Network Management Psychology

12.4 Network Management Psychology

12.4.1 General Psychology of Network Management

1. General psychology of online game management

During the course of the game, none of the physical needs of the players were satisfied, but why are games such powerful temptation for them? That is because the game can satisfy some psychological needs of the players (as some self- transcendence cannot be achieved in real life). Therefore, an analysis psychological activities and needs of the players is helpful for us to design good games.

Ultimately the player’s behavior in the game is exchanges (or interaction), one of the most basic and simple patterns of human behavior. And the behavioral patterns will also be divided into two categories according to different types of games: human-machine interaction (That is exchange and interaction between users and the pre-defined procedures; the stand-alone games are of this type), and human-human exchanges (This is exchange and interaction among people on a platform set by procedure). The different psychological momenta of the game are as follows:

2. Trend of human-computer interaction

Human-computer interaction pattern has been seen in most of the stand-alone games, because the stand-alone games process is planned beforehand. The players face something with its own principle, so there will be certain law of psychological momentum as follows:

First they may find a target, and obstacles appear so that they have to find the solutions to overcome them. Finally they may achieve the target and find a new target. The players feel curious when finding the target, and then they feel the pressure and motivation when obstacles appear. Finally they have a sense of accomplishment when achieving the target (the feeling is in positive proportion to the pressure) and feel curious again when finding new target, thus forming a circle of psychological momentum.

It should be noted that in such a psychological momentum of playing the game enjoyment is brought about in the process of the appearance of and solution to the obstacles. The two psychological factors (motivation and pressure to solve the problem) seem to be at the two ends of a psychological scale. When there is greater motivation than pressure, the players are interested in the game, but if there is far greater pressure than motivation, they will give up the game. We should note two points: Firstly, heart endurance varies from person to person. In playing the same game, different people have different levels of motivation and pressure and that’s why some difficult games will still attract some players. Secondly, the psychological process of playing the game is not static, and

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pressure and motivation may keep moving up and down on a seesaw. The greater the frequency of the movement is, the greater the sense of accomplishment after success will be. However, the campaign will not exceed the endurance of the players, or else the player will abandon the game. Moreover, if the process of the game cannot make players feel like playing on a seesaw, it would undoubtedly be absolute rubbish.

3. The psychological momentum of the human-human interaction pattern

It is impossible to describe the psychological momentum of human-human interaction pattern, which the same as that in the real life and different from that in human-machine interaction, for it’s dynamic with uncertain factors, resulting that there is no law to be followed.

That is the success of human-to-human interaction games, but is also the failure. The success lies in the fact that the interaction objects are animated and their interaction course is dynamic. This brings the particular sense of interest and devotion, which the human-machine pattern cannot outpace. The process of playing the game is full of changes and players will never feel bored. However, the sense of interest and devotion is based on the effective interaction. In the online games, the interaction is not always good. Bad interaction is unavoidable in the world of online games (such as cleanup, baleful PK, robbing measure and so on), so the reasonable design of game systems can maximize the effective interaction between players and avoid the bad interaction. That is also an important direction of online game design.

In modern western psychology, there are two conflicting thoughts. One is the deep-seated psychology studying the inner spirit world; the other is the behavioral psychology studying the human’s behavior. In the view of the behavioral psychology, human’s behavior is rooted from the environment, and is the reaction to the various stimulations, thus it is focused on the research of the various behavior reaction patterns. Just like the professors doing research on the way the mouse get through the maze, psychologists are doing research on the human reaction to various types of stimulation, and recording the mass statistic data. In fact, the research on the spirit is ignored in the behavior psychology, and the research is limited to the obvious objects and the observable human behavior. Behavioral psychologist admits that there is spirit in human beings, but how about the animals? They think the mental activities are not important; one reason is that mental activities are purely subjective and cannot be studied. But the more important reason is that emotions, thoughts and imagination are secondary to behavior in human life, because the occurrence of any act can be dated from specific stimulation and accord with the law that can be discovered.

