addiction
What pokies teach us about true love
17/01/12 14:09
The current tiff over mandatory pre-commitment for poker machines demonstrates again the lengths that humans will go to win the object of their desire. What none of the parties are acknowledging is that pokies can actually teach us something essential about human nature.
Psychologists have known for decades that people tend to work hardest in situations where the rewards are only sporadic. Whether it's Sydney-Hobart amateur yachtsmen throwing up in the rain (no names mentioned here), or Wile. E. Coyote biting the Road Runner's dust over and over again, many of us are willing to be punished repeatedly, in our attempt to reach the reward we crave. What's more, the greater the punishment is, the greater the longing becomes. Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen, as the saying goes. Poker machines contain programming that is an attempt to distil this principle into a machine; Punters know they will win, they just don't know how many pushes of the button it will take. The solution is obvious: push it as often as you can, for as long as you can keep it up. If you haven't won yet, try harder. This intermittent reinforcement is the same type of reward system used by researchers, when they want to get their laboratory rats to display addictive behaviour. It is also an essential ingredient in the madness of true love.
"I had an affair. And because of this affair I had lost everything and ended up going bankrupt." Thus spoke a Canadian poker machine user on the ABC's 7:30 program last week. So the phrase, 'It's better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all,' isn't really true if the object of your love only rewards you intermittently. But it's not just the pokies. From teenagers playing hard-to-get, to South Sydney NRL supporters, intermittent reward keeps people endlessly on the hook everywhere. Corporations exploit the phenomenon to generate consumer interest that borders on obsession, simply by keeping people guessing. Apple's secrecy around product release dates leaves people feeling a deep, powerful longing, that turns into overwhelming joy when the latest iThing does finally come onto the market. The next day, rumours begin abut when iThing version two-point-oh will arrive. And so it goes.
Nick Xenophon and Andrew Wilkie's proposed mandatory pre-commitment for poker machines is a little like applying the principle of 'true love waits'. We could place an obstacle between the punter and his beloved, but is it possible that, faced with a machine playing 'hard-to-get', a committed punter will just work harder than ever? Meanwhile, the same intermittent reward effect seems to be driving the pollies ever onward in pursuit of their own political objectives. "It's not dead in the water," Mr Wilkie told reporters today. Time will tell if his efforts, against increasing resistance, will win him the jackpot.
Psychologists have known for decades that people tend to work hardest in situations where the rewards are only sporadic. Whether it's Sydney-Hobart amateur yachtsmen throwing up in the rain (no names mentioned here), or Wile. E. Coyote biting the Road Runner's dust over and over again, many of us are willing to be punished repeatedly, in our attempt to reach the reward we crave. What's more, the greater the punishment is, the greater the longing becomes. Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen, as the saying goes. Poker machines contain programming that is an attempt to distil this principle into a machine; Punters know they will win, they just don't know how many pushes of the button it will take. The solution is obvious: push it as often as you can, for as long as you can keep it up. If you haven't won yet, try harder. This intermittent reinforcement is the same type of reward system used by researchers, when they want to get their laboratory rats to display addictive behaviour. It is also an essential ingredient in the madness of true love.
"I had an affair. And because of this affair I had lost everything and ended up going bankrupt." Thus spoke a Canadian poker machine user on the ABC's 7:30 program last week. So the phrase, 'It's better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all,' isn't really true if the object of your love only rewards you intermittently. But it's not just the pokies. From teenagers playing hard-to-get, to South Sydney NRL supporters, intermittent reward keeps people endlessly on the hook everywhere. Corporations exploit the phenomenon to generate consumer interest that borders on obsession, simply by keeping people guessing. Apple's secrecy around product release dates leaves people feeling a deep, powerful longing, that turns into overwhelming joy when the latest iThing does finally come onto the market. The next day, rumours begin abut when iThing version two-point-oh will arrive. And so it goes.
Nick Xenophon and Andrew Wilkie's proposed mandatory pre-commitment for poker machines is a little like applying the principle of 'true love waits'. We could place an obstacle between the punter and his beloved, but is it possible that, faced with a machine playing 'hard-to-get', a committed punter will just work harder than ever? Meanwhile, the same intermittent reward effect seems to be driving the pollies ever onward in pursuit of their own political objectives. "It's not dead in the water," Mr Wilkie told reporters today. Time will tell if his efforts, against increasing resistance, will win him the jackpot.
|