Sociopaths Online?

You just like to kick puppies in real life, don't you?

Warning: Long and nerdy post ahead.

There has always been a lot of talk in the EVE community about how certain players or playstyles are "sociopathic". In this article I want to use some clinical psychology and sociology to explore this, and see what conclusions I reach. Keep in mind however: human psychology and behavior is complicated such that very little is ever black and white. A single behavior means nothing. A pattern of behavior might indicate pathology or normal personality variance. And whether we engage in them or not, and whether we are willing to admit it to ourselves or not, we all have antisocial and sadistic tendencies. As Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said in the 20th century:

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

Let's start with some basic definitional housekeeping:

• Antisocial: contrary to the laws and customs of society; devoid of or antagonistic to sociable instincts or practices.
• Prosocial: relating to or denoting behavior which is positive, helpful, and intended to promote social acceptance and friendship.
• Sadistic: deriving pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others.

Behavior is complex, and must always be considered within the context in which it occurred. For the purposes of this article, the context is social groups. In summary, antisocial behavior goes against group norms and is disruptive to the group, while prosocial behavior is in line with group norms and promotes group interest. Here's where it gets really complicated: people exist in multiple, complex, stacked groups. For example, myself. I am an EVE Online player, but I am also a:

• Human
• American
• Graduate student
• Son
• EVE Online Player
• The groups I'm part of in EVE.

The complicated part of this is when we consider identity salience: that is, how important or emotionally valent my membership in any of these groups happens to be for me. Being American may not be super important to me; but being a graduate student may be a crowning achievement, and I may heavily identify with and invest emotional and cognitive resources into that role. The TL;DR is: social norms + empathy = prosocial. Social deviance + low empathy = antisocial. But it all depends on the context of group membership.

"Sociopathy": Not Really A Thing (But Sort Of)

When you think of the word "sociopath" you probably have the image of someone with lifeless eyes and glib charm who goes through their life as some sort of criminal mastermind, manipulating everyone around them at all hours of the day, concocting plans and plans within plans for their own selfish benefit, with a callous disregard for the damage and pain they cause - or perhaps even deriving pleasure from the pain they cause. The reality is actually not quite as cinematic as Silence of the Lambs.

"Sociopath" is a colloquial term used to describe a set of antisocial personality traits, also known as "The Dark Triad", which are characterized by:

• Lack of empathy
• Machiavellianism 
• Egotism

Clinically, there is no such thing as "a sociopath" or "a psychopath", even though research is ongoing to better identify and understand these constructs. Just check the DSM-V or the ICD-10. You won't find them. You'll find many things which fall under the conceptual umbrella - the closest being antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. But these are distinct psychopathologies and, taken individually, neither of them completely add up to what people think of as "sociopathy".

The image of the cool, calculating manipulator falls apart in reality: people with these Cluster B personality disorders generally don't function very well, as these disorders are marked by impulsivity. Impulsivity and long-term planning generally do not go hand in hand: antisocial and narcissistic personalities live in the moment, and while these individuals are manipulative, they are not "mastermind" manipulators. They don't play the long game. In fact, the manipulation they engage in is a defense mechanism and more reflexive or instinctual than it is masterfully planned out. Once their victim "breaks the code", so to speak, it's actually rather easy to see through and defeat.

Context, Context, Context

As I said before, what makes a behavior "antisocial" really depends on the context. Violence might be seen as "antisocial". But a soldier on the battlefield who kills an enemy and saves his comrades has just engaged in prosocial behavior. Tackling someone in football, a violent act, is not "antisocial" either - if the person you're tackling is a member of the opposing team. If you were to tackle your own team mate, in order to spite them for an earlier offense, or to take revenge on your team because you feel they don't show you the proper respect - this would be considered antisocial.

It all depends on an individual's identification with others - with a group. A player would be expected to have a high level of identification with their team, and to engage in behaviors that would be beneficial to their team (aka, prosocial). On another level, the player would also be expected to identify with members of the opposite team as football players, and to refrain from behaviors that would hurt them as football players (for example, purposefully tackling them in such a way as to cause permanent, career ending injury). Sports are competitive, but they are also cooperative: no one brings a basketball to a football game, after all, and baseball players don't tackle each other to stop a home run.

Antisocial people basically don't care about right vs wrong and don't care about hurting other people. They don't identify with belonging to any group - there is only them and their own ego. And because of this, antisocial people don't usually have very many friends. They lead lonely lives characterized by constant conflict; conflict within relationships, conflict with authority - and trouble with the law. They generally fall lower on the socioeconomic ladder and often turn to criminality (and more often than not, petty criminality - the kind that's impulsive and 'in the moment', such as randomly deciding to rob the corner store for the $50 in the till, and then end up in prison for 15 years because of it).

You Mentioned... Sadism?

At this point, it's important to make the distinction between antisocial and sadistic, since a lot of what gets tagged as "antisocial" behavior in EVE Online is better (though not very much so) defined as sadistic. Here's the difference: an antisocial person doesn't care whether they hurt other people, while sadistic person does care if they hurt other people - because they enjoy it. Sadism isn't to be confused with the satisfaction derived from an act of spiteful revenge or rubbing a victory in your opponent's face; one is reactive, the other is proactive. Context matters.

Antisocial people can be sadistic, and sadistic people can be antisocial - but these are separate and distinct constructs. For example, sexual sadists derive erotic satisfaction from inflicting pain on their romantic partners. But this alone does not make them "antisocial"; the majority of sexual sadists seek out consensual partners (sexual masochists) and negotiate boundaries and rules prior to engaging in these activities. As long as consent and boundaries are respected, this is not antisocial behavior - and in fact, a diagnosis of sexual sadism disorder requires that the fantasies be acted out on a non-consenting individual.