Obviously, such psychology method is unlikely to meet the imagination of the public. Laboratory test data collected every minute is hard to make people excited, even the person collecting information. Pavlov behavior belongs to the behavior of the actor; behavior cannot exist without the actor. According to the

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psychological theory, human behavior is governed and promoted by some motivation rooted in the material and spiritual need of human beings. According to psychological analysis, the psychological structure of human beings has three elements: cognition, emotion and will. The process of people’s behavioral psychology is explained in the following part. Firstly people’s material or spiritual needs lead to the behavior motive, the psychology of obtaining some expected benefits. And subsequently due to the inertia of thinking, mental habit formed in people’s long time production and life practice, and set out the behavior pattern to meet such psychology in the mind. This is the first stage, cognition. Then according to the knowledge and experience, they understand such behavior pattern and analyze the possibility of obtaining such benefits, which is the second stage, the emotion. Finally they make the choice of carrying out the behavior or not, or modifying the pattern, and in the end form the positive or negative will and achieve the behavior pattern or cancel it. At last it is necessary to point out that the specific factors of the different individuals, e.g. physiological and psychological factors, can also become the basis for the different behaviors of the individuals. But which factors will practically become the basis for the criminal behavior of the people depends on the external conditions they encountered and interacted with, e.g. emotional factors or natural environmental factors.

In online games, there has been a group of people touting “professional abuse of people” everywhere. If you pay a certain amount of virtual currency and designate the person to be abused, they would keep abusing the person 24-hour online until the person is infamy in the online games community. Such business is booming.

Online game players are looking for accumulated points to arrive at a higher status. But many people want to take a shortcut to quickly achieve a higher level, and they even do not hesitate to “kill”; then the person “killed” looks for someone else to shout abuses to vent his anger, which results in “professional abuse of people”. Although it is not correct and is disreputable, business is still booming, which just proves the saying—where there is demand there is a market.

If the players are taking the right path and accumulating points according to their ability, they will never “be killed” . If the master-hands with better skill do not kill person and seize his goods casually, they will never suffer from professional abuse. There will be no market as long as players are not opportunistic. Some players will take all means in order to dominate dummy world, and they will employ people to conduct personal attacks on others to take revenge. Though these deeds happen in the virtual world of the Internet, they can reflect the bad psychology of some young people. In their points of view, the law of the jungle rules the world and they should achieve their goals by all means. If such thoughts are applied into the reality, is not it impossible for the world to be in chaos?

The appearance of the full-time professional abuser resulted from the revenge of person “killed” in online games. In real life, it is normal for someone to have hostile feelings or the desire to take revenge when he is hurt. Such vengeance

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mentality appears in the network with the transfer of some social functions to the network, and the professional abuse of people is an example.

In reality, there is also revenge, but why does not retaliatory act spread? The reason is that there exist the laws, which prevent people from taking revenge by hurting others. But it is different in the virtual world, where some people take revenge deliberately and even find other people to help them (“professional abuse for people”) basically without taking any responsibility.

Generally, the exercising the right of freedom should not hinder the freedom of others. For instance, you have the freedom to curse another person but other people also have the freedom not to be cursed. In this case both of you are equal. If you curse a pig in the wilderness, no one will protest, because you are not against the freedom of others.

So, is the network the wilderness? No. Is the Netizen the pigs? No. In the virtual world created by human beings, people also have their interests. Obviously, protecting their own interests is the instinct and natural right. Therefore, the Internet is a community reflecting the realistic interests in which anybody has to follow certain ethical standards. Similarly, the network is not a fairyland for abusing others and anyone who seriously damages the interests of others will also pay the price. As to the act of paying for “professional abuse for people”, such “service contract” is in itself a violation of public order and good morals, and a void civil behavior not protected by the law. Moreover, is there any business registration or qualified certification for those who engage in the abusing of other? Has he paid taxes?

Those unscrupulous people on the Internet will surely think that no one knows what they have done since they abuse others in a corner. There exist ethical and legal issues. A noble-moral person knows he should be careful about his behavior even when he is alone. Such psychology reflects the necessity of sound network legislation. As a minimum of social behavior norms, the laws are actually drafted for those who do not follow the moral principles of the society. One’s behavior need not be moral, but at least he should not act against the law.

4. The demand psychology of network information service user

From the user’s point of view, evaluation of the effectiveness of the service determines whether users continuously take advantage of network information service website and the length of time they use. It is mainly manifested by users’ service experience and evaluation.

