Episode 18: The Power of Not Believing in Yourself: Part 2 (Self-efficacy and Bloodborne)

Unlocking Games

Last week we talked about self-efficacy, particularly how it relates to the high difficulty of the Dark Souls series. But Dark Souls actually goes against lots of advice about the relationship between self-efficacy and performance. It turns out there’s also controversy about giving rewards just to build self confidence or self-efficacy. Should we all get trophies for participation? Is that really helpful in the long run? Bloodborne give us another example to look at. This week we talk about some other models of how self-efficacy and performance might relate to each other. For example, induced failure can be useful in building longer-term confidence. Games like the Zelda series tend to give you a difficult challenge, then introduce a tool that makes the task much easier. You use it to solve that challenge, and then you’re presented with an even more difficult challenge that requires the same tool. But now you’ve had time to build your confidence with it. Lastly, we pull all this together into a theory of why Dark Souls might actually be fun after all. You’re not as great a gamer as you think you are, but you can get there.

Show Notes & Links:

• Sean Connery’s profane comments on Nicolas Cage doing his best
• The Moderating Effects of Performance Ambiguity on the Relationship Between Self-Efficacy and Performance, by Aaron Schmidt, 2010, Journal of Applied Psychology
• Self-Efficacy and Resource Allocation: Support for a Nonmonotonic, Discontinuous Model, by Jeffrey Vancouver, 2016, Journal of Applied Psychology
• Dynamics in the Self-Efficacy Performance Relationship Following Failure, by Jay Hardy III, 2014, Personality and Individual Differences

Games mentioned in this episode:

• Super Smash Brothers
• Bloodborne
• Castlevania
• Dark Souls
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Mega Man X
• Desert Bus