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Effect of Virtual Avatars On Real-Life Behavior
Betsy Carroll writes "The Stanford research group on virtual teams discusses how the appearance of one's avatar in virtual worlds has an effect on real life behavior in an NPR interview. The researcher they speak with focuses on the concept of vicarious reinforcement for changing behavior. They also talk a bit about identity issues surrounding the avatar and the 'real' physical self."
I guess everybody is excused for not reading TFA this time... I'm glad slashdot.org is evolving with its readership! :D
Normally I can't stand this troll, but given the context under which this was posted I couldn't help but laugh my ass off.
Sorry, I know, I have some growing up to do.
Anyone else ever get annoyed at audio or audio/video news? I'm at work, can't listen to those.
Transcripts, much more helpful
My avatar is Hello Cthulhu. Guess I shall destroy you all (especially if you offer me a cookie... I do get rather cranky when someone has violated my secret resting temple)
Insert witty sig here.
Fear not, I never have problems in real life not being a Level 70 Tauren Warrior.
They seem to be saying that seeing a skinny avatar of yourself can condition you to see that weight change is possible & attainable.
Seems to be they're heavily implying that thinspiration is a good idea.
I'd like to see the followup studying looking into longterm issues of body dysmorphic disorder or compulsive exercise.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I'm sure that the stereotype is familiar enough to /.ers. Most of us know those people who have been playing roleplaying games for so long that their personality becomes the character that they play. There are the Vampire players who really believe that they are walking undead. There are the D&D players who eventually get into Wicca and other "majik" kind of stuff to the point where they believe that they can cast spells and talk to spirits. I think it's basic psychology that anybody who spends any significant amount of time pretending to be someone else will eventually manifest behavorial changes.
What's this say about the MMORPGs? You know, Many Men On Line Role Playing Girls...
Picture yourself as a thin girl with big boobs..?
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
this story is so emo
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
else why do people have so much trouble telling effect and affect apart?
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Though I can't HTFA as I'm at work, I'm sure it raises some insightful points. When I create an avatar or online persona, I tend to imbue the characteristics into it that I wish my RL self was stronger in (in this case mostly social awareness and assertiveness). Giant penis jokes aside, does anyone else try to use their alter-ego as a role model?
My avatar is a Troll Hunter. You got a problem with that?
Cogito Ergo Sum
The avatar bit is irrelevant then. People choose an avatar, so it is in effect a visualization of your dreams.
So how about software (on line) where you can email a picture of yourself, and it thins you down (or fattens up) towards the norm, to a reasonably achievable body figure. Pin it on your wall and use it to focus on getting healthier.
Don't know who would sponsor the software. KFC?
... when you're visualizing yourself as thinner in VR and you AREN'T chowing down on chips/nachos/doritos/pizza/chinese food/raw cookie dough/pure lard while throwing back soda/beer/coffee/pure liquified lard the entire time.
Which, unfortunately, is why I'm *not* thinner after all these years of online gaming...
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
How long before this gets used as an excuse to not take responsibility for oneself.
Actually, it kind of already has anytime a computer game/movie is blamed when some SLCB shoots up a school or post office.
It worked.
Not enough people are mean enough to reverse-mod you.
However, something like "insightful" applied to your post comes close to a paradox.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Nothing is worse than not being able to get the news beyond the headline because you don't want to stream video. I don't want to waste 5 minutes for a video, I want to waste 20 seconds skimming articles and making assumptions, like I do on /.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I play Second Life. Every day, I now have the urge to fly to work, turn myself into a giant penis, and grief the shit out of every newbie I see.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Nobody can rush to the coffee pot in the morning like me. Sometimes people get nervous when I sprint to the coffee room with a 12 inch blade, but as we all know, you run faster with a knife.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
Well that fully explains why I've been so obsessed with if those epic boots clash with my new heroic gloves.
you're back :D
The effect of my eyes reading the improper usage of the word "affect" is affecting my will to live.
Nice belt.
Each of my alts behaves quite differently.
I have one character that makes no attempt at role playing: It represents *me* as accurately and realistically as possible,
because it exists as an extension of me as a musician.
In part, because of the rigors of this avatar, I have alts.
When I'm playing these alts, they have, due to *circumstances in the virtual world* all had different experiences, and
they become different personalities, with no real effort on my part in terms of "role playing".
I've brought this up with others, to find others have had similar experiences.
mod parent up!
as to which to choose, i about had an aneurysm trying to decide so good luck there.
