Unconvinced Pete: The Gamer’s Guide to Cognitive Bias (Part 2)

In the first part of this two part article, I introduced the concept of cognitive bias and why I think it is useful for gamers to have some knowledge of it. Here, I will talk about a couple more types of bias that are commonly encountered. As with last time I encourage you to follow the Wikipedia links where possible, because they are well-researched for the most part, and to check out the references where they have been made available.

One general point that I think is worth mentioning is that bias has little to do with the truth. What I mean by that is that is whether a statement is true or not, it can be biased. For example I may be guilty of confirmation bias (see Part One) towards a belief. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that that belief or even the specific claims I am making are untrue, only that my methodology is flawed. In other words, even the most biased person can be accurate for the wrong reasons. This is well worth keeping in mind when throwing around accusations of bias.

The Exposure Effect

“If it doesn’t have random battles then it just isn’t a Final Fantasy game and that’s that. Random battles have worked for the first ten games so why change now? Whatever they put in its place is automatically worse because it’s just wrong.”

The exposure effect is one that I think is particularly prevalent in gaming. It describes a bias towards preferring certain states of affairs simply through familiarity with them, rather than for any logical reason. Of course, people will rationalise their own preferences, but we have already shown in the first part why this may very well be due to another layer of bias.

The exposure effect may help to explain why, for example, the random battles in Final Fantasy and similar games remained an accepted and even popular mechanic long after the hardware limitations stopped being a reason to keep them. I have also noticed (this is admittedly purely anecdotal, though unsurprising) that people who are new to the Monkey Island series tend to react far more positively to the updated art of the Special Editions than those who have been long-time fans.

People tend to react suspiciously to change. The phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is something I’ve read more than once upon the announcement of a significant change to an old franchise, as if change always has to be of a reparative nature. But the assertion that it “ain’t broke” in the first place may spring partially from a bias of another kind.

The False Consensus Effect

“I would put money down that 9 out of 10 famous, legendary game developers would praise Uncharted 2 as an absolutely wonderful, amazing game. And if you honestly think this statement is wrong you’re even more out of touch with what people enjoy.” – Dear Game, It’s Over: Uncharted 2. An Apology.

People have been shown experimentally to be biased towards believing that other people share their views, and this is known as the false consensus effect. One idea as to how this comes about is something called the availability heuristic. This is the phenomenon whereby people consider something more likely to occur simply by virtue of being able to think up examples of it being the case.

How this might apply to the false consensus effect in gaming is that if, for example, someone hangs out with a lot of friends who think the PS3 or Xbox 360 is the best console ever, they will tend to think that that is representative of the population as a whole. In making this error they could also be thought of as informally guilty of a statistical bias that scientists work hard to avoid in more formal studies, which is sampling bias. If you are questioning an opinion and only check it with a sample of your own friends (who, by being friends, are more likely to have similar views to you), then it shouldn’t be surprising that the results come out skewed in your favour!

Heading into more speculative territory, now, I can’t help but wonder if this might provide (along with the well-documented effects of anonymity) a partial explanation as to why internet forums and comments sections are the source of such spite and know-it-all nonsense. It could be that due to the false consensus effect people go into these forums expecting most people to agree with them, but instead they often find a higher level of disagreement than they anticipated. People are most used to discussing matters with family, friends and neighbours but the internet has opened up a whole new world of people with differing views. Of course, such dissenting opinions get dismissed as irrational owing to the fundamental attribution error (see Part One) and before you know it a flame war has started.

The Upshot of it All

In these two articles I’ve talked about a few different types of cognitive bias (and there are many more) but one thing I haven’t addressed so much is the big question: what do we do about bias? We’re all susceptible to it – as I’ve talked about before, they have an uncanny knack of being more recognisable in other people than ourselves. How, then, do we stop discussion about games just becoming a tangled mess of overlapping biases rather than anything meaningful?

In true, clichéd fashion, the first step is admitting you have a problem. Luckily, the second step is realising that in the process of figuring that out, it turns into something that isn’t really a problem at all. Where it becomes an issue is if it isn’t recognised, where the bias blind-spot mentioned all the way back at the start presents you with a false picture of reality. Bias is a natural part of what makes us all different as people and there’s no sense running away from it. My alternative is to know it, admit to it, embrace it and love it – perhaps in doing so we’d all learn not to take our opinions so damned seriously.

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net