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Coursera Gamification Class: Week 3 Review By Sudarshan Gopaladesikan

Motivation and Psychology (I) 1. Gamification as Motivational Design a. How do you drive users to engage in desired behavior? What motivates your target audience? b. What are different motivators (there are many more) i. Intrinsicmotivation that means most to you, regardless of any external rewards or benefits. ii. Extrinsicmotivation that stems from receiving external benefits. iii. Monetarymoney is the source of motivation iv. Careera certain phase in someones career might give them certain motivation c. Essential Questions: What motivates people? d. It is important to pay attention to signals that indicate action that was caused by intrinsic motivation. Tapping into this motivation will create a strong connection between a company and a fan. e. There are many different types of motivators, and it seems that these are subjective things..implying motivation may not always be an objective thing. This urges us to pay attention to the target audience wants and desires. 2. Behaviorism a. Behaviorism takes a look at peoples subjective actions, not really the subjective state of minds (see black box) b. They call it the black box, only focused on the input and output of human actions. What people do, not why. c. Stimulusevent that affects the subject d. Responsea reaction to the stimulus

e. Classical conditionstimulus and response are related. A bell ring causes a dog to salivate. f. Operant conditionthere is a feedback loop built in between stimulus and response. For example, the switch and piece of food creates a learning feedback loop to realize that the switch produces food. g. Behavioral Economics i. People suffer from loss aversion, power of defaults, and confirmation bias 1. Rather than being interested in why people hate loss more than love gain, we see that there is a consistent pattern of behavior here. For behaviorism, it is all about the what, not really the why. ii. Observation, feedback loops, and reinforcement are all great key features of learning iii. Remember that gamification is an interdisciplinary study. Some of us may be inclined to want to know the whys behind psychology, but game design implementation should realize the whats as well as the whys. Irrational and sub optimal thinking derived from human misconceptions do make up a lot of the difference between theoretical game theory and how humans play. Since gamification is not game theory, this is a key difference to note. 3. Behaviorism in Gamfication a. Watch What People Do i. Behaviorism does explain a lot by simply looking at what people do. Since economic theory is based on supposed optimal thinking, economic decision- making varies greatly from how humans actually make decisions. b. Importance of Feedback i. Prof. Werbach will talk about reward schedules later on in the segment, but feedback is key! Humans have the curiosity to know what are the outcomes of their actions. Depending on the situation, think about when

humans should receive the feedback: immediately after the action or a delayed consequence? c. Conditioning Through Consequences i. Similar to operant condition. Learning through association between a stimulus, response, and outcome. An example is the withering process in Farmville. People are conditioned to check their farm regularly so the crops dont wither. d. Reinforcement of Rewards i. Rewards are only one of the many game mechanics a designer can employ, but many game components make up rewards (achievements, unlockables, gifts, virtual goods, leaderboards, quests, etc.). Rewards are powerful as they help designers guide users towards desired actions e. Dopamine System i. Dopamine is our bodys chemical way of expressing pleasure to us. Dopamine is related to both learning and pleasure. Rewards, elements, conditioning, feedback, etc. and everything that helps towards the learning process periodically also gives a shot of dopamine to the brain that induces pleasure. This pleasure rush also acts as a motivator. f. A quick note on desired actions. Desired actions are simply the goals that the designer wants the users to ultimately do. For example, a business may gamify their social media channels so that the desired actions are commenting, sharing, liking, posting, etc. Ultimately, the company may want to change their desired actions to purchasing services, and at that time, the gamified elements may have to change to help account for the business new goals. Always know your desired actions. 4. Reward Structures a. What makes rewards so addicting? b. Cognitive Evaluation Theory helps explains different types of rewards: i. Tangible/intangible

1. A tangible reward is something that can be interacted with in some form. From a Boy Scout badge to virtual currency, these are tangible rewards because they can be interacted with. Intangible rewards have no real value except for being a reward and cant easily be interacted with. ii. Expected/unexpected 1. Expected rewards go in the form of do x, get y. Be careful of expected rewards because they may actually demotivate. Unexpected rewards are the surprises that may help a user get engaged and interested enough to continue engaging with the service. For example, getting a badge for doing something on a site that you didnt know earned you a badge. iii. Contingency 1. Task non-contingent a. No matter what, you get the reward 2. Engagement contingent a. Engage with the business/company, get rewarded. (ex. Posting, sharing, commenting on social media channels) 3. Completion contingent a. Finish a goal, task, challenge, get rewarded. 4. Performance contingent a. Do well enough on a task, get rewarded. Performance rates how well you did something aside from if you completed the action. c. One example of using unexpected rewards is designing a game such that making it far enough through the beginning of the game will give the user a reward. The game will then prompt, Please sign up/log in to receive reward, otherwise lose all unsaved progress. d. Behaviorism has taught us that humans hate loss so this use of unexpected rewards actually helps people get drawn into a service.