In the process of information service, owing to the different user’s expectations for the services and the differences in their personalities and experiences, users’ service experience could be divided into three levels: satisfied, basically satisfied, dissatisfied. The three levels can be fully reflected through website design, service attitude, information quality and the ease of access to information. If the user is satisfied he will act actively and be willing to choose the site continuously to receive information. If users’ satisfaction reduces, he will reduce the time of

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and lower his trust in receiving services. If users are dissatisfied with the service, they will do everything possible to avoid receiving the service. Because users are likely to have three different experiences, attention should be paid to user’s experience in the network information service and a full range of quality services should be provided to maximize the user’s satisfaction when he receives information.

In addition, users’ services experience and the evaluation may affect their information using behavior in the next time and are likely to influence others’ attitudes and behavior on the network information service website. On the other hand, the well-known reputation and influence of network information service website will undoubtedly play a positive role in its Internet version, but it should not just be a copy of the traditional Internet version, and should update the means, ways and contents of its service to meet the growing needs of the users for information.

Faced with the disorderly sea of information, the users have limited absorption capacity of the information. With the acceleration of information input within a certain scope, the users’ absorption of and reaction to information will be speeded up accordingly, but when the rate of the information input exceeds a certain threshold value, the users’ message response and the absorption rate will slow down or even stop, so the users will select and filter information according to their specific needs and values to got rid of the unnecessary information and to retain the valuable information. If it is useful, the information obtained will be absorbed, or else abandoned. Then the mentality is that when there is more useful information there are more pressing needs and the users in search for information will have more serious attitude and behave more actively. This shows that the users’ needs of information depend on the value, which is also the driving force of searching information. In addition, some users who might put too much emphasis on some information that mistakenly exclude the valueless information and only choose valuable information, which leads to the greater bias of value behavior.

American scholar Thomas Man summarizes ‘the principle of least effort’ from the users accessing to literature information: “Most of the researchers and even some serious scholars are accustomed to use the easily obtainable information sources, even if the quality is not high. Meanwhile, they are easily satisfied with the easily obtainable information and unwilling to spend more efforts in pursuing higher quality information sources.” Therefore, when they access to information, the customers always have the psychological tendency of minimizing effort to yield the maximum return. Such a trend makes the users choose the simple information cited from some easily and conveniently accessed sources. Thus, along with the formation and the continuous improvement of the network information service system, when designing network terminal we should take into full consideration the users’ habit of obtaining information and make the efforts to offer “one-stop” service.

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5. The defense psychology of the network information services users

When harmful, possibly harmful or disadvantageous stimulation appears, the users may defense instinctively, close the sensory channel and refuse any input. This is the defense psychology of the users. As a media, network’s advantages are obvious: synchronous or immediate exchange, broad coverage, with massive storage capacity, strong interaction, coexistence of various media, which brings much convenience to the people and at the same time makes people have a psychological defense.

The main body of network information services is diversified at present. The users have too much to see when facing various types of domestic or overseas digital libraries, the Internet version of the traditional media at home and abroad, various commercial exploitation websites, and personal homepages and chat rooms. While receiving information, users may doubt whether the information disseminated is authoritative and credible, whether the information sources are reliable and whether information quality is good. With regards to the contents of information, network information is featured by its large volume, various types, informal style and different languages. Information is also exchanged without time and space limitation. The unprecedented increase of its complexity and diversity, coupled with the mixture of academic information, business information, government information and personal information often makes the users at a loss of massive information impact. With regards to network management, network development and the dynamic increase of information resources on the Internet are user-driven. However, due to lack of necessary filtration, quality control and management, information dissemination is free and arbitrary, and it is impossible for domestic laws to manage the foreign websites, thus the worries for the security and quality of information security and quality are unavoidably.

It can be said that there are substantial differences between the traditional information service and the online information service. In the traditional information service, there is definite object, fixed relationship, responding act and definite interpretation of the responding acts. Therefore such service is really reliable. But in network service, the object is not clear, the response is uncertain, and the answer may be interpreted in various ways, thus information may not be reliable. Moreover there is no need of self-control for the spread of the network. All these cause the users to have a defense psychology.

