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Conditioned Pleasure
Meaningful play is key to designing pleasure in games, but it is only by making choices that meaningful play emerges. If you recall from Interactivity, a choice is made up of two primary components: the action that the player takes and the outcome of that action. Our exploration of the core mechanic focused on the action half of the equation: the actual activity that the player performs. So what about the other half-the outcome? One way of framing this facet of the moment of choice is that whenever a player takes an action, she ends up being rewarded or punished by the game as a result.
Psychologists have studied the connection between choice, action, reward, and punishment in a variety of contexts. One useful approach, known as behavior theory, emphasizes observable behavior, specifically the way that interaction with an environment shapes behavior. Ivan Pavlov and John B. Watson were early proponents of behavior theory and developed a series of experiments designed to study learned behavior. In one famous experiment, a bell would ring as dogs were fed a meal. Eventually, the dogs came to associate the bell-ringing with food, and would salivate at the sound of the bell. The dogs had been "conditioned" to provide their natural response to food (which was to salivate) even when the food was not present. Pavlov and Watson believed that the same principles could be applied to human behavior. This kind of conditioning, in which innate reflex responses are tied to a new stimulus, became known as classical conditioning. [16] Psychologist B. F. Skinner refined the ideas of Watson and Pavlov by rejecting their exclusive emphasis on reflexes and natural conditioning. Instead, Skinner attributed a more active role to the learning subject. According to Skinner's theory of operant behavior, people learn to behave the way that they do because a certain kind of behavior has been rewarded in the past. If a lab rat learns that pressing a lever results in a food pellet appearing, it is going to develop a strong tendency to press that lever over time. Behavior theory distinguishes between positive reinforcements (a positive reward, such as a rat getting a food pellet), negative reinforcements (the removal of something unpleasant, like silencing a loud, high-pitched noise), and punishments (the addition of something unpleasant, such as a sudden electric shock). Each kind of reinforcement can be effective in a particular context, usually when the reinforcement or punishment event immediately follows the behavior it is meant to condition. Reinforcements often function because their effects of pain and pleasure are linked to innate biological responses. However, punishments and reinforcements that operate on social and cultural levels can also have strong effects for people. For example, a nod and smile from a teacher can serve as powerful positive reinforcement. In games, these kind of non-bio-logical reinforcements as the outcome of a game choice are common. For example, positive reinforcement in a game might involve giving a player bonus points or an extra life; a negative reinforcement might be eliminating a debilitating disease from a game character; a punishment might be a damaging attack on a player's character. Games are systems of meaning. It is within their artificial boundaries that rewards and punishments are interpreted as positive or negative and gain force to shape player behavior. Operant conditioning reminds game designers to pay attention to the way a game encourages or discourages certain behaviors. In creating rewards and punishments, game designers shape the actions players are likely to take in the future. This is an important game design concept, especially in digital games, where the program automates so much of the play activity. [16]Henry Gleitman, Psychology, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1986).
