SOC225 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Lucky Charms, Operant Conditioning, Omnipotence
27 Sep 2016
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Online gaming is basically a player tapping away at their keyboards repeatedly, however these repetitive gestures all have a meaning behind it (ex. leveling up) Those who are unware of online gaming would think these repetitive gestures are tedious and boring: in the gaming world the killing of monsters is called grinding. Operant conditioning helps us understand how a system of rewards can make an uninteresting task appealing: when you reward a person for performing a certain behavior, they are more likely to repeat that behavior. The way the reward is provided matters as well: there is a fixed schedule and provide the reward every certain number of times. If a fixed schedule is broken it is easily detected and the behaviour stops: or you might provide the reward after a random number of times. The broken variable schedule isn"t obvious and the behavior continues. Small rapid rewards can be used to shape steady progression toward a complex behavior: ex.
