COMPETENCE IMPEDANCE AND AGGRESSION 451 Aggressive behavior.The amount of time participants as (c)completed a very brie uzzle play were prov with a single iter hus far -placing their hand in a bath of r her hand in the chilled laying a con eir hand in the of time they them selves endured (=25.98.SD ed for th by the prece er words.par cipants tended to pass on roughly using .ol huma d in chille vater using a 10-poin cale Results nd sive feeling othe sive feeli ngs would be noderately painful (M g cha ive feelings B(45 7,p of the -1).This ved that in affect relatec witl In its ard form the puzzle aggres sive feeling ited to the that aggres ve behavi We furth ld assign a nce to another perse roviding picce at randon B(46) .P- .12,onto the condition cod The boptimal selve st in 17%,thir and foru th task than th expenenced then By distributing the using this more physica diffic ely undermi n (M that our manipulatio of the me's algorithms Study 7 ed for 1op g the optimally e enging algorith In this study.wer g com gorithr .B53 001 satisfaction related to nto the dition need satisfaction thos ers w playing with ould be negatively linked tog algorithm reported higher levels ive feelings postp d to tho Moreover.w h ithm (M 2 20 SD 095) res. the of a-mi ndent of violent game nts were co ve feelings would be negatively relat d【o player enjoy. (M1.SD051.73).and atter (12 SD037. Method Participants andgraphic survey, (b) completed a chilled water task described in detail below, (c) completed a very brief packet of self-report assessments, (d) played a computer game for 10 min, and then (e) filled out a second short collection of self-report measures. Behavioral aggression task. After completing a demographic survey, participants were informed that they were going to undergo a physiological stressor—placing their hand in a bath of chilled water before playing a computer game. Participants were told that the length of time they were to hold their hand in the chilled water was selected for them by the preceding participant. In truth, this time period was fixed for all participants at 25 s. The bath was maintained at 4° Celsius, and the temperature was verified for each participant using an infrared thermometer ( 1°). To ensure all participants considered this task aversive, participants completed a single item measure of discomfort; it asked them to rate how their hand felt immersed in chilled water using a 10-point scale ranging from 1 “no pain at all” to 10 “in extreme pain.” This assessment showed participants considered immersing their hand in the chilled water as moderately painful (M
5.43, SD
2.51). Target game manipulation. In this study, we employed a custom variant of the popular puzzle game Tetris. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two versions of the game, using either the game’s standard algorithm (i.e., optimally challenging) or an adjusted algorithm (i.e., overly challenging, intended to be competence-impeding). In its standard form, the puzzle game’s algorithm provides the player one of seven pieces at random in each round. By normally distributing these seven pieces, the game provides a level of challenge well suited to the abilities of most players. In contrast, the adjusted challenge system used in this study utilized the Bastet 0.41 algorithm (Poloni, 2006). Instead of providing pieces at random, the algorithm uses an evaluation function that calculates and ranks the relative utility of all possible pieces for each round of the game. The algorithm selects a set of four suboptimal pieces using these values. From these four pieces, the algorithm then provides the worst possible piece in 75% of rounds, second worst in 17%, third worst in 6%, and forth worst in 2% of rounds. By distributing the pieces using this method, the game can be understood to be overly difficult, actively undermin￾ing player effectiveness. To ensure that our manipulation of the game’s algorithms would succeed in thwarting player competence, we conducted a pilot study. Participants (n
54) were randomly assigned to play the game for 10 min using the optimally challenging algorithm (coded: 1) or the overly challenging algorithm (coded: 1). We re￾gressed self-reports of player competence need satisfaction (
.92), (53)
.56, p .001, R2
.31, onto the condition code. This result indicated the manipulation of game structure succeeded in influencing player felt competence-need satisfaction; those playing with the standard algorithm reported higher levels of competence (M
3.65, SD
1.09) compared to those using the modified algorithm (M
2.29, SD
0.95). Measures. To accommodate the constraints of a 30-min de￾sign, only a handful of self-report assessments were collected. Besides demographics, aggressive feelings were assessed before (M
1.39, SD
0.51,
.73), and after (M
1.22, SD
0.37,
.72) play using the same measure as Studies 4 and 5. Change scores for aggressive affect were computed using the same method used in previous studies. Aggressive behavior. The amount of time participants as￾signed for the next participant to endure the aversive physiological task was used as a behavioral measure of aggression. After 10 min of puzzle play, participants were provided with a single item measure that asked: “Based on your experience in the experiment thus far, how long do you believe the next participant should be instructed to put his or her hand in the chilled water?” Overall, participants assigned the next participant approximately the same amount of time they themselves endured (Msec
25.98, SD
11.10). In other words, participants tended to pass on roughly the same dose of discomfort as they experienced. In the present study, we interpreted deviations from this moderate baseline as the par￾ticipants’ willingness to inflict more or less pain on another human being, reflecting aggression. Results Player competence and aggressive feelings. We hypothe￾sized that short term shifts in aggressive feelings would be pre￾dicted by the challenge level of the game. We evaluated this prediction by regressing change in aggressive feelings, (45)
.37, p
.009, R2
.14, onto the condition code (optimal chal￾lenge algorithm coded: 1, overly challenging algorithm coded: 1). This result showed that increased aggressive affect related directly to level of challenge, with those assigned to play the highly challenging (i.e., competence-impeding) algorithm showing increased aggressive feelings. Player competence and aggressive behavior. We further hypothesized that behavioral aggression— how long participants would assign a moderately painful experience to another person— would be predicted by the very-highly challenging game play. We evaluated this prediction by regressing behavioral aggression scores, (46)
.35, p
.017, R2
.12, onto the condition code. This outcome indicates players who played the optimal puzzle algorithm tended to assign subsequent participants to nearly 3 s less of the chilled water task than they experienced themselves (Msec
22.25), whereas those who played using the competence￾thwarting algorithm assigned over seven more seconds of physical pain (Msec
29.87). Study 7 Study 7 was conducted to evaluate the generalizability of the competence-impedance hypothesis across everyday gaming con￾texts. In this study, we recruited a sample of self-selecting com￾puter game players to examine the extent to which avid players’ experiences of competence-need satisfaction related to aggressive feelings postengagement as well as game enjoyment. We hypoth￾esized that the competence-need satisfaction of self-selecting play￾ers would be negatively linked to aggressive feelings postplay and positively related to game enjoyment. Moreover, we expected that player competence would be related to postplay aggression inde￾pendent of violent game content. Finally, we predicted postplay aggressive feelings would be negatively related to player enjoy￾ment. Method Participants and procedure. Three hundred eight regular videogame players (258 males), mean age
23.5 years (SD
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