That which does not kill us makes us... st
I've been trying to figure out why those darn kids keep attacking my gazebo. They've obviously been playing too much D&D! When will they learn to separate games from reality?
Mod parent informative!
+1 Agree -1 Disagree
... the avatar who lives on cold pizza and pop and lives in his mom's basement.
Have gnu, will travel.
Mmmm.... perhaps. But it could be the other way round, also. Vampire players could be attracted to the game because they have an innate interest in drinking blood to begin with; likewise, Wicca practitioners may be attracted to the Art because they innately sense life forces around them. In the end, I'd say that both life and LARP are iterative processes, and LARPing simply exhibits self-reinforcement of behaviors that are already there.
Can't LTFA yet either. Did they address the wildly varying degrees of avatar customization and what effect that may have?
Frex, WoW characters are - well, it's like everyone is related to you. Closely. Very little variation. What everyone then sees is the *gear* on WoW characters, that's what "matters" on that game (Woah, look at the sword / helmet / shield on that guy!). Actual avatar appearance is cookie-cutter, and quickly ignored after you realize you've seen what everyone looks like in 10 minutes. Does that affect acquisitiveness?
Conversely, games like CoH/V or EvE-online have avatar creation tools you can spend an hour or three on. There's more player input into the results, therefore more of the player's self-image (or fantasized version thereof) comes through. EvE, especially, makes it easy to make *hideous* characters, and many people do, for various reasons. Wouldn't that reinforce a lousy self-perception, if what TFA says is true..?
Seems (from the headline and blurb on NPR site) they simply make the assumption that everyone of COURSE goes and makes beautiful skinny Barbie avatars so we want to look "better," like them.
Meh.
That which does not kill us makes us... st
I just needed to pad the list a little. I claim poetic license. :)
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
If these sorts of effects are produced by choosing ones avatar than I would sat it bodes well for many internet users. In an amateur study I conducted in college I found that there was a strong correlation between ones view of their physical self, and the number of hours they spent online. People with a lower opinion of their physical self tended to spend significantly more time online, interacting with others online, than those with a better opinions of their physical self. What I found here was a correlation, not causation, but I do have some hypothesis as to why this is the case.
"As a creature of ideals, man's main concern is to maintain a tentative hold on these idealized conceptions of himself, to legitimate his role-identities." McCall, G. J. and Simmons J. L. (1966)
"During one's life, external pressures from various audiences tend to conventionalize and to make more realistic, less lofty, the person's role-identities. Because of constraints and circumstances, he continually must 'settle for' situation, relationships and so forth that are not quite what he had imaged for himself in a particular role." McCall, G. J. & Simmons J. L. (1966)
Basically we have ideal perceptions of ourselves which we constantly try to legitimize through our interactions with others. The reality check is that external judgments (such as grades, performance reviews, opinions of friends, family, enemies, superiors) can call into question the legitimacy of our ideal perception. "No matter what a man does, he is not fully human unless there is spirit of freedom in him, a soul unconfined by purpose and larger than the practicable world. And this is really what those mean who inculcate the suppression of the self; they mean that its rigidity must be broken up by growth and renewal, that it must be more or less decisively 'born again.' " Cooley, C. H. (1964) Here a soul unconfined by purpose, is the soul which is not concerned with maintaining an ideal perception. This frees one from agonizing over the discrepancy between the actual and realized self. The constant struggle to maintain an identity that ultimately fails leads to unhappiness, or depression. But Cooley states that the self must be 'born again,' i.e. a new identity must be created, and what better place to do this than the internet.
Why the internet? Because it is much easier to create an identity on the internet than in the physical world because the forces that would call your identity into question are to a great degree stymied by the fact that the rules for cyber-interaction are much different than the rules of physical interaction.
In Goffman's book "The presentation of the self in everyday life" (1959) he outlines the social game in terms of rules. The observer judges the observed and attempts to figure out his identity based on (1) action of the observed, (2) appearance of the observed, (3) setting of the interaction, and (4) his own experience. Meanwhile, the observed is putting forward their own identity, their ideal-identity for that time and place. A battle ensues to determine the identity of the observed. But online, these rules (particularly the first 3) are compromised. On the internet, what you see is what you get, and the observed has many more tools at their disposal to present an alternate self, or avatar, that may be very little like their actual self at all. It is much easier, as someone trying to create a new identity, to do so online.
If online interaction can have a positive impact on the physical world as the NPR interview suggests, it's good news to all those users out there who are trying to create a new identity. It might just positively impact their identity in the physical world.
"Taboo, like anything else, goes in and out of style."
