Games and the feeling of inhibition
I play mahjong. I play board games. I play computer games that pit players against other players. One of the common threads I observe in these activities is that psychology matters when it comes to results. This shouldn't come as anything new: I'm sure there are tons of literature on the psychology of sports, and these activities can quite naturally be considered mental sports. But it's another thing to experience it first-hand.
When I'm on a losing streak in any of these activities, my morale dips. Against strangers sometimes I feel a sense of frustration. Against friends I don't feel unhappy, of course; but I start feeling more and more inhibited. I feel like I'm not in the flow. I feel like I can't flow. I feel like...ok enough. You get the point. If you have ever been on a losing streak playing a win-or-lose game with friends, you will get the point. I will say 3 things about this feeling of inhibition.
The feeling of inhibition is most acutely felt when one has been on a winning streak before. In fact, one can go as far as to say the feeling of inhibition arises precisely because one has either been on a winning streak or has done generally well before. If you've won the first game, you start feeling good. Win the second, and you grow more confident. Your morale rises. You start being "in the zone". When you're in the zone, everything seems to flow. Perhaps different people feel differently when they're in the zone, but for me, I know I am in the zone when I actually process information in the game more quickly. The time it takes for me to take a turn on mahjong is usually around 2-3 seconds upon drawing a fresh tile. When I'm in the zone, the turn is taken lightning-fast. Upon seeing the new tile, I know instantly what to do, and my turn can be over in under a second. This has nothing to do with me having a near-complete set already; this fast processing can still occur even when a full picture of what to take and discard hasn't emerged. And we note too that the time elapsed could actually still be the same: I could still have been taking 2-3 seconds to think and make my move. However, it could have felt faster than that because I could have been subconsciously processing a lot more information in that 2-3 second time frame than if I were not in the zone. In other words, when my morale is high, when I'm in the zone, I become extra-sensitive to all the information around me.
Now, having been in the zone, I feel inhibited when I am unable to attain that level of heightened sensitivity, that heightened feeling of feeling the game. My sensitivity to information in the game becomes dull. And I feel like the more I lose, the more I am taken away from that heightened awareness of the game. The more I lose, the more I feel out of the flow.
The second thing I want to bring up is that the cause of inhibition is not limited to the experience of a losing streak. Many things outside a game can lead one to feeling inhibited while playing the game. This can range from issues like having a deadline to meet a few days later, to playing in an uncomfortable environment (perhaps a player is smoking in the room, perhaps you are unused to playing under warm fuzzy lights, and so on), to simply feeling out of place socially with the company you are playing with (for example, perhaps they are making jokes you don't quite find funny, but still feel obliged to laugh).
The final thing to say is probably the most important thing to note, and that is that being in the zone is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for victory. One can be in the zone and yet still lose - sometimes this might spark off a steady spiral of defeats. Neither is being in the zone a necessary condition for victory. One can repeatedly win a game without feeling like one is in the zone. A usual indicator of this is when the serial winner remarks: "Well, actually, I'm not sure what I was doing. I was just playing and I won". A winner who was in the zone, on the other hand, might tend to say something like: "Yes it felt great. My opponents were good players, but I played my cards right and when an opportunity rose I took it and ended the game." And between friends, usually someone who wins and is in the zone would feel buoyant and start giving out advice to his or her mates.
That being said, feeling uninhibited probably boosts one's chances of winning any game. The challenge when one is on a losing streak, or when one is feeling inhibited for any other reason, then, is to try to get rid of that feeling of inhibition. This can sometimes mean getting rid of the source of the inhibition (can we open the windows for some fresh air please?) This can sometimes mean ignoring the feeling altogether (I need to relax, if I think straight I can eventually win). Being confident of yourself helps a lot. I find that music helps a lot too.
When I'm on a losing streak in any of these activities, my morale dips. Against strangers sometimes I feel a sense of frustration. Against friends I don't feel unhappy, of course; but I start feeling more and more inhibited. I feel like I'm not in the flow. I feel like I can't flow. I feel like...ok enough. You get the point. If you have ever been on a losing streak playing a win-or-lose game with friends, you will get the point. I will say 3 things about this feeling of inhibition.
The feeling of inhibition is most acutely felt when one has been on a winning streak before. In fact, one can go as far as to say the feeling of inhibition arises precisely because one has either been on a winning streak or has done generally well before. If you've won the first game, you start feeling good. Win the second, and you grow more confident. Your morale rises. You start being "in the zone". When you're in the zone, everything seems to flow. Perhaps different people feel differently when they're in the zone, but for me, I know I am in the zone when I actually process information in the game more quickly. The time it takes for me to take a turn on mahjong is usually around 2-3 seconds upon drawing a fresh tile. When I'm in the zone, the turn is taken lightning-fast. Upon seeing the new tile, I know instantly what to do, and my turn can be over in under a second. This has nothing to do with me having a near-complete set already; this fast processing can still occur even when a full picture of what to take and discard hasn't emerged. And we note too that the time elapsed could actually still be the same: I could still have been taking 2-3 seconds to think and make my move. However, it could have felt faster than that because I could have been subconsciously processing a lot more information in that 2-3 second time frame than if I were not in the zone. In other words, when my morale is high, when I'm in the zone, I become extra-sensitive to all the information around me.
Now, having been in the zone, I feel inhibited when I am unable to attain that level of heightened sensitivity, that heightened feeling of feeling the game. My sensitivity to information in the game becomes dull. And I feel like the more I lose, the more I am taken away from that heightened awareness of the game. The more I lose, the more I feel out of the flow.
The second thing I want to bring up is that the cause of inhibition is not limited to the experience of a losing streak. Many things outside a game can lead one to feeling inhibited while playing the game. This can range from issues like having a deadline to meet a few days later, to playing in an uncomfortable environment (perhaps a player is smoking in the room, perhaps you are unused to playing under warm fuzzy lights, and so on), to simply feeling out of place socially with the company you are playing with (for example, perhaps they are making jokes you don't quite find funny, but still feel obliged to laugh).
The final thing to say is probably the most important thing to note, and that is that being in the zone is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for victory. One can be in the zone and yet still lose - sometimes this might spark off a steady spiral of defeats. Neither is being in the zone a necessary condition for victory. One can repeatedly win a game without feeling like one is in the zone. A usual indicator of this is when the serial winner remarks: "Well, actually, I'm not sure what I was doing. I was just playing and I won". A winner who was in the zone, on the other hand, might tend to say something like: "Yes it felt great. My opponents were good players, but I played my cards right and when an opportunity rose I took it and ended the game." And between friends, usually someone who wins and is in the zone would feel buoyant and start giving out advice to his or her mates.
That being said, feeling uninhibited probably boosts one's chances of winning any game. The challenge when one is on a losing streak, or when one is feeling inhibited for any other reason, then, is to try to get rid of that feeling of inhibition. This can sometimes mean getting rid of the source of the inhibition (can we open the windows for some fresh air please?) This can sometimes mean ignoring the feeling altogether (I need to relax, if I think straight I can eventually win). Being confident of yourself helps a lot. I find that music helps a lot too.
1 Comments:
Maybe I should switch research interests to performance psychology, but there is much pseudoscience rife there relative to other sub-branches, possibly with some strong influences from selfish motivations that turn me off from educational psychology at times as well.
yt
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