Intent-Impact Gap, The Dunning-Kruger Effect, and Toxicity

Some Context

Once upon a time, there was a man name McAurther Wheeler that wanted to be more financially independent. Mr. Wheeler decided the key to this would be to rob not one but two banks. Mr. Wheeler being a sensible man understood to pull off this heist, he would need to incognito during his dastardly act and came up with an idea to fool the security cameras. He knew that you could use lemon juice as invisible ink and armed with this bit of information covered his face in lemon juice before conducting his heists. Needless to say, he was apprehended by authorities. 

In come the illustrious Doctors David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University. They were fascinated by this bold act from Mr. Wheeler. How could someone act with such daring? Well, it turns out that Mr. Wheeler knew so little about how lemon juice worked as invisible ink and so little about security cameras work, that he assumed the invisible properties would transfer to anything. They set off to researching what could cause this and came up with the cleverly named "Dunning-Kruger Effect."

This phenomenon is described as "a cognitive bias in which relatively unskilled persons suffer an illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is." Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately. Their research also suggests corollaries: "highly skilled individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others." This tends to result in novices shouting they are right while experts mull it over and answer with "Well... possibly?" This is the resulting model:

img credit: http://ypsgroup.com/blog/develop-relationships/dunning-kruger-effect/

Entertaining story; so what?

If you couple this over confidence (or Mt. Stupid as it was loving referred to as by Todd Youngblood) with a lack of empathy, you likely introduce toxicity into your gameplay.

In a survey conducted last year by Orlando based indie developer Free Dominion Studios, 77% responded saying they are most frustrated with players they believe are being unfriendly. 34% also said that players get frustrated with them most often for 'Lack of Skill', and 58% being frustrated for ‘Cheating’ which is extremely difficult, implying a lack of understanding the game’s systems.

Out of this sample the average number of hours spent playing games per week was 21.09 hours, and had been playing games for an average of 18.76 years. They also reported that they are more likely to "take the time understand the game's ‘Meta.’"  Suggesting that these players have most likely hit the 100,000 hours for mastery and likely do not lack ‘skill' or understanding.

Then why would this be the most common complaint they receive from other players? This is where the Dunning-Kruger Effect likely comes into play.

Here's how it often plays out.

Player A has reached the top level in the game, so Player A likely feels validated in their assumption that they are a competent player despite having just reached the highest level. Player B has invested the past 2 years of their life into the game. They have been at the top level for three-quarters of that time.

Now Player A and Player B get paired up in a match on the same team. Player A focuses on killing members of the opposing team and hostile NPCs while Player B focuses on the objectives and securing strategic points on the map. Let's say Player A has a really high kill to deaths ratio and as a result is at the top of the team's leaderboard. Player B meanwhile has a lower kill to death ratio and is sitting at the bottom or near the middle of the leaderboard despite their efforts to secure strategic points on the map. Their team loses the match. Whose at fault? Veteran players of titles like League of Legends, DOTA, and Crucible in Destiny are more than familiar with this situation. 

So who's to blame?

One school of thought will place the blame on Player A. If he had helped the team more by focusing on objectives and strategic points of control rather that chasing personal glory they would have won the match. Others will say that Player B is at fault, he should have helped by killing more opponents and been more concerned with his kill to death ratio. In both of these instances, they both think the other lacks the skills necessary to effectively contribute to the team.

Let's say they vocalize that they think they other lacks skill. Well Player A will likely find that rude because he/she worked hard to reach the level cap. Player B will also likely find that rude because he's sunk a substantial amount of time into the game. If this perspective is vocalized, you likely have at least 1 party that has the potential for taking offense and thinking the other party is unfriendly. 

What about that "Intent Impact Gap" thingy?

Well, here's where it factors into the social dynamic. Both players probably have the intent of improving their co-player so they can win the next match. The impact, however, is that they think the other guy/gal is an incompetent jerk. This leads to increased tension between the two and toxicity is that much more likely to ensue. The whole premise of the Intent Impact Gap is that it doesn't matter whether or not one party is being a jerk, but whether or not the other party thinks they are being a jerk.

That gap will always exist, at least until we master the ability to read minds while remaining 100% empathetic, and even then... The point is that gap can be minimized and made smaller.

The solution?

*This is where I get all idealistic and voice my humble opinion.*

As game designers, I think we should strive to find a way to accurately convey just how competent players are to themselves, a sort of, "check yourself, 'for you wreck yourself" system. We should provide opt-in tutorials slowly over time that aid players in increasing their competence. If we allow players to report players, we should notify the players being reported immediately with helpful and useful feedback. The consequences of the reporting can and probably should be handled on a case by case basis with great thought, but the immediate feedback allows for them to course correct before they keep trudging down the wrong path. 

Practically speaking, toxic players affect your bottom line. The more toxicity they spread, the lower your player retention, which means fewer microtransaction and fewer recommendations to their friends to play your game. We should care deeply about fostering a prosocial community of gamers rather than just limiting toxicity. 

And to those reading, the scenario laid out above and thinking "Who cares!?!? It's just a game! Just have fun!" please send me an email with your PSN ID and/or Steam ID, because you're exactly the type of person I like to play alongside online.