Psychology in Media

In PBS's Frontline episode The Persuaders, the idea that marketing for a product has moved to the psychology of a person is a big point brought up throughout the episode. The idea that in order to sell a product to a person it is all about understanding the people you are selling it to, their like, their dislikes. That idea of understanding humans is key. That same idea is applied to so called free to play video games. This idea is presented in the article, "The Fascinating Psychology Behind Free-To-Play Mobile App Games."

The article states that: ego depletion, reciprocity,  intermediate currency , price shrouding, and illusory discomfort are how companies that makes these games get people to spend money. Ego depletion contributes towards us spending money on the game because our self-control to not spend money on a game eventually will use up the finite amount of mental resources needed in order to maintain that self-control. Companies utilize this weakness by constantly making ads to spend money on the game present. In other words, companies wear us down to the point where we are mentally too tired to refuse their offers. Then comes the concept of reciprocity. By making this game free, we feel like these companies did us a favor, so we feel obligated to do the same for them by spending money on their game. By having intermediate currency people find it difficult to access unfamiliar items, so the obscurity makes it easier for them to forget how much money they have actually spent on the game. Then the prices become increasingly more expensive as you progress in the game. By obscuring the prices in the game, people cannot accurately gauge how much they have spend, and slow progressive inflating of prices is obscured, so by the end when the prices are really expensive, the player is already too invested in the game to not spend the money. Illusionary discomfort is another strategy. In situations where the player is stuck in an uncomfortable position, and then the game gives them the option of solving this situation by paying a certain amount of money, a majority of players will purchase this offer. All of these play on our psychological status when we play the game. It plays on common psychological ideas.

The strategy of using human behavior as a way to get us to spend money on a product or on in game currency is all the same. It is about understanding the human mind in order to manipulate it a way that we give in and spend money. Now is that wrong, legally no. It does pose ethical dilemmas however.

I do not agree with how this works, but the people behind this have my respect for being able to do all of this. It is wrong that you are manipulating people to do something that they do not want to do, is wrong. People are being manipulated to buy things they otherwise would not have because someone understands how to manipulate the human mind. Manipulating the human mind still does not get rid of the fact that they never wanted that in the first place. You can get into the argument that is the consumer's fault, and that it maybe, but if we were to not manipulate the consumer would they have bought the item in the first place? This turns into which came first the chicken or the egg situation. I'll leave the answer to you, but if you ask me the egg came first, and it is the fault of marketing not the consumer. What they are able to do should make us all more aware of our actions, but in the end most of us will not change because that would mean we are going against our very own behavior, and that is the vicious trap we have all been put in.

The articles link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-farrell/the-fascinating-psycholog_b_6076502.html

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