Psychology of Roleplay, Part II

"You must retain faith that you can prevail to greatness in the end, while retaining the discipline to confront the brutal facts of your current reality."
-Admiral Jim Stockdale

While diagnosing a problem is interesting, talking about the solutions isn't. Where problems are puzzles that have subtle nuances that can be appreciated at a theoretical level, solutions are vague until applied to a specific fact pattern. Of course, while it's sort of pointless to talk about concrete solutions to solving psychological problems, that doesn't mean it's helpful to outline a general guideline for creating sustainable solutions that will actively combat the malaise brought on by an intensive roleplaying lifestyle.

Theoretical Approach

The overarching theory that Zimbardo advocates is called incrementalism. Basically, if the lack of structure and safeguards allows a person's mental health to deteriorate quickly, then the solution to is to build a system designed to force a gradual upward trajectory. The thing that distinguishes success from pipe-dreams is setting small, but attainable goals that promote positive change.

"Our 'slow ascent into goodness step by step' makes use of what social psychologists call the 'foot-in-the-door' (FITD) tactic. This tactic begins by first asking someone to do a small request (which most people readily perform) and then later on to ask them to comply with a related but much bigger request (which was the goal all along)."

For instance, if a person is logging into a roleplay environment day-after-day, doesn't know why they do it, and doesn't particularly enjoy the roleplay they're getting (or avoids roleplaying altogether)...that's a tell-tale sign of depression. People can come up with a myriad of excuses justifying why that behavior is acceptable; in the end though, they're just justifying why they're depressed.

The simple solution to this problem is to walk away for at least a brief period of time. Let the batteries recharge (if at all), and don't come back until the person genuinely wants to roleplay again. The problem is that this is easier to say than do. If a person is continually logging into a bad environment, they are creating a path dependency: it's an addiction of sorts. It takes an incredible amount of will and determination to stop an addiction cold turkey. And even if the person is able to stay away from roleplay for a while, when they come back, they'll re-create those bad habits that caused the problem in the first place. So...like any other addiction, an approach is required that gradually turns back the clock on the addiction so it becomes a manageable pastime instead of a consuming habit.

Principles

So, the solution is developing a system of incremental change. Before jumping directly to the solutions, there's an intermediate step. This system needs outlined principles: what sorts of attitude changes should be promoted? Zimbardo outlines 10, but I think only 7 are applicable to a roleplay game context:

1. Admission of Error

"Let's start out by encouraging admission of our mistakes, first to ourselves then to others. Accept the dictum that to err is human. You have made an error in judgment; your decision was wrong. You had every reason to believe it was right when you made it, but now you know you were wrong. Say the six Magic words: 'I’m sorry'; 'I apologize'; 'Forgive me.' Say to yourself that, you will learn from your mistakes, grow better from them. Don’t continue to put your money, time, and resources into bad investments. Move on. Doing so openly reduces the need to justify or rationalize our mistakes, and thereby to continue to give support to bad or immoral actions. Confession of error undercuts the motivation to reduce cognitive dissonance; dissonance evaporates when a reality check occurs. 'Cutting the bait' instead of resolutely 'staying the course' when it is wrong has immediate cost, but it always results in long-term gain."

It's incredibly hard to admit error. That's just a natural human tendency because everyone likes to think that they are smart and make good decisions. Admitting fault directly undercuts that belief. In addition, when people admit error, they wallow in the bad decision. This wallowing has two consequences: 1) we wallow in self-pity and 2) we hesitate to make choices because we've become gun-shy. We doubt ourselves and ability to make future decisions in the wake of our mistakes. So in order to avoid that feeling of failure, it's more comfortable to continue making the same error over and over instead of confronting reality.

So it's not just admitting error that's important. It's admitting error and moving on. People need to understand that a bad result doesn't necessarily mean the decisionmaking was bad. Hence, the necessity for positive reinforcement ("I will learn from my mistakes") that eventually manifests itself into a positive outlook on life again. If you say something long enough, you eventually believe it.

2. Understanding Context

"In many settings smart people do dumb things because they fail to attend to key features in the words or actions of influence agents and fail to notice obvious situational clues. Too often we function on automatic pilot, using outworn scripts that have worked for us in the past, never stopping to evaluate whether they are appropriate in the here and now. Following the advice of Harvard researcher, Ellen Langer, we must transform our usual state of mindless inattention into “mindfulness,” especially in new situations. Don’t hesitate to fire a wake-up shot to your cortex; even when in familiar situations old habits continue to rule even though they have become obsolete or wrong. We need to be reminded not to live our lives on automatic pilot, but always to take a Zen moment to reflect on the meaning of the immediate situation, to think before acting...Support critical thinking from the earliest times in a child’s life, alerting them to deceptive ads, biased claims, and distorted perspectives being presented to them. Help them become wiser and warier knowledge consumers."

