Journal Entry 6

Mario Kart 64.  Is there a better example of how a multiplayer racer should be made?  I don’t think so.  Is there any another game that brings out more hatred amongst the players involved than Mario Kart? I’m willing to bet no on this one.  As you progress through the tracks of Mario Kart 64, the difficulty level jumps to extreme levels as you are dodging banana peels, green shells, and question-mark-box land mines, all while trying to defeat your friend in a battle of kart racing supremacy. 

When my roommate Kiel and I play Mario Kart, all bets are off.  The trash talk begins hours before the game is even turned on as subtle text messages like “hopefully that test isn’t as hard as CoCo Mountain” and “you suck” are exchanged between the two of us, as we know it will be all out war when we get home.  The best part of this rivalry isn’t the fun being had between friends as we grow bonds and enjoy our time together, no, it is about making the other person so angry that they will almost take your head off if they see you again during the rest of the night. 

  

In class we talked about the frustration-aggression hypothesis (FAH), and I think that Mario Kart is the perfect scenario for this study.  The frustration-aggression hypothesis states that frustration leads to the arousal of a drive whose basic goal is to harm someone else.  This hypothesis tests if frustration always leads to aggression, and if aggression is always derived from frustration. 

The FAH research shows that the hypothesis is partially true.  Frustration leads to aggression because frustration is an aversive and unpleasant feeling.  There could be other feelings that can cause aggressive behavior as well including anger, nervousness, impatience, irritability, EST.  The study also shows that frustration is more likely to produce aggression when it is either unexpected or unwanted. 

I have to say that when playing Mario Kart, all of the above is true.  Frustration defiantly leads to aggressive behavior.  When you run over your twelfth banana peel on Rainbow Road because it blends into the yellow striping of the course, frustration builds up and usually a controller is thrown or a loud scream can be heard.  But the combination of the other feelings of nervousness, anger, and irritability could be one of the biggest drives to an aggressive act while playing Mario Kart.  When you are in first and your friend drops a lightning bolt just as you are about to jump the largest gap in the game resulting in a loss of momentum and the inevitable dive into the water below, you get a little angry causing a form of aggressive behavior, or a good punch in the arm, to your roommate.

Irritability is another common feeling when playing Mario Kart as well.  There is nothing more irritating than when something happens to you because something that could have been easily avoided (such as game glitches or getting stuck in corners) occurs and you are punished because of it.  I cannot tell you how irritating it is to get hit by your own red shell.  It’s a RED SHELL!  IT’S SUPPOSED TO HIT THE PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU, NOT FLY BACKWARDS HITTING THE USER!  AND WHY HAVE PENGUINS ON THE ICE COURSE!? ALL THEY DO IS SEND YOU FLYING INTO GOD-KNOWS-WHERE AND ULTIMATELY LEAVE YOU IN 8^TH PLACE! IRRITATING I TELL YOU!

This is by far the most irritating thing in all of video games.  Just watching this clip makes me angry. 

But the thing that really gets our aggression flowing is the fact that we don’t want to be shown up by one another.  Nervousness is the biggest drive to aggression for me.  I am in a zone of concentration, and as my heart is beating 100 miles an hour as I turn the corner to cross the finish line in first place, making sure to have a flawless race, a blue shell comes out of nowhere, hitting me directly in the back and sending me screaming off the map and into fifth place…Unreal.  That usually results in a controller thrown, or a tackle of my roommate off the couch. 

If researchers would just set a camera up in our living room, I’m sure they would get every bit of evidence they need to confirm the frustration-aggression hypothesis and then some.

Reference Citation: Frustration-aggression hypothesis: Examination and reformulation.  Berkowitz, Leonard. Psychological Bulletin, Vol 106(1), Jul 1989, 59-73