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."

Comments

Long Story Short

[TubeSteak]

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.

Re:Long Story Short

[sexconker]

Or, you know, men have the same issues too.

Wrestlers and jockeys (the ones that ride horses, and possibly emu) are worse than fashion models when it comes to killing themselves via starvation/binging & purging.

In terms of societal acceptance, everything from rogaine to viagra, from going to the gym 7 days a week to buying a sports car falls in the same category. Plastic surgery has a rapidly growing market with men, and in a few years, you'll be excusing yourself from a meal to go powder your nose (the one on your face).

The point at which it's a disorder is when it negatively affects your health or social life inadvertently. (Going to the gym is supposed to make you fit, but it can injure you too. Completely ditching your fat, smoker, drunken friends is good for your health, but it can also ruin your social life. Of course, you could also very well be fine with ditching those losers.)

A common symptom of these disorders is that people hold themselves to unreasonable standards, such as thinking 100 pounds is fat for them, but 115 pounds on that other person looks so good. They do not (that I know of) look in the mirror and physically see themselves as fat (unless it's one of those fun house mirrors).

Where I live, the latest fad is biking. Some of these people have serious issues.

Look no further than LARPers

[dave562]

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.

Re: Crossing Fingers

[TaoPhoenix]

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.

Re:RTFA!!!

[story645]

Not quite priming-which is basically a memory task where you learn to associate a word/object with another, kind of like associating the content of an array cell with it's index (A[0]=B, you teach yourself to think B when you see 0). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)
"I'm going to be modded funny" doesn't 'cause any associative links to be made (which is how psychological priming works-it's Cognitive-Behavioral where you learn to associate your mental image with your wishes and behave based on the new associations) in the brain of the mod-either he mods you up or he doesn't.

Re:MMORPGs

[trongey]

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..? Nah.
I generally make a more substanial build, curvy, nicely proportioned all around. She's gotta have more mass than the weapons she's using, and you find some pretty big weapons in MMOs.

So why was the totally accurate parent modded "Flamebait"?

Girl char on mmorpg

[Anonymous Coward]

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.