. Very cool!"

TY, sir. I was, as they say, pretty stoked to get the communication field noticing this. I think there is a lot of interest out there. I'm looking forward to taking the collective temperature at ICA in Dresden.

"In your review of the literature on cultivation theory, did you find that most of the previous studies used an experimental design?"

The original studies were content analyses of television, then cross-sectional surveys that attempted to correlate total volume of TV watched with attitudes about local crime. As noted, they were roundly rubbished, in no small part because TV is not a consistent set of images and ideas (despite Gerbner's claims).

Most of the other studies have been cross-sectional: For example, for people who watch a lot of soap operas, do they have different conceptions of love, etc. Of course, the causal arrow is borked there w/o experimental control.

"Did Gerbner use more general measures? I've always assumed that self-reported viewing hours were correlated with scores on public opinion measures about the incidence of violent crime."

That's exactly right. I used the same standard measures, which were about general crime. e.g. What do you think are the chances that any one person will be murdered in their lifetime? Answers 0-100%

"Is it possible that the people who participated in the treatment condition could guess what type of effects you were investigating with the crime measures?"

Always possible, but unlikely. The four measures used here were four of about 350 total questions. The study, like a lot of studies, was several experiments at one time with lots of measures and questions. We mix them in to try to prevent that very problem.

"Also, just out of curiosity, did you learn anything about their reactions to the game (and the genre) after playing AC2 for a month?"

I have some data on what they liked about the game and why, but I've never looked at it. That's partly because the dev wasn't interested (able, actually due to legal constraints) and because it doesn't help me publish academic articles. It's the sort of place where an academic study could be really useful to a dev if they were to work on it together. (Fair warning: I'm going to flog this dead horse at GDC) But if the dev isn't interested and it doesn't help me test theories, it isn't going to get analyzed.

Also, I think Nick Yee has better, more nuanced questions to get at motivations and preferences about play. Honestly, when I came up with my measures a few years back, I knew a lot less about MMOs. We've seen Bartle's typology and Nick's counterpoints. I've seen Nick's questions and the factor analysis validation work behind them and I think that they're the best set we have until someone comes up with a better refinement. If I were to do it again (OK, I am doing it in other projects right now), I would use (am using) his.

[Dmitri Williams]

16.

Mike: "Spread is an interesting question. For example (not having read the paper yet) does the increased "assault with a weapon" fear apply only to swords, or to guns (which aren't in AC2) as well?"

Dunno for sure. My measure was necessarily crude because I had to have some item that existed in the world of AC2 and also existed in RL. So I just used "weapon." I think that there was spreading within that minor category because the swords, staves and bows in AC2 clearly aren't what people had in mind when answering a question about RL weapons. So it spread within "weapons" but not up to the next level, "crime."

"Semantic/cognitive spread is a really interesting question over all, as is the engagement vs practice effect you mentioned above. I wonder if the root here isn't internalization and identification, which could happen in either passive or interactive settings."

This is a great point. I think that these might be key moderators for game effects in all gaming. They aren't on researchers' radar yet, but I've been putting out articles to nudge us that way. Do involved people get a different level of cultivation, but lower straight effects? That's intriguing.

"I wonder too whether there might not be personality variables that affect the degree of cultivation (i.e., in Five Factor terms maybe higher neuroticism and lower surgency makes for increased identification and cultivation?)."

I didn't use the Big 5 (not a big fan), but I can report that Introversion/Extroversion and Loneliness did not moderate the effects.

[Franek]

17.

This study is good news. There is a tension we’ve created between games for fun and serious games. We want to say, on the one hand, that games that involve us in mock violence don’t have an impact on behavior in the real world. On the other hand we want to say that we can learn from games and transfer that learning to the real world. Your study adds support to an intuitive truth – that whatever we engage in we integrate it to some extent in our world view.

Does this put the discussion to rest? I hope not. You’ve pointed out that there’s a lot more work to be done. And with recent reports of physiological support for empathy ( http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~tsinger/ ) I wonder if there isn’t some potential for exploring the mechanism underlying the results from that perspective.

Moving forward here, though, can we add a moral dimension to our discussions of games. Do game developers have a responsibility to consider the impact of their audiences? Does the money we can generate from a slash and stab game justify the damage it might do to it’s players? Or more fundamentally, does the lack of consequence of a game – arguably one of its virtues – justify any perception of a lack of consequence in the real world that it might generate?

