The Psychology of Video Game Mischief
In 2019, over one million people paid to play as a small goose stealing objects, scaring children, and wreaking havoc on a village. Videos were shared, memes were made, and plenty of laughter was had.
But why?
Video game mischief is not new to the world of gaming. For decades, gamers have enjoyed evil playthroughs of video games and bullying non-player characters (NPCs). But what drives us to do this? Why do we enjoy doing this? Are the people who do this evil?
After the success of Untitled Goose Game, I feel that this topic warrants psychological research attention. In this article, I will explain why gamers engage in video game mischief and why they find it so enjoyable. This article will answer two questions:
- Why do gamers engage in video game mischief and evil playthroughs of video games?
- Why do gamers laugh at and enjoy video game mischief?
Please note that I will be excluding reasons for evil playthroughs such as wanting to see all endings of a game. As usual, there will be a summary at the bottom if you do not wish to read everything. Now, let’s begin!
Contents
The Theory of Video Game Mischief
“I’m Blowing Off Steam”
When asking people directly why they engage in video game mischief, it is common to hear phrases such as “I’m blowing off steam”. As this is a common response, let’s explore it further.
Acting out or expressing pent-up emotions is known as catharsis (Griffiths, 1999). Research finds that when people are allowed to express their pent-up anger in a controlled environment, our blood pressure decreases and we feel more calm (Geen & Quanty, 1977; Verona & Sullivan, 2008; Hokanson & Edelman, 1966). It is better for us to safely express our frustrations and emotions rather than bottling them up.
Video games can be a safe outlet to express frustration. Ferguson et al. (2014) set out to explore reasons why people play violent video games. In this study, participants were provided with a list of potential reasons, including ‘Video games help me get my anger out’ and ‘Video games help me forget my problems’. Those who played games for cathartic reasons were significantly more likely to play violent video games. When gamers are asked directly why they play violent video games, 62% report playing for relaxation purposes, and 45% play them to “get their anger out” (Kutner & Olson, 2008).
Evidence seems to support the idea that gamers engaging in video game mischief are “blowing off steam”. However, I feel that this is an incomplete explanation for two reasons:
- Two examples of cathartic video games I can think of are Doom and Devil May Cry. In these games, you are defeating demons who threaten the peace of humanity. You are the good guy, and it’s very common for you to be the good guy even if you’re playing a violent video game.
- The catharsis theory argues that games need to be physically intense so that we can “blow off steam”. This theory may not explain why people choose evil options in non-intense games such as text-based RPGs and visual novels.
As I am not a fan of incomplete explanations, I dug deeper into this mystery to provide more research goodness for you all.
Digital Laboratories
One time when babysitting my nephew, he whacked a toy off a surface. In awe of the noise that it made, he spent the next ten minutes whacking the toy off every surface in the room to identify its sound.
Humans are hypothesis testers. We form ideas of the world and gather data to either support or contradict our hypotheses. While Piaget argues that we become small scientists around the age of two (Piaget, 1936), recent research finds that this can be as early as six months old. In Gredebäck et al.‘s research (2018), infants reacted in shock when seeing someone fed food to their forehead rather than their mouth. This seemed to contradict their theory that food enters through the mouth, and they responded with shock to this new data.
While we like to experiment and gather data on the world, we recognise from an early age that there is one research field that is typically off-limits – humans. According to Theory of Mind, our ability to take the perspective of another person also occurs around the age of two (Call & Tomasello, 1998). By taking their perspective, we gain the ability to empathise with others and understand the consequences of our actions. Let’s take a common example from RPGs – going into someone’s house and looting it right in front of them. Even if we ignore legal consequences, most people wouldn’t do this in real life as we understand that stealing possessions would lead to the person feeling scared, hurt, fearing for their safety, mourning over lost and potentially sentimental items etc.
