Perfection through punishment

[razu]

I have a friend who gives himself a dead leg if he frukks up while playing a game. The idea is that his brain won't make the mistake again as it knows what's going to happen if it does.

I thought this was all complete trumpet, until tonight. I was doing the Civic New York school test in gt4p tonight and was well off of the gold time. I kept turning in too early and hitting the barriers. Then I went into total spaz mode, I kept changing down to first instead of second. It got on my tits so much I actually punched the change down button. Thing is, the punch made the left controller arm of the dualshock drive straight into my bollocks ft: I then proceeded to beat the gold time on my next run by half a second or so, aching all the time.

Hmmm?

[Firsty]

OUCH!
I get what you mean by that. It's a bit extreme tho, no?
I'd be a walking casualty if I played by that technique!

[Darwock]

I think it's called negative reinforcement!

It works both ways too - if insecure people do something specific (like clench a fist or something) every time they have reason to feel confident, next time they are feeling out of their depth they can restore that feeling of confidence by clenching their fist.

You still wouldn't get me playing that Star Trek game that electrocutes you, or modifying my controller so the rumble function delivers an electric shock (like some nutter did for Tekken).