Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Find Racial Bias In Virtual Worlds
schliz writes "Real-world behaviours and racial biases could carry forward into virtual worlds such as Second Life, social psychologists say. According to a study that was conducted in There.com, virtual world avatars respond to social cues in the same ways that people do in the real world. Users, who were unaware that they were part of a psychological study, were approached by a researcher's avatar for either a 'foot-in-the-door' (FITD) or 'door-in-the-face' (DITF) experiment. While results of the FITD experiment revealed no racial bias, the effect of the DITF technique was significantly reduced when the experimenter took the form of a dark-skinned avatar."
You're just saying that because I'm blue...
I had never heard of the Foot-In-The-Door experiment or Door-In-The-Face experiments before reading the article. Turns out they are actually very interesting and clever experiments which reveal behavioral tendencies the explanation of which is plausably related to how a person sees themselves (in the FITD case) or how they see others (in the DITF case).
In a nutshell, if someone makes a small request of you that you are likely to agree to, then you will be more likely to agree to a second, larger request, because you will have seen yourself as being helpful in complying with the first request and want to continue being helpful by complying with the second request.
And, if someone makes a large request of you, a request so onerous that most people would not accept it, then you will be more likely to agree to a smaller second request, to a greater extent than you would have had you not been asked the first, more onerous request. The explanation for this is that you are trying to reciprocate on the asker's reducing the size of their request by increasing your willingness to respond to a request beyond what your base level would otherwise be. It's a kind of a subconscious negotiation process that you are engaging in with someone else, basically meeting them halfway.
However, this second scenario is affected by how worthy you subconsciously believe that the other person is of this kind of negotiation (the first scenario is not because your response is affected by how you see yourself, not how you see the asker). And apparently, if you perceive the other person as being unworthy of this kind of negotiation, then you are less likely to meet them halfway and agree to the second request.
OK, so, this article basically says that darker-skinned avatars in virtual worlds essentially are less likely to be met halfway, ostensibly because, on average, they are perceived as being less important than lighter-skinned avatars.
I don't think it should come as a surprise to anyone that people's racial biases are carried through to a virtual world from the real world. So in a sense, this whole article, aside from being informative about some interesting psychological tests and their results, is kind of one big 'no duh'.
What would be really interesting to know is if, in these situations, there is a greater degree of this kind of bias in one race or socioeconomic class than another, or if it's universal.
Also, I would just like to point out that racial bias does not necessarily mean racism. I personally believe that racial bias is a natural part of the human psyche, and as long as it is recognized, and understood, and does not adversely disadvantage any particular group of people, should be accepted. But that's just me.
Hey, all the /b/tards raiding Habbo in black suits and afros don't do anything to encourage racial discrimination. ;)
(Seriously.)
A relatively interesting experiment, no doubt, but the article didn't answer a lot of obvious and relevant questions.
First, how big was the sample size? Everything is given as percentages and we all know how meaningless they can be if the number of people tested is small.
Second, what is the racial demographic of the users on There.com? There are plenty of parts of the world, e.g. Russia, where racism (in particular against black people) would not come as a surprise to anyone. If the demographic is primarily American or European then it would be slightly more surprising.
Third, and this is just curiosity, how many people actually complied with the first (totally unreasonable) request in the DITF experiment?
apterous.org
He just needed more /b/lackup in order to finish the experiment :)
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
I saw a TV program that demonstrated that people are more likely to help an injured jogger if he is wearing the same team's football shirt. It is not necessarily racist
Isn't that caused by the fact that those virtual world avatars are controlled by people in the real world?
I have both light-skinned and dark-skinned characters in Guild Wars. I'd say I regularly get called a noob regardless of skin color. )=
people are more likely to assume the good will of others if they are like themselves, being race, religion, sex, or nationality.
Of course extreme situations can change this behavior.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I have seen more prejudice in that game towards, vampire/demon avatars and waaay more to furries than dark-skinned avatars.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
You make a stupidly large request, followed by a reasonable one, to a stranger. There is a statistical difference in response depending on whether you are in a light or dark skinned avitar.
Researchers conclude that in first case it's because it's how you view yourself and second case it's how you view others and there is racial prejudice. Sounds like psychobabble to me.
