This is a post on Cyberpsychosis -- I would love your input and to hear what your thoughts are on this virtual "disorder" of sorts!
*Please note there are spoilers for those who have not seen the Edgerunner series*
This is also pretty long.
Hello everyone!
I’m a Psychology student working on my Master’s degree, and I absolutely love this game, and even more so conjecture around Cyberpsychosis – what it is, how it happens, and what demographic of people it impacts. This post is my personal take on Cyberpsychosis and its impact on people in the Cyberpunk2077 universe. Because this is a fictional title it is impossible to draw any accurate conclusions about this disorder however with a little bit of brain work, I hope to bring you a more concrete examination and explanation as it pertains to Cyberpsychosis (for fun of course).
First, it is in order to operationally define Cyberpsychosis using the word itself.
The word cyber means “relating to or characteristic of the culture of computers, information technology, and virtual reality.” (Merriam Webster)
The word psychosis is a general term for a misalignment in a person’s perception and reality. Psychosis is a very broad term, to some degree all of us experience some form of psychosis in relation to another individual. It is important to remember that all disorders are just that a deviation from the “normal” order of things or normal behavior. Normal behavior can be defined loosely as what at least 51% or majority of the population understand or accept as normal behavior. For example, walking outside in the middle of 10⁰ Fahrenheit with a t-shirt and shorts might be considered abnormal behavior depending on the context. Due to the broad nature of the term this is where this post will be focusing and where nearly all of the conjecture derive itself from.
* in this post I will be using the word “normal”, please reference the definition above for clarification.
With these two definitions we can define Cyberpsychosis as a misalignment in a persons’ perception of reality due to characteristics of the culture of computers, information technology, and/or virtual reality.
A viable piece information I found on Cyberpsychosis, was from the creator of Cyberpunk 2020, Mike Pondsmith. Below is a brief depiction, examination, and description of this disorder:
“First of all, Cyberpsychosis is a disorder that in part depends on the subject's overall internal susceptibility. Just like every person who drinks a lot at parties doesn't end up an alcoholic in the gutter, not everyone who gets loaded up on cyberware is going to automatically go cyberpsycho. You have to have an inherent susceptibility, which (in the TRPG) is represented by the player's Humanity Stat. Humanity is not just a measure of one aspect of personality, but an overall measure of several elements including the subject's ability to emphasize and relate with others, their ability to absorb and rebound from mental and physical stressors, their ability to show compassion and flexibility to others, and whether they are able to balance their worldview through other methods”
From this information we obtain that Cyberpsychosis is indeed a misalignment of an individual’s perception and the “normal” reality. We also learn that Cyberpsychosis has a tolerance and a type of progression system whereas once afflicted piece generally does not cause the disorder in most circumstances. As stated in Pondsmith’s writing and for greater clarification, generally one drink will not get a person drunk however, it depends on the persons tolerance and the strength of the drink. We also learn from Pondsmith that Cyberpsychosis and ones’ susceptibility to it lies within the inner mechanisms of the mind – how a person thinks and functions on an individual level impacts their tailored type of Cyberpsychosis.
Now that we have a concrete definition, let’s find some examples of potential Cyberpsychosis and see what we can come up with.
Let’s start with the Edgerunner series, I’ll be using the Big Five personality traits to standardize how we label them:
I’ve seen a lot of chat in the forums stating that David is not a Cyberpsycho, with this definition let’s find out!
The Big Five personality traits are:
Extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism (please keep in mind that neuroticism is a word that is not widely agreed upon in the psychological field has to do with the negative connotation accompanied with hysteria for our purposes it will simply be how quickly someone is to agitate and how well they can regulate it).
These are based on my analysis of the character and relatedness to the personality trait, because we don’t really get a wholistic view of David’s life (and the fact that he is a fictitious character) it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw accurate conclusions. Nonetheless, an attempt will be made.
David is low on extraversion, high in agreeableness, high in openness, high in conscientiousness, and fairly low in neuroticism.
An interpretation of this could be David is a person who is in his own head, goes with the flow, open to explore, well-organized, and patient, respectively.
There are several factors that the Big Five does not touch such as mental state and resistance to Cyberpsychosis (something that we cannot test or measure as it does not exist). However, due to the series we can assume and make some correlations as to his personality traits and Cyberpsychosis resistance – we can also assume that David has a relatively high tolerance to Cyberpsychosis.
