(Don't) stand by me: How trait psychopathy and NPC emotion influence player perceptions, verbal responses, and movement behaviours in a gaming task

Title of the Paper

(Don’t) stand by me: How trait psychopathy and NPC emotion influence player perceptions, verbal responses, and movement behaviours in a gaming task

Paper Information

• Subject Area: Human-Computer Interaction, Gaming Behavior, and Psychology
• Keywords: Gaming, Boldness, Meanness, Disinhibition, Relational Distance, Personality Traits, Psychopathy, Social Interaction, Behavior

Research Background and Problem

• Identified Problem/Challenge: While social interactions in digital games can benefit players, they may also lead to harmful behaviors. It remains unclear whether psychopathy traits (including boldness, meanness, and disinhibition) influence players' social behaviors and how these behaviors manifest in gaming scenarios.
• Significance of the Problem: Harmful social behaviors in games can negatively impact players' experiences, the overall health of gaming communities, and potentially lead to player attrition.
• Research Motivation and Related Work:
  • Previous studies have shown that psychopathy is associated with certain harmful social behaviors, such as invading personal space and cyberbullying.
  • Gaming behaviors are also thought to reflect users' real-world personalities and social preferences. However, the specific manifestations of psychopathy traits in games remain underexplored.

Solution

• Research Methodology/Solution:
  • The authors employed an experimental design to assess players' psychopathy traits and observe their behavioral responses when interacting with non-player characters (NPCs) exhibiting friendly or angry emotions.
  • Specific measurements included: players' perceptions of NPC emotions, the use of social and abusive language in verbal interactions, interaction distance between players and NPCs, and movement paths when navigating around NPCs.
• Innovations:
  • Linking psychopathy traits (boldness, meanness, disinhibition) to social behaviors in digital games, particularly in scenarios involving emotional processing.
  • Standardizing experiments by using NPCs instead of real humans, thus avoiding uncertainties inherent in real-world interactions.
• Implementation Steps:
  • Designing a character customization interface to enhance player-character association.
  • Creating tasks involving player-NPC interactions (friendly or angry emotions) and recording behavioral responses.
  • Using psychological scales (e.g., Triarchic Psychopathy Measure) and language analysis tools (e.g., LIWC-2015) to assess psychopathy traits and behavioral deviations.

Research Findings

• Specific Findings:
  • Emotion Perception: Players with higher boldness or meanness traits tended to perceive neutral NPCs as angrier and angry NPCs as less angry.
  • Verbal Expression: Players with high boldness and meanness traits used more abusive language when interacting with angry NPCs and fewer social words when interacting with neutral NPCs.
  • Interpersonal Distance: Players with lower disinhibition maintained greater distance from angry NPCs, while those with high meanness traits exhibited behaviors that violated personal space.
  • Movement Path: Players with higher boldness and meanness traits were more likely to disregard NPCs' personal space, focusing instead on direct goal-oriented navigation.
• Comparison with Existing Solutions: This study provides a novel perspective on player behavior by connecting personality theories (specifically psychopathy) with social behavior manifestations in games.
• Experimental or Evaluation Results:
  • Psychopathy traits are closely related to emotional processing, verbal interactions, and spatial behaviors in gaming contexts.
  • Different psychopathy traits (boldness, meanness, disinhibition) manifest in distinct ways during gameplay.
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  • The study only used two simple emotional conditions (friendly and angry); future research could explore more complex emotional interactions.
  • The experiment focused on NPC interactions and did not involve real player-to-player interactions.
  • Data collection was conducted via online platforms (MTurk and Prolific), which may pose data quality concerns. Future studies could use offline experiments for validation.
  • The NPCs' gender and racial homogeneity limit the generalizability of the results; future designs should incorporate greater diversity.