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The Sims series turned 25 this week and to mark the occasion we’ve asked a psychologist to take a reality check on The Sims 4. The series is meant to simulate life, sure, but certain things are always going to be exaggerated for comedic effect. You can’t really die from laughter, right? Well, probably not.
Charted psychologist and author Dr. Audrey Tang sat down to take a look at how sims behave: their basic needs, personality traits, the power of moodlets, and more. She was able to give some reassurances on one of The Sims’ weirder deaths—extreme emotion could possibly exacerbate a heart condition or give you shortness of breath but dying of it? Probably not. Laughter is good for you, physically and psychologically!
While death by joy doesn’t get a pass for realism, Dr. Tang gives props to The Sims for other psychological principles it incorporates. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, while not really scientifically proven, is a handy framework for looking at human motivation and prioritizing basic physiological needs over social and self-actualizing goals. Dr. Tang says it is actually quite neat that The Sims 4 mirrors that prioritization—by not allowing a sim to do fun tasks like practicing music while they’re dead tired.
Dr. Tang also says that giving yourself a pep talk in the mirror to increase your self-confidence really does have some research to back up how it by primes your brain to see the positives throughout your day. Meanwhile short term comforts like good food can offset big emotions like grieving the loss of a loved one, but the process of mourning lasts a lot longer than the meal does in real life. That’s an interesting one that The Sims 4 has built on itself recently with the Life & Death expansion pack and its grieving styles.
In all, Dr. Tang gives The Sims 4 a passing grade in her reality check. The game isn’t meant to rigorously simulate true human behavior, sure, but she says “there’s a real sense of effort that was put in there to make it as realistic as possible.”
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Kurt Indovina
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