Jeffrey G. Snodgrass

Magical Flight and Monstrous Stress: Technologies of Absorption and Mental Wellness in Azeroth

Videogame players commonly report reaching deeply “immersive” states of consciousness, in some cases growing to feel like they actually are their characters and really in the game, with such fantastic characters and places potentially only loosely connected to offline selves and realities. In the current investigation, we use interview and survey data to examine the effects of such “dissociative” experiences on players of the popular online videogame, World of Warcraft (WoW). Of particular interest are ways in which WoW players’ emotional identification with in-game second selves can lead either to better mental well-being, through relaxation and satisfying positive stress, or, alternatively, to risky addiction-like experiences. Combining universalizing and context-dependent perspectives, we suggest that WoW and similar games can be thought of as new “technologies of absorption”—contemporary practices that can induce dissociative states in which players attribute dimensions of self and experience to in-game characters, with potential psychological benefit or harm. We present our research as an empirically grounded exploration of the mental health benefits and risks associated with dissociation in common everyday contexts. We believe that studies such as ours may enrich existing theories of the health dynamics of dissociation, relying, as they often do, on data drawn either from Western clinical contexts involving pathological disintegrated personality disorders or from non-Western ethnographic contexts involving spiritual trance.

Restorative Magical Adventure or Warcrack?: Motivated MMO Play and the Pleasures and Perils of Online Experience

Combining perspectives from the new science of happiness with discussions regarding “problematic” and “addictive” play in multiplayer online games, the authors examine how player motivations pattern both positive and negative gaming experiences. Specifically, using ethnographic interviews and a survey, the authors explore the utility of Yee’s three-factor motivational framework for explaining the positive or negative quality of experiences in the popular online game World of Warcraft (2004-2012). The authors find that playing to Achieve is strongly associated with distressful play, results that support findings from other studies. By contrast, Social and Immersion play lead more typically to positive gaming experiences, conclusions diverging from those frequently reported in the literature. Overall, the authors suggest that paying attention to the positive as well as negative dimensions of inhabiting these online worlds will provide both for more balanced portraits of gamers’ experiences and also potentially clarify pathways toward problematic and addictive play.

Influence of Aesthetic Appreciation of Wildlife Species on Attitudes towards Their Conservation in Kenyan Agropastoralist Communities

The influence of human aesthetic appreciation of animal species on public attitudes towards their conservation and related decision-making has been studied in industrialized countries but remains underexplored in developing countries. Working in three agropastoralist communities around Amboseli National Park, southern Kenya, we investigated the relative strength of human aesthetic appreciation on local attitudes towards the conservation of wildlife species. Using semi-structured interviewing and free listing (n = 191) as part of a mixed methods approach, we first characterized local aesthetic judgments of wildlife species. With a Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMM) approach, we then determined the influence of perceiving four species as beautiful on local support for their protection (“rescuing them”), and of perceiving four other species as ugly on support for their removal from the area, while controlling for informant personal and household socioeconomic attributes. Perceiving giraffe, gazelles and eland as beautiful is the strongest variable explaining support for rescuing them. Ugliness is the strongest variable influencing support for the removal of buffalo, hyena, and elephant (but not lion). Both our qualitative and quantitative results suggest that perceptions of ugly species could become more positive through direct exposure to those species. We propose that protected areas in developing countries facilitate visitation by local residents to increase their familiarity with species they rarely see or most frequently see in conflict with human interests. Since valuing a species for its beauty requires seeing it, protected areas in developing countries should connect the people who live around them with the animals they protect. Our results also show that aesthetic appreciation of biodiversity is not restricted to the industrialized world.

Economics of disaster risk, social vulnerability, and mental health resilience.

We investigate the relationship between exposure to Hurricanes Katrina and/or Rita and mental health resilience by vulnerability status, with particular focus on the mental health outcomes of single mothers versus the general public. We advance a measurable notion of mental health resilience to disaster events. We also calculate the economic costs of poor mental health days added by natural disaster exposure. Negative binomial analyses show that hurricane exposure increases the expected count of poor mental health days for all persons by 18.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 7.44-31.14%), and by 71.88% (95% CI, 39.48-211.82%) for single females with children. Monthly time-series show that single mothers have lower event resilience, experiencing higher added mental stress. Results also show that the count of poor mental health days is sensitive to hurricane intensity, increasing by a factor of 1.06 (95% CI, 1.02-1.10) for every billion (U.S.

Maternal Hurricane Exposure and Fetal Distress Risk

) dollars of damage added for all exposed persons, and by a factor of 1.08 (95% CI, 1.03-1.14) for single mothers. We estimate that single mothers, as a group, suffered over

Stress and telomere shortening among central Indian conservation refugees

130 million in productivity loss from added postdisaster stress and disability. Results illustrate the measurability of mental health resilience as a two-dimensional concept of resistance capacity and recovery time. Overall, we show that natural disasters regressively tax disadvantaged population strata.