12.4.2 Behavior Psychology of Network Management

1. Online discussion

Imagine you are one of the mailing list subscribers of drugs sold online, and would like to know others’ experience of glucose in the treatment of the pain on the back. After reading a number of irrelevant information, you mentioned in

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your mail the information concerning certain brand names, purchasing channels, and market prices; and asked whether other people have used the product. The next day, it was publicly stated that such online marketing is absolutely unacceptable; some will lament that the new Internet users do not love to read Notes for Net citizens before surfing online. Still other people would give you a letter on his person, and talk about his experience of using glucose in the treatment of arthritis. In the end of the letter, they do not forget to remind you not to mention a specific brand name or else others would doubt that you are a drug dealer doing free advertising.

You actually violated the rule of online discussion by accidentally mentioning

a specific brand but the three above-mentioned replies adopted different strategies and brought different psychological effects. The first person’s attacking strategy was very easy to make you rebut. You would have thought it as unjustified accusation, so it was difficult to ensure that you fought back against him. Even you have received only one letter, you might still choose to leave this discussion group with regret thinking you have met somebody contemptible. To create a negative impression does not need a lot of experience and you would find life online sometimes really very dirty, insolent and arrogant. The second person used the mockery strategy to the new users, which is still a very direct criticism on you. The psychological implication is to stress his rich experience as a mail sender, which is a strategy at the price of the addressee.

The third person directly answered your question, with respect and sympathies. He was so clever by telling you what should be paid attention to in a private rather than public way. He was aware that public criticism is too insulting to a newcomer and avoided doing so. He guessed your identity in the best way. You are not a smart drug dealer; you just made a small mistake accidentally. Finally you made friends with him and you stayed in this group and ridiculed those people in the mail with his support. You even intended to give those people some herbs to eat, such as chamomile.

The ways people interact with each other online involve senseless online discussion losing the initial purpose. The three letters you have received contain elements of online discussion, because they emphasize the rules and practices of the interaction; some of them are desirable, but others simply do not fit this group. This phenomenon on the Internet is rarely seen in the real life, because the corresponding rules in the real life are relatively stable and easy to understand.

The tone and style of online forum is of important psychological impact. It can

be seen clearly in the three above-mentioned letters that the different attitudes of people on online forums bring about different effects. In online discussions, we should be cautious particularly when attending open discussions to make comments, or the discussion will become acrimonious attacks on each other. Besides, since online communications are usually kept for consultation, we may give up the fixed bias through analysis of the communication patterns. For example, we may count the numbers of mails from males or females to make

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clear whether it was males who ignored females or vice versa.

Conversely, online discussions can lead to disharmony, or even split among the people. The group is prone to polarization. Sometimes, you can hear such words: “Do not speak when your mouth is full!” or you can hear more aggressive words: “Buddies, I hate the way you speak. Shut up and get out!”

2. Synchronous space psychology

Though synchronous pace is not the only compulsory network environment, it did cause extensive use of the Internet. What is so fascinating to people? Therefore, let us first investigate into other fascinating activities, such as gambling. This is precisely the work point of B.F. Skinner.

Skinner discovers the complexity of strengthened therapy through e-mail. The principle is very simple: everyone is willing to repeat the action which has been praised by others. We are accustomed to connect the outcome of responses and are usually willing to do something which brings happiness to people. The detailed process can explain why the simultaneous Internet environment is so attractive. For example, time is vital to offer rewards. If the rewards are delayed for too long a period of time, they lose their effect, which may influence behavior.

The repetition of some praised actions for certain rewards may be an important element for being fascinated. Gambling games such as the slot machines are typical examples. In such a game people do not know how many poles should be drawn in the end so as to win prizes but they always hope that they will win the prize as soon as possible. It is the uncertainty that makes people continuously repeat this game.

Sometimes, if a certain act is repeated all the time without award, it would disappear, but sometimes even if there is no reward, acts will continue for a very long time.

Strengthened therapy is a basic psychological process impact on the behaviors, not limited to fascinated behavior. These characteristics may explain why the Internet is as attractive as the slot machines. The clanking sounds of the coins spitted out of the tiger’s mouth are the incentives to attract many people and in some attracting social environment, people’s attention to and recognition of you is a kind of reward.

After the article is sent to the simultaneous Internet, you can either receive reply simultaneity within a few seconds or simply not get it. Similarly, the process of the strengthened therapy makes more people lost in the online games and chat rooms. They are always immersed in the joy of victory.