[dave]

18.

did you measure involvment in the game by asking content specific questions in the post assessment?

i am willing to bet that the degree of interest in the game is a better predictor than hours played.

19.

That graph is hilarious. I'd like to see if this holds true over a larger sample, because as it is, i simply can't believe there is a real correlation.

[Dmitri Williams]

20.

dave: "did you measure involvment in the game by asking content specific questions in the post assessment?

i am willing to bet that the degree of interest in the game is a better predictor than hours played."

I didn't, other thank to ask general liking, but I didn't include it in the analysis. Your hypothesis is a good one, too. Either that or an interaction of hours*intensity would probably yield something.

Anonymous Person: "That graph is hilarious. I'd like to see if this holds true over a larger sample, because as it is, i simply can't believe there is a real correlation."

Well, Anonymous Person, that's why we have statistics. And the problem isn't the number of people in the sample. There is a test for that, known as "power" and measured by a thing called Cohen's D. This one is solid. The use of the graph is more to show where clusters are. The line of best fit is obviously important, but an interesting phenomenon is to look at duration times and to see whether the effects start or stop after some time span. FWIW, I ran the stats after removing the graph outliers and the line slope was basically unchanged.

[CherryBomb]

21.

Given that participants obviously can self-select how much time they spend playing the game, I'd be a little cautious about correlating RL perceptions with playing time.

[Dmitri Williams]

22.

Fair point, Cherry, and you've hit the key connudrum in doing experimental work. Do you bring them into an artificial setting, where it's really obvious that they're being tested and you can only keep them for an hour or two? In that case, you wonder what "playing a game for 30 minutes in a lab" really tells you. Or do you let it be more "natural," go for longer periods of time, and give up some of that control? It's a sliding scale with tradeoffs. I opted for the natural, longer time and gave up the ability to have them play an exact amount. Still, the resulting variation in hours played is what lets that graph exist. If there was no variation, you wouldn't have any leverage into when the effects started or stopped (we call this the "functional form" of the effects).

Also, I imposed one small item of control, which was that they had to promise to play a minimum of five hours per week to participate.

The bottom line is that one study doesn't totally prove anything because of these known shortcomings. The best conclusions come from triangulating findings over a series of studies. If they hold up under a range of circumstances, then we start to feel better about making strong statements.

[Ken Fox]

23.

Dmitri, I have to agree with Anonymous Person that the graph is hilarious to my untrained eye. It's a cloud with a line drawn through it. ;) On the other hand, I know you're trying to quantify something subtle, so I'm curious to see (and Anonymous is too probably) if the results are repeatable.

It would be interesting to find two games that your hypothesis indicates will have opposite results and measure both. If the populations move opposite to the control, that might help remove the effects of self selection.

What do you think about games like America's Army? Is that too blatant or does cultivation happen regardless of whether a person is consciously aware of it? Do you think we'll see more games trying to influence people?

[J R Martinson]

24.

Your treatment utilizes self-selection, and it only takes people from a control group who are the sort of people who go for such "generous offers" as free ipods. Perhaps they're similar to the population at large, but i'm strongly skeptical. I find it hard to believe that people who respond to such ads on internet websites aren't a little more gullible than the average bear. Then again pyramid schemes, pigeon droppings, and massive spam campaigns still take place and make money, so the average bear may well be very gullible.

One thing that gets me is that the violence within a game might be aggrivated by the participation of others who you know to be real persons. If the participants knew that they were not interacting with other people, would they have the same perceptions about violence? The absence of PVP does not negate the possibility of extremely negative interactions, for example robbing someone (ninjalooters). I have to find the notion that they will be exposed to less of the sort of negative interactions, if not outright violence, from other players simply because their avatars cannot directly harm one another rather suspect.

[CherryBomb]

25.

I am only a geologist, but if you need any research help,let me know. It sounds interesting.

[Grant Davis]

26.

Dear Dimitri,

I'm a bit confused; your post mentions "assault with a weapon", while your paper mentions "robbery with a weapon". What was the exact question used in the study?

[Dmitri Williams]

27.

Grant,

This is the verbatim question form:

What do you think the chances are that any one person will be robbed by someone with a weapon in their lifetime?
Estimate the percentage here (0 to 100):

[Dmitri Williams]

28.