Video games are digital laboratories that allow us to explore social hypotheses. What would happen if I betrayed my comrade? What would happen if I made a choice for my own personal benefit rather than the greater good? Empathy often prevents us from gaining data on more sinister aspects of society. When we explore the darker side of humanity in video games, it does not hurt anyone and we can observe the outcomes of mischievous behaviour as programmed by video game developers.
So we may engage in video game destruction as a method of blowing off steam, or we may use video games as digital laboratories to see what happens when we pretend to be bad guys. But why does video game mischief bring us so much joy and laughter? Let’s move on to the next section.
The Humour of Video Game Mischief
Humour is massively subjective, so it should come as no surprise that there are a multitude of theories available to explain why we find things funny. Due to the large number of theories available, I have selected the top three theories of humour that I feel best explain why we find video game mischief hilarious.
Not Today, Karen
Philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, and Descartes believed in the Superiority Theory of humour. Superiority Theory states that we find things funny because we enjoy the misery of others (Morreall, 2016). Humans are competitive and life is hard, so when we have an opportunity to feel superior to someone, we take it.
Superiority Theory is pretty cruel and doesn’t explain a lot of modern-day humour, but can be useful when it comes to video game mischief. Let’s say you work in retail and have had to deal with eight hours of rude customers. When you get home, you can boot up a game and trash shops at will. You are not beholden to Karen, you don’t have to keep the shop immaculate, you are in control in this digital world – and it feels good. In the video clip I shared above, the player jokes that he is now God in the video game. They derived a sense of pleasure from being the boss in a video game and being accountable to no one.
You’re Not Supposed to Laugh…
A curiosity surrounding humour is why we laugh at crude or dark jokes. I mentioned in my Psychology of Twitch article how we receive psychological and social rewards for being good people, so why do we laugh at things like dark humour?
This is typically explained using something known as Incongruity Theory (Bergson, 1980). This theory argues that we can find crude humour funny because it deviates from our expectations. When someone says or does something that violates a social or moral norm, it can get a giggle out of us due to how unexpected it is. I had an ovary removed and a cancer scare at 15. While recovering from surgery, I repeated Bart Simpson’s “Ow, my ovaries” joke and got some cheeky laughs. I was lying in a hospital bed waiting to find out if I had cancer, yet I was cracking jokes about my dismal situation. Incongruity Theory argues that the disconnect of a hospital patient cracking wise about their trauma leads to laughter.
When relating this to video games, let’s use an example from Untitled Goose Game. There is a sequence in the game where you scare a young boy into a phone booth due to your incessant honking. This entire sequence is ludicrous: you’re a small goose and all you can do is honk, but you filled someone with so much fear from honking that they voluntarily trap themselves in a glass prison. The contrast between your unharmful (yet mighty) honking and the utter terror experienced by the child makes us giggle.
…But It’s Okay
Every winter in Ireland, the same video recirculates of a man slipping and falling on ice. The video is so iconic that there is now a plaque dedicated to the man on that street.
This video is perfect for introducing a theory that often goes hand-in-hand with Incongruity Theory – Benign Violations Theory, or BVT (McGraw & Warren, 2003). BVT argues that we laugh at scenarios like the ice video because there were no serious consequences and no one was seriously hurt. If the man slipped and didn’t get back up again, this story would have a much different ending. The voiceover on the video states “the man was not seriously hurt” during the fall, as if it is giving us permission to laugh.
Research shows that violating morals close to us influences whether we find something funny. A study by McGraw and Warren provided religious and non-religious samples with a story. In this story, a church sold raffle tickets for a luxury car in the hope of attracting more churchgoers. Religious participants were angered by this story because they felt it was betraying core moral and spiritual values of the church. Non-religious participants found the hypocrisy of a spiritual body attracting an audience through consumer goods funny. The people who perceived hurt from the story (i.e. the reputation of the church) didn’t find it funny, but the people who didn’t perceive hurt found it funny.
I’m an animal lover, but I chuckled while throwing a pig into the ocean in Wind Waker. Video games act as safe social laboratories where no one gets hurt and no morals are violated. It’s not a real pig, nothing bad will happen if I do this, and I wouldn’t do this to a real pig in a million years. The fictitious nature of this means that I get to sit back and laugh at the funny animation of the pig tumbling.
