People behave socially and 'well' even without rules: study

[Elimentals]

Fundamentally people behave in a social and rather compassionate and "good" way rather than aggressively, even without specified rules. That is the result of a study from the Institute for Science of Complex Systems at the MedUni Vienna under the leadership of Stefan Thurner and Michael Szell. They analysed the behaviour of more than 400,000 participants of the “Virtual Life” game “Pardus” on the Internet. The findings are that only two percent of all actions are aggressive, even though the game would make it easy for war-like attacks with spaceships, for example.

Millions of human interactions were assessed during the study which included actions such as communication, founding and ending friendships, trading goods, sleeping, moving, however also starting hostilities, attacks and punishment. The game does not suggest any rules and everyone can live with their avatar (i.e. with their “game character” in the virtual world) as they choose. “And the result of this is not anarchy”, says Thurner. “The participants organise themselves as a social group with good intents. Almost all the actions are positive.”

The interactions were fed into an “alphabet” by the researchers, “similar to how the genetic code of DNA was decoded 15 years ago”, says Thurner. “From this we get a pattern which reflects how people tick”. However, there is quite a high potential for aggression: so, for example, if a negative action is inflicted, the probability that the player will subsequently also act aggressively shoots up more than tenfold, even to about 30 percent.

Thurner and his team were also able to present by means of the pattern that the whole game is a reflection of reality. “For example, we could adopt measured values one for one for communication networks. A further measurement is that almost no one has more than 150 friends, the so-called Dunbar’s number, regardless of whether in the real or the virtual world.” The study has now been published in the specialist journal PLoS One.

The long-term aim is to detect “phase transitions in societies” early on using these measurements and the behavioural patterns researched in the virtual world in order to be able to forecast group dynamic social processes and to be able to react in the event of these cases in good time. “It is possible, for example, that through certain conditions the aggression level, that has increased tenfold, remains extensively in place and therefore systemically for a longer time, which bears comparison with a drastic radicalisation in societies. Consequently, we could react to it in good time.” A current example for such a phase transition in society has been the relatively surprising “Arab Spring” with its many protests, uprisings and revolutions, which, as is well known, were targeted against the ruling totalitarian regimes in many countries.

Source and more info at Physorg

I find this rather interesting esp if I look back at my MMO days, and a lot of it makes sense, and mearly share it for like minded people in the forum.

PS: Reason for posting it here is because I can almost bet some "We don't need a deity" discussion will follow.

[TheHiveMind]

Source and more info at Physorg

I find this rather interesting esp if I look back at my MMO days, and a lot of it makes sense, and mearly share it for like minded people in the forum.

PS: Reason for posting it here is because I can almost bet some "We don't need a deity" discussion will follow.

So they want to gather data about real life social trends from the game, while at the same time making claims suggesting that real life has no impact on people in the virtual world because they are some how socially "reset" the second they enter the game.

These people playing the game all come from highly socially conditioned societies, with laws and ethics pumped into them from the time they are born. You can't just turn off social conditioning for an hour by changing the "environment" during that time. That's not the same as birthing children into a world without any rules and having them police their own actions for the good of everyone, at the expense of themselves. This is not how people would react naturally. That's actually how they would react when they are being irrational.

They might naturally do what it best for a particular group at the "expense" of themselves, because they are part of that group and it is a round about way of helping themselves. Morality is success, every other morality is worthless.
This self destructive abrahamic styled morality we see people abiding by in this game just goes to show that even without religion watching over their shoulder, they have retained that rubbish morality that was pumped into them.
I wouldn't say "See how moral we can be without a deity?". All I see is the continuation of immorality, without the deity.

[Elimentals]

Well to counter that, a lot of people act out in games what they would not do in real life.

For example someone that gets picked on all the time would act out his frustration in the virtual world knowing there would be no real repercussions?

[Beachless]

consequence, if you attack others they are likely to team up and kill you, there are always consequences to your actions.