Ken "What do you think about games like America's Army? Is that too blatant or does cultivation happen regardless of whether a person is consciously aware of it?"

What kind of cultivation effect do you think AA would generate? I'm not familiar enough with it to speculate. I know that we think about guns and such automatically, but I'd be equally interested to see if teamwork is something that could be cultivated. Like do people who play team-based FPS games think that there is more teamwork in the world, or that people are cooperative (or not!) after playing?

And the consciously aware part isn't really well understood, which is a problem in nearly all of the game research. Most people put the players in a model as fairly passive receptacles, or if they are active, assume that they are eating up the effects even more so. I tend to think that an active level of awareness could make outcomes really weak or really strong, depending how the person sets their filters and values. This is all untested to date, which always makes me wonder how people can make such strong statements about effects.

"Do you think we'll see more games trying to influence people?"

Well, I'm not sure devs ARE trying to influence people as a rule. I would guess that they don't factor that in as much as worrying about gameplay, art and milestones. Devs can feel free to correct me since I'm an outsider.

[Mike Sellers]

29.

Dmitri, I don't think I have an attributable source, but I've been told by military types that AA has had several discernable effects including increasing the "quality" of new recruits (the game tries to reinforce military values) and more quantifiable ones like fewer injuries on firing ranges. In effect, the self-filtering and virtual experience in the game translates well over into the real world. This game is far and away the least expensive and most effective recruiting tool ever devised.

I'm not sure devs ARE trying to influence people as a rule. I would guess that they don't factor that in as much as worrying about gameplay, art and milestones. Devs can feel free to correct me since I'm an outsider.

I think you're right, and I think that's often wrong. :) That is, devs rarely try to influence people overtly, but I hope that some devs will begin to treat games as something more than cognitive cotton candy and put some thought into what messages they're sending with their games.

[Dmitri Williams]

30.

JR: "Your treatment utilizes self-selection, and it only takes people from a control group who are the sort of people who go for such "generous offers" as free ipods. Perhaps they're similar to the population at large, but i'm strongly skeptical."

Skepticism is welcome, but consider that whoever was sampled to be in the study was randomly assigned to be in either the treatment group or control group. Let's say I got 40 felons, or 50 manic depressives or 60 introverts. Half would wind up in each group, which would correct and systematic imbalances. Of course, if I got ALL of some type of person then the control-treatment thing wouldn't be at issue, but the generalizability of the results would. What I can say to address that is that the sample wasn't particularly different from the regular population on the demographics or psychometric batteries that were in there. Also, the recruitment was heavy on referral. The note asked current players to tell friends who'd never played but might be willing to try if they were to get a free copy of a game. I think that brought in a fair amount of "regular" people.

"One thing that gets me is that the violence within a game might be aggrivated by the participation of others who you know to be real persons. If the participants knew that they were not interacting with other people, would they have the same perceptions about violence?"

This is a great question, and one I've asked the effects community for a while now. There isn't any research on MMOs, but there is a recent study on aggression with team vs. computer compared to team vs. team, and it found that the aggression only showed up in the team vs. team group. That's not cultivation being tested, but I thought it was an intriguing outcome that tells me what I've always suspected (and is common sense): context matters.

[Dmitri Williams]

31.

So, Mike, do you think that they are being cultivated to believe that the military is an appropriate career path or that soldiers are good people? That wouldn't be a stretch. The key would be a fair amount of exposure, and like some have said here, whether or not the player was intentionally welcoming the themes. That's guesswork, of course.

Posters here have asked great "what about X?" questions that I don't have the answers to. This was the first study to test the phenomenon in games, and as usual it generates more questions. These things are also pretty expensive and time-consuming to test, especially without the aid of game companies.

[Mike Sellers]

32.

I think with AA it's more reinforcement than cultivation of cultural norms, though the line there is fuzzy at best. I suspect some might turn away from the Army as a career after playing the game, finding it not to their tastes (too violent or perhaps not wildly violent enough).

[galiel]

33.

devs rarely try to influence people overtly, but I hope that some devs will begin to treat games as something more than cognitive cotton candy and put some thought into what messages they're sending with their games.

I would just add the critical point, which is almost never discussed, which is that absence of deliberate intent does not equal neutral content; that, in fact, all cultural content has inherent messages and biases, which is why it is not only a good idea, but a basic responsibility, to design with awareness.