Summary
- Inspired by the success of Untitled Goose Game, I set out to explore why people engage in video game mischief and why we find it so funny.
- A common reason given for this is the idea of “blowing off steam”. People can safely express their anger and frustration with no consequences, and research shows this is commonly why people play violent video games. However, this is an incomplete explanation as protagonists in violent video games are still commonly portrayed as good guys, and it doesn’t explain why we can be mischievous in text-heavy games with limited physical catharsis.
- From a very early age, we become scientists looking to explore and gather data from the world around us. While we may be curious to know what happens when we betray someone or act in a selfish manner, this is data we don’t often collect. Due to something known as Theory of Mind, we can empathise with the pain of others and can become discouraged from collecting social data. Video games act as social laboratories that allow us to view the outcomes of selfish or immoral behaviour without any human consequences.
- Three theories were used to explain why we find video game mischief funny.
- We spend a lot of our lives being accountable to someone, whether it’s parents or a boss. Through the Superiority Theory, video game mischief may make us laugh because it puts us in a position of power above others. We’re not bound to the same rules we are in real life (e.g. having to keep a shop tidy), we can do what we want and get away with it.
- Incongruity Theory is used to explain why we find things like dark humour funny. Outcomes that violate social or moral norms (such as tormenting a child through the power of honk) can be funny to us due to how unexpected and contradictory they are. We’re taught to be moral and good people, yet here we are trapping someone in a glass prison through our unharmful yet mighty honks.
- Benign Violations Theory argues that we find the type of things outlined in Incongruity Theory funny because they have no serious consequences. Animal lovers can throw a pig into the ocean in a game and know that they are not actually hurting a pig and nothing bad will happen – they can just watch the funny animation.
Thank you all very much for reading! This hard work would not be possible without the support of my wonderful Patrons. I would particularly like to thank my Platinum Patrons: Albert S Calderon, Kyle T, redKheld, DigitalPsyche, Brent Halen, Dimelo ‘Derp’ Waterson, Hagbard Celine, Aprou, Austin Enright, SK120, NotGac, Shaemus, Joey Rodriguez, Marcus Lo Re-Sant, DarrenIndeed, Thomas Meszaros, Ciara Elizabeth, Jackson Jin, and Mulgar. Thank you!
References
Bergson, H. (1980). Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, in Comedy, ed. Wylie Sypher. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (1998). Distinguishing intentional from accidental actions in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo sapiens). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 112(2), 192-206.
Ferguson, C. J., Olson, C. K., Kutner, L. A., & Warner, D. E. (2014). Violent video games, catharsis seeking, bullying, and delinquency: A multivariate analysis of effects. Crime & Delinquency, 60(5), 764-784.
Geen, R. G., & Quanty, M. B. (1977). The Catharsis of Aggression: An Evaluation of a Hypothesis. In L. Berkowitz (Eds.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 1–37). New York: Academic Press.
Gredebäck, G., Lindskog, M., Juvrud, J. C., Green, D., & Marciszko, C. (2018). Action prediction allows hypothesis testing via internal forward models at 6 months of age. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 290.
Hokanson, J. E., & Edelman, R. (1966). Effects of Three Social Responses on Vascular Processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3, 442–447.
Kutner, L., & Olson, C.K. (2008). Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games and what Parents can do. New York: Simon & Schuster.
McGraw, A. P., & Warren, C. (2010). Benign violations: Making immoral behavior funny. Psychological Science, 21(8), 1141-1149.
Morreall, J. (2016). Philosophy of Humor. Retrieved January 2, 2020 from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humor/
Piaget, J. (1936). Origins of intelligence in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Verona, E., & Sullivan, E. A. (2008). Emotional Catharsis and Aggression Revisited: Heart Rate Reduction Following Aggressive Responding. Emotion, 8, 331-340.
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