Why does the Internet turn people into assholes?

Image from Penny Arcade

In this lengthy Gamasutra opinion piece, Bill Fulton examines why so many people who play multiplayer games over the Internet act like total assholes, and offers some insight into what can be done about it:

Are these problems even solvable?

Short answer: yes. Social environments and culture can be designed. Just like good game design creates fun gameplay, good social design creates fun social experiences. Unfortunately, online games seem to have allocated very few resources to designing the social environment.

But honestly, I don't believe that resource constraints are the source of the problem -- I think that most people don’t believe that social problems can be solved. A common belief that I’ve heard used as justification for not addressing the social environment of games is that "jerks will be jerks". Essentially, many people believe that:

1. Behavior is determined by personality, and

2. You can’t change people’s personality

While I (mostly) agree with the second point, it is moot because the first point has been consistently contradicted by 60 years of social psychological research. Human behavior is complex and determined by many factors.

Personality is certainly one factor, but it is a surprisingly small factor. The largest determinant of behavior is the perceived social environment. This is the good news, because both the social environment and the perception of it can be controlled.

I had the pleasure of working with Bill Fulton when he was running Microsoft's usability lab back in the late 90's.