[Elimentals]

consequence, if you attack others they are likely to team up and kill you, there are always consequences to your actions.

Reminds me of this joke http://i.imgur.com/vlNlT.jpg

[Beachless]

Reminds me of this joke http://i.imgur.com/vlNlT.jpg

LOL

On a side note, not attacking someone or helping is often also a selfish act because you are investing in a possible reciprocal response when you need it.

So help 5 people when they really need it and when you really need it hope that one of them returns the favour.

[mercurial]

Dumb study.

[Scooby_Doo]

So could you like buy a gun in game and go around killing avatars? That would be swede, trololololol

[Nerhzelok]

Dumb study.

Agreed.

[abandonallhope]

My own experiences in MMO's is the exact opposite of what that article says.

[wrathex]

I played Pardus, and somewhat agree, more people were helpful, but the nature of Pardus is far less predatory a game than say Tribal Wars, if they had conducted their study within TW worlds, they might very well have concluded it's a dog eat dog world out there.

Are morals not elastic ? Moral attitudes change, from micro environment to micro environment and as needed by groups of people.

Recent human history:

slavery was morally acceptable
racism was morally acceptable
burning people alive was morally acceptable
raping your enemy wives and daughter was morally acceptable
hitting your dog into good behaviour was morally acceptable
dropping an atom bomb on civilians was morally acceptable

[noxibox]

These people playing the game all come from highly socially conditioned societies, with laws and ethics pumped into them from the time they are born. You can't just turn off social conditioning for an hour by changing the "environment" during that time. That's not the same as birthing children into a world without any rules and having them police their own actions for the good of everyone, at the expense of themselves. This is not how people would react naturally. That's actually how they would react when they are being irrational.

This is not so much about not teaching children any rules. But if you watch a group of children they learn quite early on to self-organise and negotiate amongst themselves. It is not necessary for instance to have an adult hovering over them every minute to make sure they don't rip each other to pieces. This goes completely contrary to what the nanny state types believe.

consequence, if you attack others they are likely to team up and kill you, there are always consequences to your actions.

There are often consequences. But they don't have to come from authority. And they don't necessarily require explicitly stated rules.

[Ockie]

I might be just very naive...but I do believe that in some way..no matter how small, we have a instinctive sense of right and wrong without having been taught it. Many people lack this instinct though too....or merely choose to ignore it.

[TheHiveMind]

I might be just very naive...but I do believe that in some way..no matter how small, we have a instinctive sense of right and wrong without having been taught it. Many people lack this instinct though too....or merely choose to ignore it.

We are predisposed towards symbiotic behaviour to an extent.
Such behaviour is condusive to success within the "tribe" structure.
If you went against the interests of the tribe sufficiently, you would have probably been killed, or banished, or sidelined from procreation. Since humanity began, genes that were not compatible with the symbiotic mould would have been effectively killed off. But this symbiotic behaviour is towards ones' own tribe.
For a tribe to ensure it's survival and genetic continuation and success it would also need to crush opposing tribes, so it would need those traits too.

Our natural state seems to be what we see throughout nature.
We form groups, and then we compete against other groups.

What I expect to see in a game that mirrors reality is group conflict.

[Ockie]

We are predisposed towards symbiotic behaviour to an extent.
Such behaviour is condusive to success within the "tribe" structure.
If you went against the interests of the tribe sufficiently, you would have probably been killed, or banished, or sidelined from procreation. Since humanity began, genes that were not compatible with the symbiotic mould would have been effectively killed off. But this symbiotic behaviour is towards ones' own tribe.
For a tribe to ensure it's survival and genetic continuation and success it would also need to crush opposing tribes, so it would need those traits too.

Our natural state seems to be what we see throughout nature.
We form groups, and then we compete against other groups.

What I expect to see in a game that mirrors reality is group conflict.

I agree with you. But I also think that we do behave differently in groups than what we do individually. When a group is formed...it almost takes on a mentality and persona of its own...becoming a entity in its own right.