e. As stated earlier, be aware that using rewards are volatile to the balance of intrinsic/extrinsic rewards. Keeping that balance is key so dont over obsess over rewards. f. To reiterate, rewards can be in the form of points, monetary gain, virtual currency gain, leveling up, and possibly even most forms of scaffolding (from week 2) 5. Reward Schedules a. Knowing how to reward and punish your users at the right time will help them get into the service but also keep them there. (get them to play and keep them playing) b. Continuous i. This schedule follows a continuous schedule of rewarding. Not very effective. c. Fixed Ratio i. Reward distribution is fixed based on the number of times a user has completed an action (ex. Every 3rd post gets rewarded) d. Fixed Interval i. Reward distribution is fixed based on time (ex. Every day, the user will get 10 points to overall score) e. Variable i. Competitive/non-competitive 1. Competition and variability/unpredictability is wired into our brains. We LOVE competition and unpredictability, and the combination helps increase the chances humans will act in a desired way. ii. Certain/uncertain 1. The certainty of a reward influences whether or not a human will actively pursue it. Depending on the value and frequency of the reward, the fact it is certain or uncertain will help influence if the user will participate in the desired action. Certain rewards get boring, and infrequent uncertain rewards wont make the experience rewarding enough to want to continue trying to get uncertain rewards. f. Positive/Negative Reward/Punishment

i. Positive reinforcement is adding something positive to increase a behavior. ii. Negative reinforcement is taking something negative away to increase a behavior. iii. Extinction is another form of a schedule of reinforcement. Suppose you are a company that trapped customers into a specific subset of desired actions you wanted them to complete. The advantage is that you are getting heavy engagement on a few actions, but some of your goals are not being met. Extinction is the absolute removal of a reward so that people lose interest. Think of it as pulling the plug on a certain reward mechanism. iv. Similar to extinction, except punishment is adding something negative to decrease behavior rather than discontinuing something positive. g. From AllPsych.com: i. Fixed Ratio. A fixed ratio schedule refers to applying the reinforcement after a specific number of behaviors. Spanking a child if you have to ask him three times to clean his room is an example. The problem is that the child (or anyone for that matter) will begin to realize that he can get away with two requests before he has to act. Therefore, the behavior does not tend to change until right before the preset number. ii. Fixed Interval. Applying the reinforcer after a specific amount of time is referred to as a fixed interval schedule. An example might be getting a raise every year and not in between. A major problem with this schedule is that people tend to improve their performance right before the time period expires so as to "look good" when the review comes around. iii. Variable Ratio. This refers to applying a reinforcer after a variable number of responses. Variable ratio schedules have been found to work best under many circumstances and knowing an example will explain why. Imagine walking into a casino and heading for the slot machines. After the third coin you put in, you

get two back. Two more and you get three back. Another five coins and you receive two more back. How difficult is it to stop playing? iv. Variable Interval. Reinforcing someone after a variable amount of time is the final schedule. If you have a boss who checks your work periodically, you understand the power of this schedule. Because you dont know when the next check-up might come, you have to be working hard at all times in order to be ready. h. The following graph shows the pros and cons of each of the schedules of reinforcement.

Motivation and Psychology (II) 1. Limits of Behaviorism a. To note again, feedback loops help systematically modify peoples behavior. b. The Speeding Lottery i. What is the displayed speed radar actually doing? Are people slowing down because they want to avoid punishment? ii. Or is the word lottery enticing enough to have people play? c. Although we can learn a lot from black box behaviorism, behaviorism is limited in the sense that it views humans as players. The human dimensions of thought and feeling have to be taken into consideration, especially when designing the games high level features such as the dynamics (meaningful, emotions, etc.). d. As I already said, behaviorism and gamification go hand in hand because it helps explains the whats of human action. This helps us design the lower level elements such as the mechanics and components. To make the game meaningful, we have to understand the whys, and not just for society as a whole, but how best to understand it for each person. e. When thinking about your target audience, try not to categorize them into types of customers/users/players. Try to create personas that break down key features of your target audience into 10 point scales (ex. Ambition, wealth, health, etc.). The customization of the scale and features (parameters) will help you understand the demographic on a deeper level. 2. Dangers of Behaviorism a. Potential for abuse/manipulation i. Look at slot machines. They have people addicted to a variable scheduled game. b. Hedonic Treadmill i. This theory states that regardless of extreme positives/negatives in life, humans have a relatively stable happiness level.