Was David suffering from Cyberpsychosis – I would say yes in this instance, the cyber components that he installed definitely had an impact or his perception of reality but…it wasn’t necessarily a negative one. This is where it gets a little interesting – generally it is peoples cyber gear (chrome) that impacts their minds however, in David’s instance, where he truly was special, his mind had the greatest impact on his Cyberpsychosis, allow me to explain. David first piece of “chrome” was the Sandevistan, a relic left to him by his mother (and to right, what he believed to be an injustice), his second, the arms of a beloved lost friend, his lungs to keep up with the “love of his life,” and the Grav suit to save the ones he loved. His choices in chrome weren’t for him – it was in honor of the people he loved – you can also see this in his refusal to take the hands from the late Pilar. That is what distinguishes him from people who generally get cyberware and because of the magnitude the combined pieces led him to Cyberpsychosis. This leads to the second interesting character – Adam Smasher.
Let’s analyze him with the Big Five:
Adam is low in extraversion, high in agreeableness, high in openness, high in conscientiousness, and low in neuroticism.
An interpretation of this could be Adam is a person who in is his own head, goes with the flow, open to explore, well organized, and patient, respectively. However, it is slightly different for Adam, apply “does not seem to give a shit as long as he gets paid” to the end of each description; for example, goes with the flow and “does not seem to give a shit as long as he gets paid.”
Adam is different than David and yet they are the same in the sense that their bodies can tolerate extreme amounts of cyberware without going Cyberpsycho (succumbing to the effects of Cyberpsychosis). Adam sees this at the end before he kills David and offers him a chance to live with this in mind – David declines and is subsequently killed.
So was David a Cyberpsycho? No, not in my opinion, however, he did suffer from Cyberpsychosis!
I will go deeper into the analysis and distinction between Cyberpsychosis and Cyberpsycho in later writings
We will use this examination of David, Adam, and the Big 5 as a baseline to compare to other characters as well in order to create a more wholistic view of Cyberpsychosis.
I’ve written quite a bit and don’t want to overwhelm anyone with too much information – please let me know if you have any ideas etc. Again, this is a basic examination where I’m just having a bit of fun.
If at any point of this explanation you are confused, have questions, or observe a misattribution of a term please let me know, I have a rudimentary knowledge of the topic and am applying them in ways they are not necessarily meant to be used.
Works Cited
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Cyber. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cyber
*Please note there are spoilers for those who have not seen the Edgerunner series*
This is also pretty long.
Hello everyone!
I’m a Psychology student working on my Master’s degree, and I absolutely love this game, and even more so conjecture around Cyberpsychosis – what it is, how it happens, and what demographic of people it impacts. This post is my personal take on Cyberpsychosis and its impact on people in the Cyberpunk2077 universe. Because this is a fictional title it is impossible to draw any accurate conclusions about this disorder however with a little bit of brain work, I hope to bring you a more concrete examination and explanation as it pertains to Cyberpsychosis (for fun of course).
First, it is in order to operationally define Cyberpsychosis using the word itself.
The word cyber means “relating to or characteristic of the culture of computers, information technology, and virtual reality.” (Merriam Webster)
The word psychosis is a general term for a misalignment in a person’s perception and reality. Psychosis is a very broad term, to some degree all of us experience some form of psychosis in relation to another individual. It is important to remember that all disorders are just that a deviation from the “normal” order of things or normal behavior. Normal behavior can be defined loosely as what at least 51% or majority of the population understand or accept as normal behavior. For example, walking outside in the middle of 10⁰ Fahrenheit with a t-shirt and shorts might be considered abnormal behavior depending on the context. Due to the broad nature of the term this is where this post will be focusing and where nearly all of the conjecture derive itself from.
* in this post I will be using the word “normal”, please reference the definition above for clarification.
With these two definitions we can define Cyberpsychosis as a misalignment in a persons’ perception of reality due to characteristics of the culture of computers, information technology, and/or virtual reality.
