[MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

[Timothy Dang]

On Sat, 24 Feb 2001, Tamzen Cannoy wrote:

> The main thing I've come up with about grief players is that they do
> not care about the person on the other end of the line. At all. I've
> had them tell me explicitly they don't believe the other person
> really exists. That if it's on the computer it's not real. They have
> no connection in their brains that let them understand or empathize
> that their actions bother other people, make them mad, upset them.

This sort of thing suggests looking at theories of "Theory of Mind"
stuff for some help. I only know enough about such theories to give a
quick conceptual sketch; unfortunately I can't give any good
references. Maybe someone on the list who's up on psychology can.

They idea is that each person has (more or less) a "Theory of Mind",
that they form theories as to how another person is feeling and
thinking, and therefore how another person will act in a certain
situation. It's generally argued that lack of a theory of mind ability
is what makes autistics so odd, and that children don't develop a
theory of mind until a certain age (4? I forget).

In any case, if there are certain triggers (facial expressions seem
likely) which help theory of mind kick in, maybe some of those
triggers could be put into the MUD environment (probably not facial
expressions, at least for a while).

> Or oppositely, they are plain evil and know that and delight in
> it. The kinds of people who trip nerdy kids, break their
> fingers/glasses/possessions.

That's something I've never heard mentioned by Theory of Mind
people. The little discussion I've heard concentrates on manipulating
people in ways to make them like you and do what you want. But, if
someone wanted to make others angry and miserable, presumably a theory
of mind would be just as important.

------------------------------
Timothy O'Neill Dang / Cretog8
520-884-7261
One monkey don't stop no show.

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