Breaking up cognitive dissonance requires someone to constantly evaluate their situation from multiple perspectives. It's hard to have a holistic view of a situation because we don't have the benefit of perspective until after the event is over. It's easy to criticize because that is a reflective action; it is much easier to figure out what the correct action was after the fact than beforehand. Similarly, failure to reanalyze a situation locks people into a particular set of behavior. And while the behavior may have been good at one point, situations may have evolved such that the behavior now produces bad results. It's important to realize that a person and his environment are always changing; therefore, perspective must as well.

3. Responsibility

"Taking responsibility for one's decisions and actions puts the actor in the driver's seat, for better or for worse. Allowing others to compromise their own responsibility, to diffuse it, makes them powerful back-seat drivers, and makes the car move recklessly ahead without a responsible driver. We become more resistant to undesirable social influence by always maintaining a sense of personal responsibility and by being willing to be held accountable for our actions. Obedience to authority is less blind to the extent that we are aware that diffusion of responsibility merely disguises our individual complicity in the conduct of questionable actions. Your conformity to anti-social group norms is undercut to the extent that you do not allow displacement of responsibility, when you refuse to spread responsibility around the gang, the frat, the shop, the battalion, or the corporation. Always imagine a future time when today’s deed will be on trial and no one will accept your pleas of only following orders, or everyone else was doing it."

Problems are created by the interaction of two forces. Someone cannot start a fight by himself; a fist needs a face to hit to become a punch. Without an object to receive the blow, it's not a fight. The person throwing the punch might be "wrong" for starting the fight, but the other person is also "wrong" for receiving the action. And if the receiver doesn't retaliate, there's no fight.

It's important to understand that blame doesn't create a problem. It's actions. Therefore, both parties always bear some responsibility for creating the problem (via their actions), even if they're blameless. So an individual always has the ability to solve some of the problem on his own by changing his actions. He might not be able to solve the whole problem, but if he can solve the portion he controls, the situation will be better than if he does nothing.

Hence, personal responsibility and the need to promote individual action is ALWAYS required. Simply dumping the problem on someone else's doorstep is never the right solution.

4. Individualism

"Do not allow others to deindividuate you, to put you into a category, in a box, a slot, to turn you into an object. Assert your individually; politely state your name and your credentials, loud and clear. Insist on the same behavior in others. Make eye contact (remove all eye-concealing sun glasses), and offer information about yourself that reinforces your unique identity. Find common ground with dominant others in influence situations and use it to enhance similarities. Anonymity and secrecy conceals wrongdoing and undermines the human connection. It can become the breeding ground that generates dehumanization, and, as we now know, dehumanization provides the killing ground for bullies, rapists, torturers, terrorists, and tyrants. Go a step beyond self-individuation. Work to change whatever social conditions make people feel anonymous. Instead, support practices that make others feel special, so that they too have a sense of personal value and self worth. Never allow or practice negative stereotyping—words and labels can be destructive.

Obviously, this advice can't work in a Gorean roleplay sim. It just can't, because the the role of a kajira needs to be deindividuated and dominated in roleplay. However, that doesn't mean that the person roleplaying the kajira needs to feel deindividuated. By promoting a sense of self outside the character, a person can better control their roleplay experience and avoid pitfalls like self helplessness and other forms of depression. At the same time, there might be some people that genuinely want a fully immersive experience and wants to act in a kajira-like fashion in IMs and out-of-character scenarios. It depends on the needs and wants of the players.

5. Authority & Ethics

"In every situation, work to distinguish between those in authority who, because of their expertise, wisdom, seniority, or special status, deserve respect, and those unjust authority figures who demand our obedience without having any substance. Many who assume the mantel of authority are pseudo-leaders, false prophets, confidence men and women, self-promoters, who should not be respected, but rather disobeyed and openly exposed to critical evaluation. Parents, teachers, and religious leaders should play more active roles in teaching children this critical differentiation. They should be polite and courteous when such a stance is justified, yet be good, wise children by resisting those authorities that do not deserve their respect. Doing so, will reduce mindless obedience to self-proclaimed authorities whose priorities are not in our best interests."

There is no simple formula to determine which people are genuine leaders who have good advice to dispense vs. posers who have no idea what they're talking about. Even well-respected individuals with elite status can be very wrong about the things they are paid to analyze for a living. In trying to figure out how to trust people in authority though, there are two basic rules of thumb: 1) figure out the incentives/biases of the authority figure; and 2) come up with a system of ethics and principles that you strongly believe in. Thus, every statement should and must be balanced against these principles. Granted, there's always some element of bleeding out-of-character restrictions with in-character restrictions...but always questioning authority figures to determine whether their advice actually makes sense in the situation is key. Blind obedience is a death sentence to having a fulfilling roleplay life.