You can think of suicide gankers who antagonize their victim in Local and mail as sadists, and their victims as willing, consensual victims. And this is a completely cogent perspective if you accept that undocking is consent to consensual non-consenting PvP. You don't want to get blown up, but you consent to the game of cat and mouse where, as the mouse, the possibility of getting eviscerated is very real. So no: suicide gankers are not sociopaths or even antisocial as such. EVE Online might just be a healthy outlet for their drives.

So now we've gone out in the weeds a little bit. I've distinguished between the colloquial use of the term "sociopathy" and the clinical use of the term (there isn't much of one) and defined "antisocial" and "prosocial". I've also mentioned two personality disorders which are antisocial - antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder - and I drew a distinction between antisocial behavior and sadistic behavior which can be, though is not necessarily, antisocial. Now I'll do my best to tie it all back to EVE. But first we have to understand the purpose of play, and by extension, social games.

Just What are Gamers Doing All Day?

All the social mammals engage in play, most notably as younglings, but even as adults. Rats play. Monkeys play. Puppies and kittens play. And human children are very playful, starting as babies when they knock their sippy cups off the table and giggle about it. Why do animals play? From a Piagetian perspective, mammals play because it is important for their physical and neurological development. Play is basically practice for future behaviors, and is species specific. Kittens love to chase string - practice for future hunting behavior. Young canines rough each other up - practice for future dominance disputes.

Children play to learn how their bodies work and to become more coordinated and, as they get older, to become socialized. Socialization is when play becomes games: tag, cops and robbers, etc. At a very young age, children can follow the rules of the games they make up together, but they can't tell you what those rules are. As they grow older and their cognitive development becomes more complex, they begin to be able to explicate the rules and, later, as they start to get really advanced, they can explicitly negotiate on the rules. Social games prepare children for life; because life is basically a gigantic social game of negotiated rules, roles, and responsibilities. Adults play social games to keep their skills fresh. To stay "in practice".

EVE Online is basically the adult version of the sorts of games children play. EVE Online is a massive simulator full of possibilities. While the real world of adults in the flesh is often restrictive and stultifying, New Eden presents a land of opportunities where players can explore different ways of being in the world. People who are normally nice and sociable in real life can try out what it's like to prey on others as a pirate. Others who may suffer from crippling social anxiety can find a safe avenue for socialization and some may even grow to become FCs or lead their own corporations.

EVE Online is a fairly social game. It's hard to get anywhere as a solo player, or to even avoid interacting with other players - even though there are a few solo endeavors (exploration and missions, for example - there's a niche for everyone!). To adapt to a harsh environment (and also because it's what humans simply do), players organize themselves into groups; either groups recognized by game mechanics such as corporations, alliances and fleets, or "meta" groups that exist in chat channels, Discord servers, and forums.

The groups players form have their own objectives, aims, and norms. One norm might be trash talking in Local. Another norm might be e-Bushido. As long as a person is acting within the rules of the group, and as long as they and behave in a way that aligns with the group's goals and interests, then that person is engaging in prosocial behavior - even if the interests and goals of the group are suicide ganking newbies in Perimeter. It's a bit tribalistic, right? My SOV holding alliance versus your SOV holding alliance. I'm free to shit all over you if I want, and it's not antisocial. But as soon as I start disrupting my own group and taking advantage of them, it's antisocial.

I will say that again: if you're part of Fake Alliance, and  you act within the established social norms and rules of Fake Alliance, then you are not behaving in an antisocial or "sociopathic" manner, even if Fake Alliance's sole MO and reason for existing is to make life a living nightmare for everyone else - precisely because of group identification. And you cannot say that Fake Alliance is "a group of sociopaths" because, by definition, antisocial people would have a very difficult time of establishing a large, cohesive group with a singular vision and a set of social norms and rules. They would be just as apt to kill each other as they would be to kill their enemies. And this is exactly what happens in the real world among criminal organizations such as street gangs and oppressive dictatorships; the level of backstabbing, betrayal, and in-group murder is astounding.

Like all social games, EVE Online has rules. Some of these rules are emergent, and come from the players: "never fly what you can't afford to lose", for example. Other rules are implied via the game mechanics. For example, the delay between illegal aggression and CONCORD's response in HiSec: the implication is that any ship, anywhere, can be blown up at any time. You are not entitled to safety, except when docked in an NPC station. You agree to this rule by playing, even if you whine about it on the forums.

EVE Online is a game we play voluntarily. When we play EVE Online, we agree to the rules of the game, and those rules are: EVE is a game where players are free to engage with each other with few restrictions. People can steal from you, suspect bait you and blow you up, suicide gank you, or evict you from your wormhole. Players are free to manipulate, lie, cheat, and steal their way to the top. You have this freedom as well - or you can choose to play the nice guy. EVE is a cooperative competition between groups, just like football - except the rules state that you can bring a baseball if you want. Or a Howitzer. This is the "metagame", the "metarules".

So, Sociopaths, Right?

The TL;DR of this massive wall of text is: no, probably not. While there are toxic personalities in EVE Online (I've encountered a few), the chances that any given player - even the player who suicide ganked your Retriever and told you to get fucked in Local - is a sociopath are exceedingly low - especially if they are part of a cohesive group with internal norms and expectations. They're most likely a normal human being who is either sublimating their aggressive and sadistic tendencies, or, just trying out what it's like to be a dick to someone. At the very least, they're a person who is playing the game of EVE Online within the well established, community generated rules and norms.

If it bothers you - if it really upsets you and you think it needs to be changed - you are the socially deviant variable and you should probably reconsider why you're playing EVE Online and whether or not it's the game for you.