The Proteus Effect and Gaming: The Impact of Digital Actors and Race in a Virtual Environment

Race and racial identity is a frequently discussed topic in the media today. This topic is driven by what oftentimes amounts to culture clashes, and a system that claims impartiality yet is rampant with implicit bias demonstrating favorable treatment of one race over another. An example of this favoritism resides within video game design, where over 50% of player-controlled game characters are White, and less than 40% are Black (Leonard, 2007). Leonard also wrote that Black game characters are more likely to conform to Black stereotypes (e.g. play sports, or involved in gangs) than Whites (e.g. middle class citizen or unhygienic). Minimal research exists on understanding what information a video game character, or avatar, conveys to a game player, and whether this information is platform dependent or not. Furthermore, limited information exists on what the personification of agency really means within a digital environment. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship that race may exert within video game play and, by extension, video game design in regards to the control of in-game avatars. Moreover, the goal is to determine if the Proteus effect, the central psychological theory under analysis, exists for console video game players in regards to race and skin color. Originating from the world of virtual reality, the Proteus effect emphasizes conformity to an avatar’s identity cues (Yee & Bailenson, 2007). Specifically, this study examines how the similarity or mismatch between in game avatars and the individual controlling them affects game-world behaviors. Ninety male university students comprised of 3 different races (Middle Eastern, African American, and Caucasian American) played Grand Theft Auto V (GTAV) on PlayStation 3 with an assignment of either White (Michael) or Black (Franklin) game character condition. Data were collected on a behavioral metric with two primary categories: Crime against people and crimes against property. They also completed a personality inventory (HEXACO), and performed an implicit association task to further scientific exploration of the Proteus effect. The results indicated that behavioral outcomes between the Middle-Eastern and Caucasian Americans contained significant differences, and this was regardless of their digital actor (DA) assignment. However, African American gamers had significant performance differences between the two DA conditions (White, Black); there were more crimes committed against in-game people and in-game property when playing as a White DA than when playing as a Black DA when compared against the other two groups. For the game play itself, no significant performance differences were observed between the White and Black DA conditions when collapsed across race conditions indicating that the platform selected offered equal opportunity for all gamers, and that one DA did not facilitate extra crimes above and beyond the other DA. Personality factors were controlled for through the use of the HEXACO model and demonstrated that the three faces did not significantly differ in terms of personality. However, when considering game play and crime specifically, individuals scoring high in the Honesty-Humility dimension of the personality inventory committed fewer crimes against property during their gameplay as indicated by a significant regression analysis. The Proteus effect exists for console video games, and was observed within this study because a change in self representation via the DA caused an observable change in behavior. The African American participants experimentally depicted this in that they committed significantly less crimes while playing as a Black DA than the crimes they committed while playing as a White DA that did not occur for the other two races. The significance of this finding lies in the fact that this discovery bolsters understanding of DA-man relationships, and the nature of agency within digital environments. This study also demonstrates that DAs can alter gameplay, and the gaming community needs richer designs incorporating racial inclusivity within video games

Pathology and Motivation in Players of Grand Theft Auto IV

Intrinsically motivated behavior is defined as a behavior that is performed for pure enjoyment (Ryan, Rigby & Przybylski, 2006). Video game playing is a form of intrinsically motivated behavior (Frederick & Ryan, 1995). Popular media commonly claims the act of playing video games leads individuals to behave in deviant and antisocial ways outside the confines of the gaming environment (Grossman & Christensen, 2008). Psychopathy is a primary feature of Antisocial Personality Disorder, according to the American Psychiatric Association (2013), and psychopathic criminals commit the greatest variety of crimes and more crimes of any type than the average criminal (Lynam, Whiteside & Jones, 1999,). The present study assessed 80 male college students on their level of psychopathy and the virtual crimes they committed while playing Grand Theft Auto IV to determine if game players with naturally high levels of psychopathy performed differently than their non-psychopathic counterparts, and subsequently to determine if the crimes committed during game play were modified and/or qualified by psychopathic scores. Correlational analysis revealed psychopathy scores positively relate to virtual crimes against people, but not to crimes against property. Results also showed that virtual crimes against property were negatively correlated to the intrinsic motivation subscale of Relatedness, with crimes against people having no significant self-reported intrinsic motivational outcome. A regression analysis revealed the subscale of Effort/Importance positively related to the psychopathy scores of the participants. Results are reasonably set forth in the vastly unexplored environment of human behavior, motivation, and expectations in video gaming

An Analysis of Expressed Cheating Behaviors in Video Games

A series of 50 responses regarding reasons for cheating behavior in video games were provided by undergraduate students. These responses were sorted into a series of 13 categories by raters to investigate the most common reasons provided for cheating. An analysis of inter-rater agreement as well as frequency of category representation is provided. The most common outcomes were that players cheat to progress in a game as well as to gain advantage over others. The discussion compared this study’s results to an existing cheating taxonomy