A guild culture of ‘casual raiding’ enhances its members’ online gaming experiences: A cognitive anthropological and ethnographic approach to World of Warcraft

Logistic regression and spatial analytic techniques are used to model fetal distress risk as a function of maternal exposure to Hurricane Andrew. First, monthly time series compare the proportion of infants born distressed in hurricane affected and unaffected areas. Second, resident births are analyzed in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, before, during, and after Hurricane Andrew. Third, resident births are analyzed in all Florida locales with 100,000 or more persons, comparing exposed and unexposed gravid females. Fourth, resident births are analyzed along Hurricane Andrews path from southern Florida to northeast Mississippi. Results show that fetal distress risk increases significantly with maternal exposure to Hurricane Andrew in second and third trimesters, adjusting for known risk factors. Distress risk also correlates with the destructive path of Hurricane Andrew, with higher incidences of fetal distress found in areas of highest exposure intensity. Hurricane exposed African-American mothers were more likely to birth distressed infants. The policy implications of in utero costs of natural disaster exposure are discussed.

Maternal exposure to hurricane destruction and fetal mortality

Significance Recent research links life stress to premature telomere shortening and human aging. However, this association has only been demonstrated in Western contexts, where stress is typically lower and life expectancies longer. Using innovative approaches, we show significant associations between stress and telomere shortening in a non-Western setting among a highly stressed population with lower life expectancies: poor indigenous people—the Sahariya—who were displaced between 1998 and 2002 from their central Indian wildlife sanctuary homes. Our research strengthens the case for stress-induced telomere shortening as a pancultural biomarker of compromised health and aging. Research links psychosocial stress to premature telomere shortening and accelerated human aging; however, this association has only been demonstrated in so-called “WEIRD” societies (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic), where stress is typically lower and life expectancies longer. By contrast, we examine stress and telomere shortening in a non-Western setting among a highly stressed population with overall lower life expectancies: poor indigenous people—the Sahariya—who were displaced (between 1998 and 2002) from their ancestral homes in a central Indian wildlife sanctuary. In this setting, we examined adult populations in two representative villages, one relocated to accommodate the introduction of Asiatic lions into the sanctuary (n = 24 individuals), and the other newly isolated in the sanctuary buffer zone after their previous neighbors were moved (n = 22). Our research strategy combined physical stress measures via the salivary analytes cortisol and α-amylase with self-assessments of psychosomatic stress, ethnographic observations, and telomere length assessment [telomere–fluorescence in situ hybridization (TEL-FISH) coupled with 3D imaging of buccal cell nuclei], providing high-resolution data amenable to multilevel statistical analysis. Consistent with expectations, we found significant associations between each of our stress measures—the two salivary analytes and the psychosomatic symptom survey—and telomere length, after adjusting for relevant behavioral, health, and demographic traits. As the first study (to our knowledge) to link stress to telomere length in a non-WEIRD population, our research strengthens the case for stress-induced telomere shortening as a pancultural biomarker of compromised health and aging.

A Quasi-Experimental Analysis of Maternal Altitude Exposure and Infant Birth Weight

We document the norms and practices of a “casual raiding guild” pursuing a balanced approach to World of Warcraft gaming under the banner “offline life matters.” Confirming insights in the problematic online gaming literature, our ethnography reveals that some guild members experience gaming distress. However, this guild’s normative culture helps its members better self-regulate and thus protect themselves from, among other things, their own impulses to over-play and thus compromise their offline lives. We suggest that cognitive anthropological “culture as socially transmitted knowledge” theories—combined with ethnographic methods—illuminate how socially learned gaming patterns shape online experiences. Our approach helps us refine theories judging socially motivated Internet activity as harmful. We affirm the potential for distress in these social gaming contexts, but we also show how a specific guild culture can minimize or even reverse such distress, in this case promoting experiences that strike a nice balance between thrill and comradery.

Abnormal labor outcomes as a function of maternal exposure to a catastrophic hurricane event during pregnancy

Background The majority of research documenting the public health impacts of natural disasters focuses on the well-being of adults and their living children. Negative effects may also occur in the unborn, exposed to disaster stressors when critical organ systems are developing and when the consequences of exposure are large. Methods We exploit spatial and temporal variation in hurricane behaviour as a quasi-experimental design to assess whether fetal death is dose-responsive in the extent of hurricane damage. Data on births and fetal deaths are merged with Parish-level housing wreckage data. Fetal outcomes are regressed on housing wreckage adjusting for the maternal, fetal, placental and other risk factors. The average causal effect of maternal exposure to hurricane destruction is captured by difference-in-differences analyses. Results The adjusted odds of fetal death are 1.40 (1.07–1.83) and 2.37 (1.684–3.327) times higher in parishes suffering 10–50% and >50% wreckage to housing stock, respectively. For every 1% increase in the destruction of housing stock, we observe a 1.7% (1.1–2.4%) increase in fetal death. Of the 410 officially recorded fetal deaths in these parishes, between 117 and 205 may be attributable to hurricane destruction and postdisaster disorder. The estimated fetal death toll is 17.4–30.6% of the human death toll. Conclusions The destruction caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita imposed significant measurable losses in terms of fetal death. Postdisaster migratory dynamics suggest that the reported effects of maternal exposure to hurricane destruction on fetal death may be conservative.