Dummies Guide to Behavioral Psychology and Engagement

Mike Arauz had a great post on What Behavioral Psychology Can Teach Us About Engagement.

He refers to an article by John Hopson on Behavioral Game Design.

Hopson is attempting to open up the world of behavioral psychology to game designers.

Namely the idea of rewards and contingencies.

Rewards are pretty self explanatory.

And contingencies are simply the "rules governing when rewards are given out."

 

Now we add in the user and their actions.

"there are actions on the part of the participant which provide a reward under specific circumstances."

Hopson defines two types of reward rules (or contingencies): Ratios and Intervals

A ratio example would be a game where you gain XP for every monster you slay. [And after so many monsters you go up a level (reward)]

An interval example would be Space Invaders where power-ups appear based on what level you are on.

 

The biggest breakthrough in behavioral psychology came when B.F. Skinner was running low on rat pellets and began giving out rewards intermittently.

"Experimenting with different regimens of reward, he found that they produced markedly different patterns of response."

And I had to realize we've gotten lazy.

Too many of our experiences tie a reward to every desired action.

A coupon for every friend you delete.

A free VIP gift for becoming a fan.

Points for every tweet!

Or worse, our rewards are completely "random" in nature.

Win a camera!  Win a car!  Thousands of prizes!

Hopson points out that ratios alone lead to long pauses between flurries of activity which can be a challenge if we want to keep people consistently engaged in something.

As such, Arauz is recommending we explore using Variable Ratio Schedules in experience design.

This is a fancy way of saying we combine unexpected rewards together with reward mechanics that are clear and predictable.

"If you want to see sustained steady engagement, then the best approach is a Variable Ratio Schedule. In this approach the number of activities required to trigger a reward changes randomly, so the first time the player may have to kill 10 monsters to get an extra life, but the next time they only have to kill 5. The promise of the next reward is always on the horizon."

I like the idea a lot.  But is it realistic?  Is it actionable?  How would we apply it to an experience we create? 

Lemme know your thoughts.

Comments

[Jasmin]

I think this is totally achievable! Not that we always have time to do this, but I think if we spend some time up front before creating "the game" to understand some of the underlying desires of the community - we would come up with a nice collection of non-tangible rewards that the community can give to itself, which I think fits nicely with variable ratio schedule and is totally sustainable.

[Sean Howard]

I think intangible rewards are critical. Nicely put, Jasmin.

How tangible is the experience of playing Modern Warfare? I can tell you as someone who is addicted to it that it feels VERY tangible. And yet all the rewards are intangible.