Metaphorically, ignorance of the law is no defense ;-)

[Mike Sellers]

34.

If we accept the cultivation hypothesis and the attendant responsibility this puts on game developers, it goes right back to Jung's (to me, foundational) quote: "One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games. And it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive values."

[Dmitri Williams]

35.

Well, keep in mind that cultivation per se is not the same thing as effects. Cultivation is the ability to influence perceptions, not attitudes. So someone cultivated by America's Army might think "Soldiers are tough people," or "there are a lot of terrorists." But "I want to be a soldier" is a separate step that I didn't test or prove.

[Charles]

36.

Dmitri - Well, I'm not sure devs ARE trying to influence people as a rule. I would guess that they don't factor that in as much as worrying about gameplay, art and milestones. Devs can feel free to correct me since I'm an outsider.

Based on my own small experience within the industry, I would say that by and large, influence is not a concern for developers. I've never seen any indication that the designers think about the implications of the gameplay they implemented on the mind, other than addictiveness factor.
I'd wager that most developers aren't even aware of cultivation theory. Any concern by designers about influencing people would be painted in much broader (and perhaps imaginary) strokes, such as Will Wright's famous decisions about public transport in SimCity, or same-sex relationships in The Sims. Games with licensed brands often have specific guidelines in which they can display the products, again to avoid (perhaps imaginary) associations of the product in question with undesirable situations. I say perhaps imaginary because I'm not aware of the literature on the subject, so I don't know if such heavy-handed attempts are actually effective in influencing the audiences point of view (anecdotal evidence aside).

[Samantha LeCraft]

37.

I'd wager that most developers aren't even aware of cultivation theory.

You mean, of course, other than all the developers reading and posting here, right?

38.

"I believe Dmitri's finding. In my experience, those who have been immersed in human societies that operate under open PvP rules, seem to have developed a much more accurate sense of the true character of homo sapiens when not in captivity: savage."

That post is so off kilter its about to fall over.

[Franek]

39.

Is it important for game developers to have a moral compass? Is Terra Nova the right place to discuss it? Morality seems like one of the “social, economic, legal, psychological, and political aspects of [virtual] worlds”.

I went back through the Terra Nova archives and looked for all the places responsibility and morality have been discussed. I found many threads discussing developers’ responsibility for the social consequences of their designs. But I didn’t find any discussion of how, if they accept responsibility, they decide what to include and what to leave out?

Morality has always informed games. Games that train hunting skills prepare young men for adult roles. Deciding what constitutes an adult role is a moral judgment. Having capable hunters is a good thing. When two guys square off in the boxing ring rather than going after each other with baseball bats in the parking lot there’s a moral decision made about appropriate limits on violence. Not beating someone to death is a good thing. And when people explore personal social strategies in a game the structure of the game may favor some behaviors, like honesty, over others. What strategies it favors is a moral decision. Sticking to one's commitments is a good thing.

While I can’t pretend to a deep survey, it appears we aren’t exploring the moral aspect of our designs. Should we?

[Mike Sellers]

40.

While I can’t pretend to a deep survey, it appears we aren’t exploring the moral aspect of our designs. Should we?

We can try, but it tends to makes people nervous. They quickly limber up phrases like "freedom of speech," perhaps confusing explorations of morality with preludes to prohibition. Also not sure if discussing this here in Dmitri's item is the best place?

I can say this though: one difficult aspect of exploring or providing moral decisions and consequences in the context of an MMO means that you have to build effective moral choices into the game landscape -- especially ones that you as a designer may find noxious. Without the ability to choose, or if the choices are trivial or without real consequences, any morality is just a sham without meaning to the players.

This puts a fairly heavy burden on designers: consequences need to be "fun" (or at least only soft-failures) in most cases, and you have to decide where to draw the line with particularly noisome moral choices: GTA has killing prostitutes, but most MMOs rely on looting dead bodies, and WoW has cannibalistic necrophagy! Where to draw moral (and moralistic) lines is clearly a difficult and context-laden issue.

41.

"Where to draw moral (and moralistic) lines is clearly a difficult and context-laden issue."

More so in real life than in games I suspect.

[Franek]

42.

Mike said:

"...not sure if discussing this here in Dmitri's item is the best place?"

