Hey there, and welcome to Play Noggin.
I’m Julian, your brain’s Player Two.
At Play Noggin, we like to keep it light,
filling your brains with science-y goodness
and gaming excitement, while avoiding anything
too depressing or heavy.
… Well, except for the video about getting
shot in the head.
Or the one about Fallout 4 and nuclear obliteration.
Or the one about how every Pokemon will kill
you.
Okay, so we don’t always keep it light.
But we do keep it informative, and that’s
what we’re going to keep doing.
Today, we’re talking about Grand Theft Auto
V and the sorts of criminal minds that served
as inspiration for the game’s… colorful
cast of characters.
Grand Theft Auto V is one of the biggest games
ever made, if not in literal size, then in
societal impact.
The series has always been one Congressional
hearing away from starting a culture war,
and it’s never leaned so wholeheartedly
into that reputation than it has in its fifth
mainline iteration.
For the first time, players are hot-swapping
between three main characters, all equally
capable of ramping an SUV off a bridge and
into a crowd of unsuspecting, brainless NPCs.
There’s Michael De Santa, aka Michael Townley,
the narcissistic criminal mastermind.
There’s Franklin Clinton, a young man who
probably would have done well to just stay
away from narcissistic criminal masterminds
like Michael.
And then there’s Trevor Philips, a textbook
case of criminal psychopathy who loves chaos
as much as Sonic loves chaos emeralds.
Some motivations for crime are easier to understand
than others.
A person who steals to feed themselves or
their family is different than a rich, middle-aged
guy who steals jet skis he could afford to
buy just because he’s bored and going through
a midlife crisis.
But some of the hardest crimes to understand
are those perpetrated for seemingly no reason.
This is exemplified in the character of Trevor.
Trevor is prone to fits of violence.
And by fits, I mean bonafide rampages.
When it comes to pure mayhem, he’s by far
the most extreme GTA protagonist.
Niko Bellic from GTA IV and Silent Blocky
Guy from GTA III have nothing on him.
...Wait, that guy had a name?
And it’s Claude?
The link between brain function and criminal
activity has been researched extensively,
and today we have a much better understanding
of why some criminals do the things they do.
Researchers have found that people with antisocial
tendencies have some significant discrepancies
in certain areas of the brain, such as the
dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and the posterior
cingulate.
One of those pieces is probably on the bottom
of Trevor’s shoe here.
And on average, the middle frontal gyrus was
18 percent smaller in people with these sorts
of antisocial behavioral tendencies, and the
orbital frontal gyrus was 9 percent smaller.
Another major area of interest is the amygdala.
Far from just being a terrifying alien spider
monster in Bloodborne, the amygdala is the
area of the brain that handles fear and aggression.
It’s active in social situations, and in
a person born without psychopathic tendencies
it regulates our emotions and gives us a proper
fear response when things start to get dangerous.
Researchers have found that the amygdalas
of those with psychopathic tendencies tend
to be much smaller and lower functioning than
those without the same tendencies.
This suggests that Trevor feels free to murder
and rampage because he doesn’t experience
an appropriate amount of fear or social pressure
about the consequences of his actions.
Or because he seems immortal when he’s angry.
I mean, when someone makes fun of the way
I talk, sure, I get mad.
I’m only human.
But my response isn’t to burn his house
down.
Fear actually plays a big part in our development
and the ways in which we choose to behave.
A twenty-year study began by testing three-year-olds’
response to fear conditioning.
Electrodes were placed on the fingers of the
participants, and they were then played two
different tones.
One tone would be followed by a loud, unpleasant
sound, and the other would be followed with
nothing.
Researchers recorded the differences in sweat
response from the children and determined
that some simply had a far lower fear response
than others.
Twenty years later, these researchers determined
a connection between those children who had
not shown a fear response in the study and
future criminal activity.
All this research seems to indicate that our
biology can, in some ways, predispose us toward
certain actions or behaviors.
Maybe that seems obvious in other realms,
which is why I never felt bad that my 6’5”
brother could dunk on me in high school, but
we don’t give it a lot of thought when it
comes to the makeup of the brain.
Not that Trevor was necessarily doomed from
the start to a life of crime and a receding
hairline.
Well, okay, the receding hairline was a given.
Biology can be a jerk.
But early detection of abnormalities in the
brain can help lead to treatment that will
allow the brain to function in more normal
ways.
The brain is actually very flexible, and it
can grow and develop even into adulthood.
Michael isn’t off the hook, though, just
because he doesn’t murder people for making
fun of his accent.
Michael exhibits traits commonly found in
people with narcissistic personality disorder.
He seems chronically incapable of taking responsibility
for his own actions, and he doesn’t seem
to understand that his decisions have an impact
on the people around him.
When his wife makes the perfectly reasonable
observation that he hasn’t been particularly
helpful in raising their children, he turns
it around by saying she would have nothing
if it weren’t for him.
This is textbook narcissism.
He isn’t father-of-the-year material, to
be sure.
Researchers have found that those with narcissistic
personality disorder have less gray matter
in the region of the brain known as the left
anterior insula.
Gray matter is material made up primarily
of neuron cell bodies and non-neuron brain
cells called glial cells.
The latter are responsible for giving your
brain the sugar rush of glucose it needs,
as well as for cleaning out any excess chemicals.
It might also contribute to the communication
between neurons.
The left anterior insula is responsible for
helping us generate empathy, or the ability
to feel what others are feeling.
The more gray matter in this region, the more
empathetic we’re capable of being.
Clinical narcissists have a decreased ability
to feel empathy, and thus are more likely
to be self-focused.
So Trevor and Michael are a couple of pretty
bad guys.
Even Franklin, who winds up as perhaps the
most sympathetic character in the trio, is
far from a saint.
GTA is good at providing a cathartic escape
from reality.
Just keep in mind that these are bad dudes,
and maybe you don’t want to emulate their
behavior.
Even if you somehow did have access to a tank
in the middle of Los Angeles.
Thanks for watching.
As usual, if you like what you’re seeing,
please Like and Subscribe.
Share our videos on social media -- we really
appreciate it.
Check out some of our other videos here.
And don’t forget to keep on playing.
