The Sims may be the most social video game ever created, which is exactly why psychologists decided to use it to examine how psychopaths behave. More than 200 students joined the experiment.

Plenty of people fire up The Sims just to design their dream house, but for most fans, the real thrill comes from shaping the daily lives of the quirky little characters. According to EA, players collectively logged 739 million hours in Live Mode last year. With such flexibility, the simulator lets every user craft a different type of story tailored to their own tastes.

For psychologists, that makes it a perfect digital lab for observing behavior. In 2020, the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science published a study aiming to do just that. The researchers tested the “Cheater-Hawk” hypothesis within a video game, which suggests psychopaths can be identified through two survival strategies: manipulating others and using aggression for personal gain.

The experiment involved 205 students, all playing The Sims 3 in a scenario built with four characters sharing an apartment. Each Sim was identical in gender and looks but carried a distinct personality archetype: the cheater (charming and manipulative), the hawk (rude and aggressive), the dove (submissive and shy), and the cooperator (friendly and helpful). Participants then created their own character and played however they wished.

Each session was recorded and paired with a psychopathy questionnaire. The findings revealed that players with stronger psychopathic traits tended to act more violently, often initiating fights—particularly against the friendlier, more submissive Sims.

But one part of the theory couldn’t be confirmed: the manipulative angle. Even players with psychopathic tendencies rarely engaged in calculated manipulation, which the researchers attributed to the game’s design. With no clear goals that rewarded trickery or deception, there was little incentive to pursue those strategies.

The authors added that while these aggressive behaviors align with psychopathic profiles, they aren’t exclusive to them. Perfectly healthy people have long indulged in outrageous antics within this digital dollhouse. After all, players have been doing wild, sometimes cruel things to their Sims since the early 2000s.

Source: 3djuegos