Sunfrog
Member
Chaos is a community like any other group of people and where there’s people there’s psychology. I’m by no means an expert but I have a degree in psychology (no, I haven’t been psychoanalysing you and yes I can read your mind) so here’s a post no one asked for about my take on Chaos and its community. A lot of this refers to social identity theory & realistic conflict theory, if you’re unfamiliar with them. I’m happy to discuss anything in the replies and I’m sure many of you will be able to relate to some of what is mentioned here. I’m just trying to apply some psychology. I don't know if any of this is a hot take but yeah:
My take is that generally you can find members in a faction who share certain qualities or personality traits and that may be considered an 'SJC personality', whether this personality is naturally the writer's personality or adopted as part of being in the in-group of the faction and conforming to the group's behaviour and beliefs is up for question. This 'faction personality' may not be true for all factions and I'm unsure if it is for the SJC (I just don't want to name-drop any other faction) but maybe others can speak from experience if this is something they have seen or believe to be true.
You can hold negative views of someone unknown from another faction differently simply for being a member of that faction. It's what helps fuel all racism, sexism, any kind of discrimination and prejudice in the world and we all know those are pretty hard to eliminate but what we can do here to try and help minimise this prejudice is to be aware of it. Be aware of why you are making that judgement about another writer and ask yourself if it is fair to do so simply because of the group they are in. There may well be some merit to whatever belief you hold but if you have never engaged with the person you hold that belief about then you couldn't possibly know.
Usually, conflicts between groups can be solved by having a common goal. Rival football clubs come together to support their national football club against other international clubs and an in-character example of this is the uniting of several factions to defeat a common enemy like how NIO came to the aid of the SJC when they were being invaded by the Bryn'adul - two factions with very differing morals and ideals united for a shared cause. In an OOC sense, this is not so easily solved as it is the nature of the map game to have invasions and we would struggle to find something to unite every single faction on the board and so people will naturally be in conflict and even though it is just a game, it is more real to some people than others.
I could go on and on. I could write an essay on how psychology can be applied to Chaos but for now, this is what I found to be most prominent. I might do another post in future. I hope this is at least somewhat interesting to someone else.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Factions have personalities
When people are placed into groups, either through choice (a sports team, a faction) or naturally (ethnicity, gender, age ect.) we begin to adopt the beliefs of that group and when we view ourselves as part of a group then we start to imitate the language of said group. I’ve certainly had it pointed out that once I had started speaking to certain people from another faction that I started adopting the way they messaged. People also mimic the style of speaking to gain approval from the person/group they are mimicking. The fact that factions have different ways of talking to each other is a tell-tale sign that they have formed an in-group and this gives them a different personality from other factions both because of the unique way of speaking to each other and the beliefs they share.My take is that generally you can find members in a faction who share certain qualities or personality traits and that may be considered an 'SJC personality', whether this personality is naturally the writer's personality or adopted as part of being in the in-group of the faction and conforming to the group's behaviour and beliefs is up for question. This 'faction personality' may not be true for all factions and I'm unsure if it is for the SJC (I just don't want to name-drop any other faction) but maybe others can speak from experience if this is something they have seen or believe to be true.
How we perceive each other
It is because of these groups we form (factions) that we can then hold preconceived ideas about that group and the people within it. For example, you might believe you know what someone is like because they are an (insert faction name here) writer so they fall under that faction’s ‘personality’ and it’s usually a negative connotation because they are not part of your own group and we hold favouritism towards our own group and want to make other groups look worse than our own. If people make a statement about a faction and group them all together by saying “SJC are (insert insulting statement here)” and that then taints your views of the individuals within those factions and without knowing each person, you think you do. This is how prejudice is formed.You can hold negative views of someone unknown from another faction differently simply for being a member of that faction. It's what helps fuel all racism, sexism, any kind of discrimination and prejudice in the world and we all know those are pretty hard to eliminate but what we can do here to try and help minimise this prejudice is to be aware of it. Be aware of why you are making that judgement about another writer and ask yourself if it is fair to do so simply because of the group they are in. There may well be some merit to whatever belief you hold but if you have never engaged with the person you hold that belief about then you couldn't possibly know.
The dreaded map game
While prejudice can be formed simply by placing yourself into a group, on Chaos where there is prejudice, it can be exacerbated by the map game. When factions compete for the same hexes on the map or want to invade another faction's territory then there can be OOC discrimination and conflict between the groups being put in direct competition, as I'm sure we've all seen or experienced. This is just a game but when in competition with others for limited resources, this is how people respond. How can this be overcome? There's no easy answer. Reminding ourselves of the frivolity of the map game perhaps works for some, though not all, but when people lose sight of having fun, that's when there's an issue - as I was helpfully reminded by Tefka recently. When you are churning out posts for a dominion to expand your territory but not having fun whilst doing so then that's going to lead to soreness if you lose those hexes because you "worked" for them rather than focusing on the enjoyment of writing them.Usually, conflicts between groups can be solved by having a common goal. Rival football clubs come together to support their national football club against other international clubs and an in-character example of this is the uniting of several factions to defeat a common enemy like how NIO came to the aid of the SJC when they were being invaded by the Bryn'adul - two factions with very differing morals and ideals united for a shared cause. In an OOC sense, this is not so easily solved as it is the nature of the map game to have invasions and we would struggle to find something to unite every single faction on the board and so people will naturally be in conflict and even though it is just a game, it is more real to some people than others.
I could go on and on. I could write an essay on how psychology can be applied to Chaos but for now, this is what I found to be most prominent. I might do another post in future. I hope this is at least somewhat interesting to someone else.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
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