Introduction

I have always been interested in storytelling although my professional career rarely gave me the opportunity to put in practice my knowledge. During my researches, I notably attended psychological anthropology lessons at the Pierre Mendes France University of Grenoble (FRANCE).

Wikipedia defines the psychological anthropology as "an interdisciplinary subfield of anthropology that studies the interaction of cultural and mental processes. This subfield tends to focus on ways in which humans' development and enculturation within a particular cultural group shape processes of human cognition, emotion, perception, motivation and mental health."

In other words, the psychological anthropology analyzes the mechanisms of the collective unconscious and tries to define the approach of each culture regarding a wide range of themes. Thus, I am convinced that this field can be used in video games to better anticipate the player reactions and to encourage the emergence of specific feelings.

I will start this article introducing the mechanisms of the collective unconscious and I will then analyze the theme of "monsters".

This blog article includes spoilers about The Last Of Us.

A matter of images

A person sometimes transfers his image to his close relations. The most common example deals with collections: stamps, statuettes, rocks... Indeed, offering collectibles often becomes some kind of game / ritual. It is likely that the relations moreover get steeped in this spiral by definitely binding the collectibles to the collector.

It is important to note that an image never dies out: it remains latent as any unconscious mechanism. Although collections generally end in storage rooms like photographs fade, the collector always keeps the natural image deep down within himself. It can rise again while facing a similar relic, even several decades later.

These two characteristics actively participate in the development of the collective unconscious while applied to a larger and deeper scale. It is notably due to the propagation over centuries and the assimilation since the early childhood of tales, proverbs, religious teaching and any cultural elements .

That is how tales – like Little Red Riding Hood or Three Little Pigs for example – have matched the wolves to the archetype of the predator in the Western culture. Yet, wolves only attack man at extremely rare occasions. It is even venerated as protectors in other cultures, especially in Japan.

Contrary to the example here-above, most of civilizations share the same images – especially in ancient ones where religions hold a primordial position. There are the collective images that we should take in consideration.

The Monsters

The theme of "monsters" is shared by almost all the civilizations. The classical definition refers to hybrid creatures stuck between two worlds. Here some examples from the Greek culture:

Classical monsters are repulsive, hostile, primal (in contrast with the modern society), have several arms, sticky tentacles, large glassy eyes… They are frightening – especially for children who have many nightmares until 6 years old. Thus, nightmares are an important part of the cerebral maturation process. It allows the child to exteriorize the anxiety he can’t express by other means. The fact that most of the monsters are anthropomorphic – i.e. look like humans – greatly participates in this process by binding the child’s anxiety to himself.

Using monsters in horror games can make the player jumping and create an insane / disturbing atmosphere like the Silent Hill series. This is however an "easy solution" which only works in the short term: facing monsters becomes a routine and the game tension considerably decreases once the player has overcome his fear. Likewise, the player unconscious matches the monsters to the player anxiety and generates satisfaction / relief while defeating it. The best example that comes to my mind is Doom 3 which gradually becomes a classical FPS where the player can easily guess where next enemies will spawn – breaking the surprise effect and psychologically getting him ready for the fight.

Let's now study the modern definition of the term – i.e. the image nowadays people have. You can see below a street interview carried out in 2005 by the social studies department of the Pierre Mendes France University. The question asked was: "What do you consider as monstrous?".
 

Results from the street interview

The people who were questioned often answer "Outlaws" (Human / Real) which includes all kinds of criminals from juvenile delinquents to serial killers. Serial killers are always described by Medias and victims’ families as "monsters", "aliens" or "predators". People don’t choose these words randomly. Indeed, binding the image of monsters to criminals sentenced for dark or barbaric acts is a perfect way to differentiate ourselves from something we can't understand and at the same time to define our own identity (for further information about this self-defining process, see also the Valladolid debate or the trial scene in Planet of the Apes if you prefer sci-fi).

To summarize, classical monsters are certainly frightening in the short term but the player naturally fights it as a defensive reaction and as a part of an unconscious process of self-defining. At the contrary, facing humans in video games has a deeper impact on the player as it refers to the cruelty of the real life, the fear to get involved in such events and forces him to face his own dark side. Of course, enemy soldiers represent a direct threat but – like the player – they could have families, future plans, be following orders they not necessarily agree to, be protecting someone or simply be trying to survive. Questions the player wonders about at least unconsciously.

Conclusion

The psychological anthropology is a kind of large-scale mix between sociology and psychology. I strongly believe this field can be useful to anticipate the reactions and the feeling of most of the players while facing specific situations This is the reason why I will continue to explore the matter during next months through additional themes – probably about the forests or the ability to “shapeshift”.

I hope you enjoy the read. Feel free to comment, any feedbacks would be appreciated.

Here some related books:

EDIT 08/01/2014: the descriptions of the classical monsters has been updated to better underline its psychological meaning.