A few weeks ago, James was reading an article
on a psychological study concerning the concept of 'enclothed cognition'.
Basically, the idea that we think differently based on the clothes we wear.
And it sparked all kinds of interesting thoughts on how we might apply this to games.
So today, we are going to talk about what our characters wear,
might affect how we play.
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Alright, so, enclothed cognition.
What is it, specifically?
What was this study James saw?
Well, it was a psychological study where they took people and tested them
on how well they were able to focus under differing conditions.
But interestingly, the variable they were studying was:
"What happens if you hand people a lab coat, and them make them solve problems?"
And they found that wearing a lab coat actually increased people's ability to focus.
Although it also decreased their lateral problem solving skills,
which is rooted in yet another fascinating study which we should talk about later sometime.
Being curious about these results, the researchers started to dig in and test another element of the human psyche:
How we understand the clothes we wear.
When people would enter the lab, the researchers would tell them that the lab had recently been under construction,
and that they should wear a coat to protect their clothes.
They split the people into two groups,
and handed them each the same type of coat.
But then they told one group that this coat was a doctor's coat,
and they told the other group that it was a painter's coat.
And they found that only the group which received the "doctor's coat"
actually had the increased focus, decreased lateral thinking result.
Now, I don't know how much I buy into this study's conclusions,
not because the researchers didn't do a good job or because their work was flawed,
but simply because the topic hasn't been studied broadly enough yet.
Still, I found it fascinating to think about in terms of games.
I mean, we project onto our in-game avatars,
so what impact does our avatar's attire have on us and how we play?
The more I thought about this,
the more I realized that I think it has at least some impact on me.
If I've got a group of playable characters and one of them looks like a sniper,
like, say, they're wearing a ghillie suit or something that just feels sniper-ish,
I'm more likely to play like a sniper when I use that character,
even if they're mechanically identical to all the other characters.
And if I'm playing a character with a big, heavy suit of armor,
I'm more likely to play them like a tank, or even use them as the tank for my party,
even if that other character that I have in the party who wears the long, flowing robes
has the exact same stats and is just as viable to be the tanking character,
I'll still probably choose the armored-looking guy every time.
It just feels right.
In fact, as I kept thinking about this, I was hit with another revelation:
When I play XCOM 2, class specialization wasn't the only variable that defined how I played my characters.
At the beginning of my playthrough, I got this sniper character two just totally looked like a sniper.
You know those trope-y, professional assassin characters you see on TV?
The one who are, like, clean-cut to the point of sociopathy,
probably wearing slightly nerdy glasses
and, due to all sort of weird biases I don't want to sidetrack into now, are often European?
Well, this was that guy.
And over the course of the game, I realized that I actually played him differently than any of my other snipers.
I played him more methodically, with more attention to detail.
I ended up even not giving him any of the pistol skills,
which is not how I usually build my sniper characters.
All because of the way he looked.
And what's even crazier is that eventually, when he proved himself to be one of my most awesome soldiers,
I literally had him put on shades, and it totally changed the way I played him.
And I didn't even realize I had been doing that until I read this article.
As game designers, we've long known about the indicative value of how we dress characters.
We use character clothing as part of the UI, to indicate to players that
"this character is a sniper" or "this character is a tank".
But I've rarely heard discussion on whether this might psychologically affect how a player actually plays the character,
in a way that goes beyond simply understanding the character's intended strategic role.
This is potentially important if we're looking to increase immersion,
because when players take on the role of their characters or play them as more than simply game pieces,
they end up more immersed in the experience.
It also might give us a subtle psychological lever, to help players get into the mindset we want them in,
or to play the game in ways that might be more engaging to them.
It also means that cosmetic character changes may be about more than simply expression.
That's still probably the most important aspect of aesthetic choices in games,
but it'd be fascinating to see a study on whether players play differently after they make certain, purely cosmetic changes to their characters.
Lastly, it means we need to be aware of how our players interpret how their characters are clothed.
As the second study showed, context matters.
If people think they're wearing the coat of a wall painter,
it affects them differently than if they think they're wearing the coat of a doctor.
What might that mean in the fantastical realm games often inhabit?
Suddenly, it might make quite a difference if their player contextualizes their character's getup
as an Imperial Guardsman from 40k
rather than the outfit of a marine from Aliens.
So if you've got the budget and the resources,
it might be worth asking play-testers about how they understand what their character was wearing.
So when designing characters and outfits,
it might be worth thinking about how you want your player to play,
and keeping this idea of enclothed cognition in mind.
Or it might not.
There is really no data about this for games yet.
It's a fascinating idea to explore, though.
Now, because I'm curious, feel free to tell us below if you feel like you've ever had this experience yourself.
Thanks for watching, we'll see you all next week.
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