Extra Credits

The concept of agency / Le concept d’agentivité (2/2)

Last week, I started to talk about agency, this “feeling that you are in control” and that your actions can have an impact on your environment. In particular, I mentioned how video games can help us understand when choices are meaningful and how they teach us this power of decision. Today, let’s continue with a focus on the links between games and real-life, and on false choices and manipulation.

The concept of agency / Le concept d’agentivité (1/2)

Two weeks ago, I talked about Skinner’s theories on human behavior and conditioning. I also mentioned how his discoveries, and most notably the Skinner box, have been used in game design. When we think about conditioning, something that we usually have difficulty with is the idea that some external force is deciding for us; that we have essentially lost our power of action. This ability to choose and influence the events in our life is called “agency”.

Are we like Skinner’s pigeon? / Sommes-nous comme le pigeon de Skinner ?

During the 20th century, the American psychologist and behaviorist B. F. Skinner studied behavior analysis and conditioning and wrote various novels about human behavior. Since then, his work has been quoted many times and even applied to some of our contemporary systems in fields as diverse as video games, education or work management.