Ethical Perceptions and Actions in Gaming

The present study explored how individuals perceive actions in gaming that contain ethical components, whether they have ever engaged in those behaviors and how judgments of ethical actions in gaming relate to participant personality. Participants completed a 16-item survey, which measured their perception of the ethics of gaming behaviors, such as buying a hack or lying to another player. Participants were also asked to indicate for each item whether or not they had ever engaged in that behavior. Results indicated that participants were able to judge the ethical level of different gaming behaviors with lying to other players and unauthorized access to servers being rated as most unethical. Furthermore, self-reports of engagement in unethical activities were fairly low. When ethical rating and action scores were correlated with personality characteristics using the Cattell 16PF1, the only correlation to reach significance showed that participants higher in rule consciousness rated the ethical gaming questions as more unethical overall than their less rule-conscious peers. Given the extent and popularity of gaming in today’s world, it is important to understand how individuals perceive the gaming culture. One aspect of this culture that merits further examination is ethical behavior in gaming

Modeling Human Gaming Playing Behavior and Reward/Penalty Mechanism using Discrete Event Simulation (DES)

Humans are remarkably complex and unpredictable; however, while predicting human behavior can be problematic, there are methods such as modeling and simulation that can be used to predict probable futures of human decisions. The present study analyzes the possibility of replacing human subjects with data resulting from pure models. Decisions made by college students in a multi-level mystery-solving game under 3 different gaming conditions are compared with the data collected from a predictive sequential Markov-Decision Process model. In addition, differences in participants’ data influenced by the three different conditions (additive, subtractive, control) were analyzed. The test results strongly suggest that the data gathered from the model can possibly represent the ones gathered from the human participants in a practical experiment

Isolation of Isotrichophycin C and Trichophycins G–I from a Collection of Trichodesmium thiebautii

The trichophycin family of compounds are chlorinated polyketides first discovered from environmental collections of a bloom-forming Trichodesmium sp. cyanobacterium. In an effort to fully capture the chemical space of this group of metabolites, the utilization of MS/MS-based molecular networking of a Trichodesmium thiebautii extract revealed a metabolome replete with halogenated compounds. Subsequent MS-guided isolation resulted in the characterization of isotrichophycin C and trichophycins G–I (1–4). These new metabolites had intriguing structural variations from those trichophycins previously characterized, which allowed for a comparative study to examine structural features that are associated with toxicity to murine neuroblastoma cells. Additionally, we propose the absolute configuration of the previously characterized trichophycin A (5). Overall, the metabolome of the Trichodesmium bloom is hallmarked by an unprecedented amount of chlorinated molecules, many of which remain to be structurally characterized

History Shaped the Geographic Distribution of Genomic Admixture on the Island of Puerto Rico

Contemporary genetic variation among Latin Americans human groups reflects population migrations shaped by complex historical, social and economic factors. Consequently, admixture patterns may vary by geographic regions ranging from countries to neighborhoods. We examined the geographic variation of admixture across the island of Puerto Rico and the degree to which it could be explained by historic and social events. We analyzed a census-based sample of 642 Puerto Rican individuals that were genotyped for 93 ancestry informative markers (AIMs) to estimate African, European and Native American ancestry. Socioeconomic status (SES) data and geographic location were obtained for each individual. There was significant geographic variation of ancestry across the island. In particular, African ancestry demonstrated a decreasing East to West gradient that was partially explained by historical factors linked to the colonial sugar plantation system. SES also demonstrated a parallel decreasing cline from East to West. However, at a local level, SES and African ancestry were negatively correlated. European ancestry was strongly negatively correlated with African ancestry and therefore showed patterns complementary to African ancestry. By contrast, Native American ancestry showed little variation across the island and across individuals and appears to have played little social role historically. The observed geographic distributions of SES and genetic variation relate to historical social events and mating patterns, and have substantial implications for the design of studies in the recently admixed Puerto Rican population. More generally, our results demonstrate the importance of incorporating social and geographic data with genetics when studying contemporary admixed populations

A genome-wide association study of anorexia nervosa suggests a risk locus implicated in dysregulated leptin signaling

J. Kaprio, A. Palotie, A. Raevuori-Helkamaa ja S. Ripatti ovat työryhmän Eating Disorders Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium jäseniä. Erratum in: Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 21;7(1):8379, doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-06409-3We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of anorexia nervosa (AN) using a stringently defined phenotype. Analysis of phenotypic variability led to the identification of a specific genetic risk factor that approached genome-wide significance (rs929626 in EBF1 (Early B-Cell Factor 1); P = 2.04 x 10(-7); OR = 0.7; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.61-0.8) with independent replication (P = 0.04), suggesting a variant-mediated dysregulation of leptin signaling may play a role in AN. Multiple SNPs in LD with the variant support the nominal association. This demonstrates that although the clinical and etiologic heterogeneity of AN is universally recognized, further careful sub-typing of cases may provide more precise genomic signals. In this study, through a refinement of the phenotype spectrum of AN, we present a replicable GWAS signal that is nominally associated with AN, highlighting a potentially important candidate locus for further investigation.Peer reviewe