You're right. Perhaps you or one of the other authors would be interested in starting the discussion. The issues you raise in your post show that you've already given it a lot of thought.

[Dmitri Williams]

43.

You folks should feel free to post anything you like here. I really wanted to hear what people thought about the implications of the findings.

Once more, though, let me explain that cultivation is not the same as traditional effects. When we think about what games teach, or what games cause or what people will do to others (good or bad) as a result of play, that's the domain of effects.

Cultivation is more about perceptions. These can, in turn, impact behaviors, but not directly in the way most effects researchers have in mind.

Thus, my thoughts about the implications of the finding were more to do with norm-setting than effects thinking. For example, would a game with all beautiful people make the player think more RL people are beautiful than really are? Would a game that engenders a lot of trust make players think that more people are trusting/trustworthy than really are. etc.

[phil]

44.

I have heard anecdotes to the effect that a similar paranoia can occur with martial arts students. This is perhaps to be expected if the students are policemen or soldiers, due to the working situations that they find themselves in, but if it applies to students of, say, tai ch'i or capoeira then something else must be happening.

[Alex]

45.

Cultivation: Cyber-punk twist, anybody?

we talk about games affecting/twisting real-world behaviors, - but how about the other way?

Imagine a teleworker of the (near) future: he works in VR, and maybe some of the weird metaphors (magic posions etc.) are actually OK for his employer. Then, we got someone 8hrs a day WORKING - not playing - in VR, say, mixing potions, - eg compiling computer code or searching smth - or a VR cop avatar chasing a "real" hacker-avatar that happens to do his "real business" in that same VR space...

... then - most of business transactions migrate to VR - and maybe there are no confusions - because there is no R-analogy at all... Work in VR, Talk in VR, play in VR, WATCH VR (""People of Importance", rom disk 2005 go")... what are we left with that is reserved for the R? - Drink, eat, sex (perhaps;) ) & sleep (sometimes)...

Here is one scenario for the near-future: a low-poly "production/exploitatin VR" - not fancy - probably way more low-poly than even WOW - but functional cynical twisted Tailorist construct... Just remember to plug out to sip a coffee or two... "Wake up, Neo...":

http://www.revolverfactory.com/powerhype.php

[Alex]

46.

Cultivation 2: Books, history - why games should work differenly from any other form of narration people relate to and escape into?...
How many bosses fancy themselves Napoleon or Ceasar - moving "legions" of employees - or how about military thinking toy solgiers (I bet)... Its all "memonic infections" of some sort - and they often do work - or it seems soo - and they do kill options we do not want to see - some mutant form of escapism... (sure someone can help me out with the right diagnosis here) ;) Actually, we can twist and "lipstick" un-wanted R way much better than an occational daydreaming of a bored cubible warrior...

[Alex]

47.

"Wake up, Neo,... where is the last weeks time sheet?"
;)

[galiel]

48.

A designer's role vis a vis morality need not be strictly proscriptive.

There is another possibility, which is to look at the opportunities to enable and empower players, via deliberate design, to develop constructive social norms.

In the political domain, a "democratic republic" is not in and of itself a moral pre- or proscription. It is an empowering toolset--with deliberately designed affordances that skew socially-constructive.

In the sports domain, team-based sports, where the competition is not individual vs. individual and teams, not individuals, gain most of the glory and share tangible benefits, do not represent in and of themselves moral choices. However, the dynamics of team competition tend to defuse individual antagonism and destructive behavior among players, and, with few exceptions, team sports overall attract larger, more consistent and long-lasting fan bases than individual stars do.

Similarly, if, in the process of game design, we think about how the decisions we make and the affordances implicitly built in to our designs can skew cultural norms and the nature of social interactions within our worlds, we create worlds that are inherently more commercial and sustainable. The less energy players expend in directions that increase customer support burdens, increase churn and decrease the "newbie friendliness" of an environment, the better for business.

This, to me, is the most surprising aspect of the strong resistance to discussing social responsibility in games: the lack of even considering the possibility that social responsibility and profitability need not be any more orthogonal than social responsibility and fun. These are not binary choices, they are win-win choices.

[Sweetzer]

49.

