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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bawylie" data-source="post: 7590722" data-attributes="member: 6776133">Hm. Let me clarify. I was talking about studies of a phenomenon, not polls about the self-reported levels of happiness in people’s lives. The phrasing of the question directs the subject’s attention such that the attention leads the response. IOW, when you ask someone if they’re happy with their life, their attention is drawn to memories that are happy and they are 4 times as likely to respond “yes I am happy” than the control group. Whereas if you ask “are you unhappy with your life?” the subject’s attention fixated on unhappy memories and they are 4 times as likely to say “I am unhappy,” than the control.  The phenomenon is that a person feels differently about something depending on the filter (or perspective) by which they examine that thing. If you don’t accept that this phenomenon happens, then I suppose you can only conclude that the loss of 8 HP has the same emotional impact every time, without regard to the player’s perspective. And, okay fine - but let’s try shifting your perspective. Would you say that the loss of your first 8 HP is more important, less important, or equally important to the loss of your last 8 HP? I suspect that losing your last 8 HP and dropping to zero is a more impactful event than losing your first 8 HP and still being able to stand and fight. And if that IS true, then you can see that how you feel about the loss of HP, even the same amount of HP, can carry a different emotional weight circumstantially. You seem to be aware of this - you even acknowledge the “problem with polling” is exactly the phenomenon I’m describing. And if you can acknowledge THAT, then it’s not too far of a step to imagine that some people might feel differently “spending” HP on a narrative defense of an attack (thereby gaining an opportunity to spotlight something neat about their character) than they would just losing HP from another attack. No shift in the process of play is required. It’s a shift in perspective and it may be significant (as studies indicate they are).</blockquote>

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