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There's a lot to learn from behaviorism. Certainly the notion that we should be
scientific and systematic and not just rely on people's reporting of their
feelings is a worthwhile endeavor. And some of the concepts that behaviorism
focuses on, for example the importance of feedback. The idea that feedback loops can
systematically modify people's behavior is an important finding and one that's quite
relevant to gamification. And the different kinds of rewards that we talked
about can help us see how to construct different kinds of systems to motivate
behavior. But, there are serious limitations and blind spots to the
behaviorist approach. And we need to understand them in order to have a full
picture of gamification. For starters, there are some important things that
behaviorism leaves out. Let's go back to the speed camera lottery example. Why do
people slow down when there is this sign that shows them how fast they're going and
the possibility of winning some money if they're not speeding. Well, the first
thing to think about is that people slow down, even without the lottery. When
there's just a sign showing people how fast they're going, there seems to be an
effect that people slow down even then. So how do we explain that? Well some of it
has to do with feedback, clearly. People are seeing their speed. It's making them
aware of how fast they're going, which is then creating a reaction and causing the
person to slow down. But is it just that the person's becoming aware that they were
speeding or is, what's going on something like this. The driver says hm, is this
just a sign or is there perhaps a camera in it somewhere hidden here that's going
to take a picture of me and I'm going to get sent a ticket automatically because I
was speeding? Or perhaps is there a cop? Right behind the sign who is going to give
me a ticket if I go too fast? In which case I am slowing down not because of
feedback so much, I am slowing down because I want to avoid the punishment.
Punishments are just the flip side of rewards. They work the same way so at some
level, this is the kind of standard behavioristic account, but it's very much
cause and effect. We want to avoid direct the punishment, so we take some action.
It's not about people changing their behavior and learning, it's just people
slowing down because they think they are going get caught. So what about now, the
speed camera lottery example? What does the lottery change? Well, from a
behaviorist's standpoint, at first it's hard to think about it. But if you look at
this through that kind of behavioral lens. What you say is well, behaviorism is about
testing what people do. And what's different here is a chance of winning
money and turns out that people love lotteries. There's some reason why there
are lotteries all over the place and people will spend their money on them even
when the odds are terrible. When you know empirically, statistically, you're very
likely to lose. Not a good bet to make, people still play the lottery all the time
so a behaviorist might say, alright. People love lotteries. That's a lesson.
That's a fact that we know. So this works. Because it's a lottery and that's all we
need to know. So let's do lotteries in lots of other places and this was in fact
the description of the speed camera lottery from Richard Thaler, one of the
leading figures in behavioral economics, in an op-ed piece that he wrote about this
phenomenon. And basically, his conclusion was policy makers should use lotteries.
And maybe that's a helpful conclusion but the point I want to make is, it leaves a
lot out. Why do people like lotteries? Is it just that we're irrational? What's
actually going on there? What is it about the lottery here that is motivating to
people? And to answer that question you have to go beyond behaviorism, because now
we're not just talking about what do people do, now we're going to, what do
people think and feel? And what is actually in there motivating someone to
act in a certain way? So, that's part of the story that's important in general, and
in particular, important for gamification. So, first big issue with behaviorism is it
leaves out alot. But there's some other reasons to be concerned, about a purely
behaviorist approach. And as it turns out B.F. Skinner's work on operating
conditioning fell out of favor in psychology. There's still been a great
deal of work done in that area and much of the literature on feedback. And today the
work in the quantified self area can be seen as being part of that same tradition.
But the notion of modifying peoples behavior thru these constructed systems of
reward or punishment based on learning from feedback scared people. And they got
associated with things like socialism and fascism that were trying to manipulate and
change people's behavior in ways that people didn't want. Now, that's probably
not entirely fair but in thinking about the implications of behaviorism for
gamification it's worth keeping in mind because if you take a purely behaviorist
approach you tend to focus on the person involved again, as a black box. And that
tends to move away from the notion that this is a human being and this is a
player. Remember game thinking is about empowering the person as a player. They
are the center of the action. So this focus on rewards and behaviorism. Well,
again, it can be useful and productive in the ways that we've talked about, tends to
also have some problems. And in fact there are a number of serious problems with a
behaviorist approach which we'll turn to next.