A viable piece information I found on Cyberpsychosis, was from the creator of Cyberpunk 2020, Mike Pondsmith. Below is a brief depiction, examination, and description of this disorder:
“First of all, Cyberpsychosis is a disorder that in part depends on the subject's overall internal susceptibility. Just like every person who drinks a lot at parties doesn't end up an alcoholic in the gutter, not everyone who gets loaded up on cyberware is going to automatically go cyberpsycho. You have to have an inherent susceptibility, which (in the TRPG) is represented by the player's Humanity Stat. Humanity is not just a measure of one aspect of personality, but an overall measure of several elements including the subject's ability to emphasize and relate with others, their ability to absorb and rebound from mental and physical stressors, their ability to show compassion and flexibility to others, and whether they are able to balance their worldview through other methods”
From this information we obtain that Cyberpsychosis is indeed a misalignment of an individual’s perception and the “normal” reality. We also learn that Cyberpsychosis has a tolerance and a type of progression system whereas once afflicted piece generally does not cause the disorder in most circumstances. As stated in Pondsmith’s writing and for greater clarification, generally one drink will not get a person drunk however, it depends on the persons tolerance and the strength of the drink. We also learn from Pondsmith that Cyberpsychosis and ones’ susceptibility to it lies within the inner mechanisms of the mind – how a person thinks and functions on an individual level impacts their tailored type of Cyberpsychosis.
Now that we have a concrete definition, let’s find some examples of potential Cyberpsychosis and see what we can come up with.
Let’s start with the Edgerunner series, I’ll be using the Big Five personality traits to standardize how we label them:
I’ve seen a lot of chat in the forums stating that David is not a Cyberpsycho, with this definition let’s find out!
The Big Five personality traits are:
Extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism (please keep in mind that neuroticism is a word that is not widely agreed upon in the psychological field has to do with the negative connotation accompanied with hysteria for our purposes it will simply be how quickly someone is to agitate and how well they can regulate it).
These are based on my analysis of the character and relatedness to the personality trait, because we don’t really get a wholistic view of David’s life (and the fact that he is a fictitious character) it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw accurate conclusions. Nonetheless, an attempt will be made.
David is low on extraversion, high in agreeableness, high in openness, high in conscientiousness, and fairly low in neuroticism.
An interpretation of this could be David is a person who is in his own head, goes with the flow, open to explore, well-organized, and patient, respectively.
There are several factors that the Big Five does not touch such as mental state and resistance to Cyberpsychosis (something that we cannot test or measure as it does not exist). However, due to the series we can assume and make some correlations as to his personality traits and Cyberpsychosis resistance – we can also assume that David has a relatively high tolerance to Cyberpsychosis.
Was David suffering from Cyberpsychosis – I would say yes in this instance, the cyber components that he installed definitely had an impact or his perception of reality but…it wasn’t necessarily a negative one. This is where it gets a little interesting – generally it is peoples cyber gear (chrome) that impacts their minds however, in David’s instance, where he truly was special, his mind had the greatest impact on his Cyberpsychosis, allow me to explain. David first piece of “chrome” was the Sandevistan, a relic left to him by his mother (and to right, what he believed to be an injustice), his second, the arms of a beloved lost friend, his lungs to keep up with the “love of his life,” and the Grav suit to save the ones he loved. His choices in chrome weren’t for him – it was in honor of the people he loved – you can also see this in his refusal to take the hands from the late Pilar. That is what distinguishes him from people who generally get cyberware and because of the magnitude the combined pieces led him to Cyberpsychosis. This leads to the second interesting character – Adam Smasher.
Let’s analyze him with the Big Five:
Adam is low in extraversion, high in agreeableness, high in openness, high in conscientiousness, and low in neuroticism.
An interpretation of this could be Adam is a person who in is his own head, goes with the flow, open to explore, well organized, and patient, respectively. However, it is slightly different for Adam, apply “does not seem to give a shit as long as he gets paid” to the end of each description; for example, goes with the flow and “does not seem to give a shit as long as he gets paid.”
Adam is different than David and yet they are the same in the sense that their bodies can tolerate extreme amounts of cyberware without going Cyberpsycho (succumbing to the effects of Cyberpsychosis). Adam sees this at the end before he kills David and offers him a chance to live with this in mind – David declines and is subsequently killed.
So was David a Cyberpsycho? No, not in my opinion, however, he did suffer from Cyberpsychosis!
I will go deeper into the analysis and distinction between Cyberpsychosis and Cyberpsycho in later writings
We will use this examination of David, Adam, and the Big 5 as a baseline to compare to other characters as well in order to create a more wholistic view of Cyberpsychosis.
I’ve written quite a bit and don’t want to overwhelm anyone with too much information – please let me know if you have any ideas etc. Again, this is a basic examination where I’m just having a bit of fun.
If at any point of this explanation you are confused, have questions, or observe a misattribution of a term please let me know, I have a rudimentary knowledge of the topic and am applying them in ways they are not necessarily meant to be used.
Works Cited
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Cyber. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cyber
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