6. Self-Identity

"The lure of acceptance into a desired social group is more powerful than that of the mythical golden ring in “Lord of the Rings.” The power of that desire for acceptance will make some people do almost anything to be accepted, and go to even further extremes to avoid rejection by The Group. We are indeed social animals, and usually our social connections benefit us and help us to achieve important goals that we could not achieve alone. However, there are times when conformity to a group norm is counter-productive to the social good. It is imperative to determine when to follow the norm and when to reject it. Ultimately, we live within our own minds, in solitary splendor, and therefore we must be willing and ready to declare our independence regardless of the social rejection it may elicit. It is not easy, especially for young people with shaky self-images, or adults whose self-image is isomorphic with that of their job. Pressures on them to be a “team player,” to sacrifice personal morality for the good of the team are nearly irresistible. What is required is that we step back, get outside opinions, and find new groups that will support our independence and promote our values. There will always be another, different, better group for us."

It's ok to be a loner. A lot of people accede to demands and requirements for fear of being ostracized. It seems rather stupid to log into a social platform...and not socialize. That's what authority figures try to set up: if you do not comply, you will not get to roleplay with anyone interesting and will be doomed to a solitary life without any roleplay fulfillment. However, that's not true at all. There are a million ways to get the same level of interaction without having to bend to anyone's will (obviously, I mean this in an out-of-character context; in character, obviously, a kajira has to accede to demands of her Master). Those people that are comfortable being by themselves will thrive because they don't require social acceptance to be happy; those that are terrified of being alone will always be susceptible to threats, making them easy prey for manipulation.

7. Framing Problems

"Who makes the frame becomes the artist, or the con artist. The way issues are framed is often more influential than the persuasive arguments within their boundaries. Moreover, effective frames can seem not to be frames at all, just sound bites, visual images, slogans, and logos. They influence us without our being conscious of them, and they shape our orientation toward the ideas or issues they promote. For example, voters, who favored reducing estate tax benefits for the rich, were urged to vote against a “death tax”; the tax was exactly the same, but its defining term was different. We desire things that are framed as being “scarce,” even when they are plentiful. We are averse to things that are framed as potential losses, and prefer what is presented to us as a gain, even when the ratio of positive to negative prognoses is the same. We don’t want a 40% chance of losing X over Y, but do want the 60% chance of gaining Y over X. Linguist George Lakoff clearly shows in his writings that it is crucial to be aware of frame power and to be vigilant to offset its insidious influence on our emotions, thoughts, and votes."

It's helpful to avoid categorization and labeling of roleplay itself. People get so obsessed with trying to box in particular actions and tendencies within specific roles that they forget the overall picture: this is roleplay. As frightening as it is, we simply need to accept that everyone has a different interpretation of a role and those differences need to be celebrated and not scorned.

It's a matter of framing the problem as "individuals coming together to create an environment" instead of "people coming together to conform to an environment." When people have to conform, they are reviewed critically. When people create, people are encouraged to build the environment from their interaction. How something is said is almost always more important than what is being said. Saying and framing issues in a positive light ("How can I encourage people to learn" vs. "why are all these fucknuts ruining my roleplay experience?") creates a positive environment, which leads to positive experiences.

Practical Application

So, the system is set up. There's a theory on how the system should work, what type of change this system should create...the only thing left to do is to develop a concrete plan of action. This is where the analysis gets boring or unhelpful. Every person will be different in which tangible actions will best accomplish the goals set forth by the system. Some people need a more rigorous environment with lots of little steps. Some people need to make large leaps (the equivalent of either peeling off a band-aid or ripping it right out). Of course, it would not be very satisfying to simply stop the analysis here. So all things being equal, some general solutions that can contribute positively to creating healthy roleplaying environment:

1. Take occasional breaks from roleplay. No one would ever sit down and work for 5 straight hours. In fact, the government requires scheduled breaks every few hours for about 15 minutes or so. Walking around and stretching not only helps an individual learn the separation between IC and OOC (giving the person time to reflect on what happened), but it also helps them refresh themselves and bring renewed creativity to their future endeavors.

2. Undertake a real life hobby that requires going out on a regular basis. For instance: a pottery class that meets once or twice a week, going on an evening jog three times a week, joining a book group, etc. The purpose of this is to not roleplay every day, which can eventually develop into a habit-forming addiction. Hobbies also help gauge the level of addiction and serve as a barometer in knowing when roleplaying has gone from simply fun to an obsession: when a person begins to justify skipping the hobby for more roleplay time, it's a problem that's beginning to spiral out of control.