My level 10 Dwarf with 18 Charisma charms your level 1 Elf at the pub outside the weapons shop.
http://vhil.stanford.edu/projects/
Out of the three links to "research" provided, only one links to an actual published paper (the other two are to research papers not in peer reviewed journals).
So, yeah, in a lab with undergraduate students, some of this stuff may be true. Out in the real world, with real adults working 9 to 5 jobs, with family and kids, maybe not so much....
Having played far too much WoW, I do have the urge to run everywhere. Now if I can just get me a riding wolf, all will be well with the world.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
not a 6'1", 200 lb muscular male attorney, but a DEX-based female halfling assassin named "Poppy Moon"?
So apparently, the amazing results this guy is getting is that people self-report that they have exercised more when he checks in with them... a week later! That's totally as good as the five year follow up necessary for any weight-loss study to be taken seriously. Clearly, this is the answer to all our problems.
I wonder if they managed to get level 70 / raid geared before they ran out of grant money?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
http://knepfler.com/index.php?title=The_Human_Avatar
I wasn't on acid when I wrote this but I might as well have been.
# Erik
I can tell you my real life circle of friends is wider. I am involved in a wider array of activities as well.
I went into SL with the philosophy that I'd respond "sure" to any offer to see something or go someplace or try something and have enjoyed each and every one.
I am one of the few that doesn't put money into the game but cashes money out.
Since our brain are far more dynamic than many people realize, adapting and responding to every input, it's obvious to me that spending a few hours a week interacting that way would have an affect.
It's wonderful to see research go beyond "are things the same there as here? Yes." to beyond that now, "what impact will there be afterward".
As someone who played D&D in the 70's and 80's, did a bit of LARPing in the late 90's, I too expected far more fantasy in a world where you could be anything and fly, I was surprised by how many Caucasian blonde avatars with perfect bodies there were who slowly walk places.
Thankfully, in the past year that's changed a bit but young pretty AVs are still predominant, especially for the average 40ish user age range...
Sportsmen/women have known this for ages. So have people with hobbies. etc etc.
Many weight control programs, for instance, will suggest that people join social groups etc and feel better about how they are *now*. That improved self image then helps people work towards their goals.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I played a female girl char on a MMORPG for many years.
I think it has made me less aggressive, more care about looks, more feminine.
Sometimes I want to be a girl, because they're so pretty, and I want to have boobs.
I AM GOD HERE.
I know that I started to dress like my Second Life avatar after a while. They do have a point.
The majority of avatars are cases of wishful thinking.
Really, really wishful thinking.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
Game playing, especially RPGs certainly has at least some temporary effects on one's behavior in the real world.
...
My personal experience is seeing the world from the point of view of a character I've just been playing in a particularly good RPG or FPS.
This manifests itself in ways like like having a felling in the real world that something particular is going to happen because in the same situation it usually happens in the virtual world, find "strangely familiar" landmarks in the real world which are similar to well known landmarks in the virtual world and expecting to find certain paths and related landmarks in the real world because said paths and landmarks exist in the virtual world (and getting momentarily confused when the brain adjusts to the conflict), having a momentary compulsion to do something in specific situations in the real world because that something is usually done in the virtual world in similar situations, having a heightened sense of alert after playing a good FPS, viewing the world from the point of view of a character I've just been playing (say that i was playing a wolf, then in the real world i would feel like I can understand the world as it would be seen from the point of view of a wolf), etc
For example, just yesterday when driving i saw a twig in the road which from afar looked similar to the "branches" in LOTR Online (an online RPG which i have been playing latelly) from which one gathers wood (used in crafting). For just a moment I felt a compulsion to stop my car and go "gather wood" from that "branch" (in the virtual world, pretty much every time I see such a "branch" i go there and "gather wood" from it).
I wouldn't be overly surprise if it turns out that unwittingly one trains oneself in the virtual world to react in certain ways to certain "patterns" of events, locations and situations and that said training manifests itself as compulsions to act in certain ways and strange senses of familiarity in the real world when confronted with events, locations and situations which match the "pattern".
This would explain why military organizations are interested in virtual worlds for training.
It's meta-insightful! By it's example and success, it demonstrates insight into how the mod system works or doesn't work. It delves into the multiple layers and, as you mentioned, paradoxes of a self-monitoring society. It's neo-Dickensian/Hitchockian, with a po-mo Dadaist application.
I'd have most of this funny (and parent off-topic, but only for sport) if i had points. I hope I get meta-meta-mod points.
All rites reversed 2010