ii. Monkey experiment with grape juice. Monkey dopamine was activated at the anticipation of the grape juice (the tone). This leads us to believe that we try to sense rewards, but clinging on to the wrong indications of rewards can be damaging. 1. However, anticipation of rewards are great especially during boss fights. Because you are probably in the magic circle while playing a game, you probably dont realize that you get really pumped up or focused during boss fights. There isnt empirical evidence, but then again, this is another perspective. c. Overemphasis on Status i. There is an overemphasis on status, and Prof. Werbach argues that this takes away from the overall quality of the experience. It may be the case that people arent interested in status for certain experiences, and it may be the case that status is demotivating if they see themselves as too far below the average skill. 3. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation a. Cognitive PsychologyBehaviorisms opponents i. Cog Psych. Tries to open the black box b. Motivation i. Intrinsic 1. You do an action for the sake of that action and no external reward. You find the action fun for simply the action, and that is what drives you. ii. Extrinsic 1. You do an action because there is an external reward attached to it. (ex. Pay, pay raise, virtual currency, badge, points, etc.) c. SAPS (Extrinsic Motivation) Thanks Gabe! i. Status 1. The ability to accrue status is powerful. Although it is intangible, people love comparison, competition, sense of self- achievement, etc. Status gives them that.

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ii. Access 1. People want all sorts of freedom. Access is a type of freedom that allows people to interact with an environment on a deeper level. iii. Power 1. Enable things that people can do. Another type of freedom. Being able to interact with the service in ways that others cant. Similar to access. iv. Stuff 1. These are the obvious tangible rewards. Rewards that people get in the form of points, currency, badges, achievements, etc. d. SAPS works in a upward hierarchy, with Status at the top. This hierarchy exists for businesses as it is easier to do the things higher on the top because status can be given without giving out stuff aka resources. e. Gabe Zichermann, founder of Gamification Co, also stated in his creation of SAPS that the hierarchy also works bottom up when it comes to peoples motivation. Prof. Werbach argued that an overemphasis on status is dangerous, so this hierarchy may be flawed. f. As a gamification enthusiast in college, I feel that intrinsic motivations are the ones that we should care about. However, I sometimes feel that my intrinsic motivations such as writing these notes simply because I want to learn about and contribute to the study of gamificationhave great extrinsic rewards. With the addition of extrinsic rewards, my behavior could easily be seen as action driven by extrinsic motivation. i. This leads to me believe that there is an uncertainty principle between our intrinsic motivations and our knowledge of them. The less we know about our intrinsic motivations, the more we are motivated by whatever they are. The more we think we know about our intrinsic motivations, the less confident (or over biased) we are in whatever we think it is we are motivated by. Again, this is just a perspective to help think about the material in different ways.

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g. Prof. Werbach argues that Gabes hierarchy for SAPS was flawed in the sense that status should not be considered as the primary motivator for humans. I will provide my interpretations of both sides of the argument: i. Werbachsometimes the majority of people dont want status competitions because they want it to be more of a friendly social experience. Sometimes, over obsession of status can lead to depression because the user is never satisfied. ii. Zichermannstatus is the all encompassing motivator that affects all over motivators. If you have stuff, you have a certain status of stuff. If you have access, you have a certain status of access, and so on. Status defines the users state of being within the environment. It helps give the user a unique identity, and this is key. 4. How Can Rewards Demotivate a. Overjustification effect (external rewards substitute for intrinsic motivation) i. Drawingchildren who liked to draw stopped drawing for fun after a reward was introduced. ii. Charging for late pick up by day care centers caused parents to come late because they equated 10 dollars to their opportunity cost (what they were doing not picking up their children) iii. Is it the reward that is demotivating? Or is the fact that someone is observing and rating your performance that makes it lose the essence of being a solo effort? b. Tangible rewards are the biggest demotivators c. Unexpected rewards have little to no effect on intrinsic motivation d. If performance is seen as an external goal rather than a sign of good progress, performance-contingent rewards may not be good for intrinsic motivation. Make performance an indicator of how well the user/player is doing. e. The motivation to do something out of kindness or altruism is much different than the motivation to do something

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because of an external reward. As weve seen from the over justification effect, dont mix apples and oranges. 5. Self-Determination Theory a. Motivational Spectrum i. Amotivationindifferent to the action ii. Extrinsic 1. External regulation a. You feel like you have to do it but dont really care 2. Introjection a. Status. You see others value something similar so you take it upon as your own goal. 3. Indentification a. You have taken a personal taking to the action as you see personal benefit (ex. Motivation to do math major because it has benefits) 4. Integration a. The goal and the action itself have integrated and both are closely motivating, if not equally the same. iii. Intrinsic Motivationmotivating for its own sake b. Self-Determination Theory i. Competencecan I explore/test my skill? ii. Autonomycan I make meaningful choices? iii. Relatednesscan my meaningful choices create a meaningful outcome (ex. Social games, jobs, etc.) 6. Part I Wrap-Up a. We learned the building blocks of gamification are games, game thinking, psychology, and motivation. There are plenty more building blocks, but we will call these our foundation. b. In the following weeks, look for: i. Applications ii. Applications within the enterprise iii. Dangers of Gamification/The Future of Gamification