3. Create a deadline for logging out of roleplay every night. People who get too caught up in roleplay develop irregular sleeping habits, which creates physical and mental health problems. That's not even an exaggeration. Sleep deprivation literally makes a person more combative, sluggish, sickly (compromises the immune system) and a host of other horrible consequences. Basically, lack of sleep makes a person very unpleasant and unhealthy. While it's always fun to keep roleplaying until a scene reaches its natural conclusion...if that scene forces someone to get 4 hours of sleep instead of their normal 8, then there's never a scenario where that extra time roleplay outweighs all the negative consequences of lack of sleep. It's also important to note that while someone might create a 12 AM curfew, it's ok to cheat a little on that time...so long as it's reasonable. The point of the deadline, more than anything else, is to create a roleplaying alarm clock: once that clock hits 11:45, it's time to start wrapping things up and prepare for sleep. A person that's hell-bent on roleplaying until the scene naturally concludes will lose hours and hours of sleep because there are no firm guidelines.

4. Never eat or snack at the computer. One of the other big problems with a gaming lifestyle is the huge caloric intake with little to no exercise. The fatter a person gets, the slower the body metabolizes fats...which means excessive snacking with no exercise makes a person sleepy, lethargic and slow. These are not good habits. Forcing to eat away from the computer creates a few good consequences: a) it forces a person to get up every once in a while; b) it prevents multiple pleasurable activities from merging into a path dependency. Roleplaying is fun. Eating is fun. Thus, roleplaying and eating together is even more fun. The brain then associates those activities and the dependency doesn't become just roleplay. It becomes an addiction to roleplay and eating. Eating triggers a desire to roleplay and roleplaying triggers a desire to eat. The combination is not good.

5. Get regular exercise. While lethargy dulls the senses, exercise gives the body endorphin rushes that contribute in positive ways. The body produces more energy, the mind is clearer and overall, a person is much fresher to bring a positive, healthy attitude towards their roleplay. Positive attitudes tend to beget positive experiences, which is great for roleplay.

6. Keep a journal. If a roleplay character is basically an exercise in self-projection, then a journal is an absolute requirement to help figure out which emotions and reactions are "real" and which ones are "fake." To be clear, everything that happens in SL is fake. But some reactions stem from a real life emotional problem whereas some are feelings triggered by the experience of the character (i.e., crying at a movie because the interaction between father-son seems autobiographical vs. crying at a movie because spooky music was playing and the mood was scary). Trying to understand the significance of the roleplay and why it was so powerful (or in some cases, why it wasn't) provides an emotional outlet outside of the roleplay environment. It's ok to bring some crazy into the roleplay. Of course, bringing too much crazy is a bad thing. For safety, it's good to have multiple places to release the crazy. A journal is one way to do that.

7. Create small, distinct achievable goals in roleplay for a particular time period. For instance: purchase some meat from a butcher by the end of the week; travel to another city sim and taste a foreign delicacy; the list can go on. While most people chafe at setting up roleplay scenes ahead of time, these goals at least give a character some roleplay direction. People can feel lost or aimless at times when they don't know what they're supposed to do. And in this case, these tasks are not meant to shape the character, but simply give the character some tasks to push them into roleplay and move the story forward. This little bit of structure can reap dividends in the future: eventually a person can look back on their list of goals and see how many were accomplished. If there are too many unfulfilled goals, it can raise interesting questions as to why there are so many failures. Sometimes the answers are benign (got sidetracked with more interesting roleplay); sometimes the answers are revealing about some larger problem (major self-confidence issues and/or the standard approach to attracting roleplay is not very good).

I could list more, but continuing this list, as mentioned above, is sort of pointless. These suggestions may or may not be helpful in coming up with clearly defined steps to achieving goals. Everyone will define their principles and steps differently. There is no universal approach that can work for everyone. Zimbardo realizes this in his analysis. The underlying point, however, is universal: the roleplaying community will try to exert influence over its members in subtle or deliberate ways. Large communities thrive on homogeneity because that is the only way they can exist: everyone must think on similar terms. And while it's appealing on some level to associate with like-minded people, it's important to remember that some level of diversity is needed: you are a person first and a member of a community second. Understanding and appreciating this need to create an individual sphere within the roleplaying society is the only path to being mentally healthy while embarking on the journey.

Players that create systems or develop habits that are designed to push themselves forward in positive ways become great roleplayers who are major assets to their communities; those that don't eventually get alienated and feel isolated and angry at their surroundings. These people, in SL parlance, are known as drama whores and drag down everyone's roleplay experience. Each path requires a choice. Zimbardo provides a roadmap towards each path. The decision of which path to take is up to each individual.