Mastering Social Perception
- 1. Running head: MASTERING PERCEPTION 1 Mastering the Frightening Game of Social Perception! Joe Lasley University of San Diego
- 2. Running head: MASTERING PERCEPTION 2 Mastering the Frightening Game of Social Perception! Did you hear that? A shrieking howl fills the crisp night air as a horrifying scream fades into the night. A horrible curse has befallen this small village and promises certain doom if the evil doers cannot be found and eliminated before it is too late. The success of you and your team will depend on your ability to both perceive a complex reality in the midst of misdirection and manage the fluctuating perceptions of others. This social party game is called Werewolves and is a reflection of how perception manifests within social groups for better and worse. Regardless of any individual’s role in the game, mastering perception is the determining factor in victory or defeat. Players focus their thoughts and actions on the many manifestations of perception in the group dynamic. The following explanation of mastering perception during a game of Werewolves provides useful insight into this phenomenon as it dictates individual thoughts and actions in the social setting. My role as creator and moderator for uncountable game sessions over the years has provided me with an enticing range of experiences observing and acting within this particular dynamic. Mastering perception involves two interrelated concepts. The first being that metaperception, the ability to perceive how perception is being manifested as it happens, is a necessary form of enlightenment. The second being that power lies in managing the multiple facets of perception in others. Only by understanding and mastering these ways of perceiving can a person transcend a passive role and avoid being a pawn in someone else’s game. There is some knowledge about the game which is necessary in order to understand how perception is involved. The premise of the game is simple. A covert minority group (werewolves) is secretly trying to undermine the larger group (townsfolk) and eliminate players until only their faction remains. The larger group of townsfolk is unaware of who they can trust
- 3. Running head: MASTERING PERCEPTION 3 and needs to band together and eliminate the colluding werewolves. The entire group, including both townsfolk and werewolves posing as townsfolk, will vote throughout the game to eliminate players. The werewolf faction gets an additional, secret vote to eliminate an additional player of their choosing. The range of strategies for playing Werewolves revolves around this concept of understanding how individuals can be swayed to vote in the interest of townsfolk or werewolves. The actual gameplay itself becomes more complex while mixing human perception and motivation in a simulation of our complex social nature. Metaperception Experience and practice increase metaperception. At first, new players are generally confused. Experienced players are generally more influential and successful due to their increased metaperception. There is a lot of information to assimilate and lack of experience generally limits a novice’s ability to grasp all the different roles that players will be assigned and how the game mechanics even work. As players gain experience, knowledge of the game’s structure (various roles assigned and basic mechanics) becomes secondary to observing the interaction of different player motivations. Unconscious biases must be recognized to escape acting in predictable, controllable, fashions. This enhances metaperception’s usefulness in the game. Humans are all naturally programmed to perceive in typical ways. An understanding of this process is inherent in metaperception. Players gradually learn about perception programming, usually from mistaken assumptions about their own unconscious biases. They show their adeptness in breaking typical frames of reference by resisting natural tendencies that have misled them in previous game sessions. As self awareness increases, players start to recognize similar phenomena in others. They realize tendencies to assign disproportionate levels of suspicion based on how a player
- 4. Running head: MASTERING PERCEPTION 4 acted in a previous game or their own attraction to a person outside the context of a particular game session. Both examples prove to be misleading in achieving goals within the game. Skilled players account for outside influences and past experience in their calculation of their own bias, mixing subjective and objective judgements about their perceptions. They realize that perception is based on frames of reference and understand underlying mechanics of how different mental models perceive the game. Players also become quite proficient at discerning what stimuli are worthy of consideration and increase their resistance to distractions. They realize that a particular mannerism or expression isn’t necessarily an admission of guilt but preponderance of evidence is needed to reveal truth within the current context. The answer will never be fully revealed until after the session has concluded. So, players learn to trust certain perceptions and reduce others. A practiced player will incorporate their evolving level of metaperception into their thoughts and actions. Influence and Power Seeing may be believing, but convincing others to believe oneself is more than just metaperception. Many players have been swiftly defeated regardless of their own astute observations and metaperceptual awareness. The group thinks and acts (notably by voting for player elimination) as a result of the prevailing influence of those who can manage both individual and collective perception. The ensuing management of perception targets both the self (survival) and other players (influence). The power to achieve victory requires both effective metaperception (thoughts) and the social finesse (actions) to manage what others perceive. Thus, using metaperception is the prerequisite for managing what others do, and do not, perceive. Enlightened metaperception allows for the manipulation of how others perceive oneself. In order to affect the game, a player needs to avoid elimination. Survival is the primary objective
- 5. Running head: MASTERING PERCEPTION 5 required before other strategies for pursuing victory can be successfully engaged. Therefore, successful players become masters of creating helpful perceptions of themselves and avoiding harmful ones, regardless of whether or not those perceptions prove true to their identity. The thoughts of other players will turn to those they perceive to be a threat. Skilled players act in ways that they know will be automatically perceived as trustworthy and avoid acting in ways that will generate threat to others based on respective dynamics (werewolves/townsfolk) at play in the game. There are a seemingly infinite variety of strategies players have used to achieve such ends, including taking both active and passive roles in the discussion. The myriad of successful strategies to this end illustrates the core role of perception rather than a particular course of action in the ability to manage others perception of one’s role. Influence and power are results of an ability to manage other individuals and collective perceptions. Simply surviving as an individual, no matter how masterfully, until the final round does not justify victory. The main objective of the game is to eliminate the opposing faction. Being the last member of your faction to get eliminated fails to work towards the end goal. As players continually ensure their own survival, they turn attention to using perception to manage how other players are thinking and acting. A werewolf needs to simultaneously thwart the metaperception of townsfolk and generate covert misperception. Skilled players routinely take advantage of unintentional behaviors exhibited by opposing players, leveraging the group’s perception with their own actions by pointing out false indicators of guilt to generate suspicion. Townsfolk need to break through misperceptions being generated by werewolves and appeal to the metaperception of other townsfolk without becoming targets themselves. Discerning the true identity of a werewolf conspirator is simply the first step, which is insufficient without the ability to help other townsfolk become aware themselves. In order to achieve success in this regard,
- 6. Running head: MASTERING PERCEPTION 6 townsfolk must understand the levels of metaperception evident in their apparent comrades and act, or influence the werewolf to act, in ways that will illustrate the truth. Indirect lines of questioning and connecting seemingly unrelated events to show inconsistencies between what a player says and does can create masterfully orchestrated perceptions within the group. This is also required for breaking the misperception generated by werewolves framing a townsfolk player as the antagonist. In this cycle, the game unfolds as players use their own perceptual abilities to understand and influence other players’ ability to see what is not inherent. Conclusion In the end, the wits of evenly matched groups will collide and result in epic conclusions boiling down to the final moments before victory can be decided. Players will be locked in a contest of perception, constantly focusing their thoughts on how perception is manifesting (metaperception). This involves understanding the broader context of perception and recognizing unconscious biases that manipulate perceptual frames. Using this knowledge, players act to influence other players’ perceptions, thoughts and actions. Whether the outcome is for good or evil, mastering perception is the key and the thrilling game of Werewolves is a perfect demonstration.