Has anyone seen the case that Blizzard just lost? The rumor is that they were sued by a gold-farmer b/c they banned his/its accounts. The rumor continues that they were ordered to give back his/its accounts, items and pay $250,000. Blizzard, obviously, is being very quiet about it. I have not seen the case, so I'm asking in hope that someone here has. Anything?

[Franek]

50.

Galiel wrote:

This, to me, is the most surprising aspect of the strong resistance to discussing social responsibility in games: the lack of even considering the possibility that social responsibility and profitability need not be any more orthogonal than social responsibility and fun.

I thought there was just as much tension between social responsibility and fun.

It seems the argument goes like this. If we admit there is an effect from games in the real world we admit that we may have some responsibility for that effect. If, in addition, we inform our designs with a moral stance, we admit not only that we have responsibility but intent. Since no one has much experience with where responsibility for the effects of video games ends people don’t have much basis on which to judge their risk.

In that light resistance is understandable. On the one hand developers have the difficult world of complex design, corporate pressure and consumer capriciousness. On the other they have all that and the added burden of dealing with the law, social criticism, and a more difficult set of design elements to juggle.

What’s the motivation for change?

[Dmitri Williams]

51.

Well, what's the motivation to do the right thing in any capitalist environment? Some comes from values people hold, and some comes from the threat of the state. Here's hoping that the former kicks in before the latter. It is, after all, about to be political season.

In any case, I don't think my results (in this paper, anyway) really confront designers with tough morality choices because the paper doesn't suggest that players alter their behavior. It just suggests that it alters their perceptions.

So some consequences might be: Do you want your players to think the world is homogenous and filled only with beautiful people? Do you want players to think others are essentially trustworthy, or not? I'm not suggesting that there is even a right answer here and that designers should make games with or without certain elements. I think the results merely suggest that designers consider these outcomes and the possible influence they have. With great power comes great responsibility and all that...

52.

"In any case, I don't think my results (in this paper, anyway) really confront designers with tough morality choices because the paper doesn't suggest that players alter their behavior. It just suggests that it alters their perceptions."

Another thing to consider is that perhaps the pyhsical nature of playing MMO's is the cause. I mean the act of playing rather than the content. The safety of interacting with other people only through a telephone line may make the physical world outside seem comparatively and inherently more risky.

[Dmitri Williams]

53.

No, or the other measures of outside riskiness would have changed over the course of the study as well. It was context-specific.

54.

Murder doesnt exist in asheron's call???

55.

or for that matter, murder then robbery?

[Dmitri Williams]

56.

If you think true murder exists in AC2, try to rez in real life.

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

57.

Dmitri: So some consequences might be: Do you want your players to think the world is homogenous and filled only with beautiful people?

An important question, especially as teenagers are involved. Unfortunately players don't choose the whacko-cool-ugly characters, they choose the same mainstream-pretty-faces. So developers are left in the dust, unless they attach game-capabilties to non-mainstream looks...

Now, most players probably "understand" that the outgroup are "ugly and annoying turds" using misrepresenting gorgous avatars. So, I don't think they would end up with an explicit theory that the world is filled with such people, but I think they might "feel" that the ingroup (those they like) are somewhat similar to the avatar they choose. After all, the people we like are supposed to be "better" and more "honest"... So for some a cultivation effect might be more like: It is a shame I'm not prettier than what I am, because those who matters are. Just a hypothesis and probably more pronounced for users of datingservices with "photoshop'ed" photographic avatars with perfected make-up (teenage girls).

[Hoesin, Hanif]

58.

Now, I'll conduct the research, using cultivaion theory. The topic Perseption of TV Viewer on Violance and Reality". i need the questionnaire, that have done in you'r country.
Thanks

Hoesin, Hanif (Indonesia)

[Hoesin, Hanif]

59.

I need the questionnaire using cultivation theory on tv program. Any one to send me? I'll conduct the research about violence program on tv.

Thanks.

Hanif

[casino games]

60.

casino games top games on the net - http://casinogamestop.funsmart.com/

[buy soma]

61.

BUY SOMA cheapest and good buy soma here http://buysoma.fictionworld.com/

[gambling online]

62.

gambling ONLINE real or free at gambling online http://gamblingonline.fictioncity.com/

[las vegas casino]

63.

las vegas casino online thanks alot and look here http://lasvegascasinoonline.lovesgames.com/ las vegas casino

[wow gold]

64.

wow gold world of warcraft gold