Couldn't it be more like, "wow this stranger made a request that would take 2 hours of my time, then asked for 2 minutes... hmmm do I (consciously or subconsciously) find their avitar attractive enough to risk wasting time with a potential nutjob?"
TFA doesn't say who the target audience is, but I'm guessing mostly light skined avitar ppl who might just have a statistically higher attraction to ppl of lighter skins. What if they tried this test using ugly light skinned avitars and @#$%ing hot dark skinned avitars? I think they would have to rethink their conclusions.
Instead of the Foot-In-The-Door experiment or Door-In-The-Face experiment, you have the Gank-the-N00b experiment and the Give-Gold-And-Items-to-Hot-Female-Night-Elves-Who-Are-Really-Men experiments.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
They respond in the same way as they would in real life? It's almost as if there are real people behind these avatars...
I thought they were going to discuss how Trolls are depicted in World of Warcraft. :)
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
While results of the FITD experiment revealed no racial bias, the effect of the DITF technique was significantly reduced when the experimenter took the form of a dark-skinned avatar.
Okay, black vs white. Easy enough. It makes sense that people's IRL biases would carry over to the online world - You can see that clearly enough with gender, where having an even remotely female-sounding name results in far more attention (sometimes unwanted) and deferential behavior than a neutral or male name.
But what about anthropomorphic animal avatars (furries)? What about blue-skinned humanoids? What about amorphous purple blobs? This study had the potential to reveal so much more, yet they limited it to merely demonstrating online what we already knew from the real world. Pity.
I'll just come out and say it:
Gnomes have bigger feet (and that's not all) than Night Elves.
Fine, fine, call me a racist, but you KNOW it's true.
Haven't seen the GNAA chime in yet. Asleep at the racist wheel? Hobophobia 101 class? Hangover?
Damn I saw your post as: Does this same basis work with monkey too? Arrr those clever monkeys...
just wonder why there are so many anonymous cowards in this world....
1. It's based on making assumptions about why people react as they do in DITF vs FITD. Although it's an obvious negotiation technique - whenever a politician asks for something insane it's because they're about to try to get you to accept something less bad that you wouldn't have accepted otherwise - the motivations from their and your point of view are not what this experiment assumes.
2. Every "blind test" - and this is where most psychologists fuck up vs real medical professionals - is:
(a) Only as blind as you can sound convincing - if someone random came up to me and made weird requests of me, I'd certainly assume something fishy was going on and one thing that'd cross my mind (especially as someone who knows a few psych undergrads) is "is this some sort of test?"
(b) Not double-blind! The tester is aware of what he's doing and what colour he's pretending to be. Is the tester's behaviour any different?
3. Real skin colour is not like virutal world skin colour. If someone came up to me wearing a burka I'd be hard pressed not to notice this choice, just as it's a choice to be black, white or alien in a virtual world. This is not just because of some wild prejudice, but because e.g. in the burka case I know there are certain things it would be disrespectful to do - e.g. offer to shake hands. If someone has chosen to be black, or a woman, or a furry, that's entirely different from their being born one.
4. Moreover, what is the default selection? Is it more effort to choose a black face to a white in the virtual world? If the default avatar is a short-haired white preppy look and 80% of virtual people look like that, while 80% of people IRL don't look like that, then there is a reason beyond "because they're black IRL" for why they've chosen not to look short haired and preppy.
Some initial thoughts.
Finally (?) a topic where the GNAA trolls aren't 100% off-topic.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
That's where my curiosity lies. If they're taking the time to do this, it's all fine and dandy that they can say white avatars get 20% compliance for DITF, whereas black avatars get only 8%; however, I think it's important to note the color of the User's avatar, as well as the gender. Were User's with white avatar's MORE or LESS biased against black avatars? What about User's with black avatar's? How about User's with a female avatar? Were they more likely to give compliance, or less? Were the researcher's Avatars always male, or did they use equal white/black/male/female? I would guess that any female avatar would be more likely to get compliance, as men are still chivalrous, for the most part, and will comply with a woman when they wouldn't with a man. I think that this would have been important to note. In our world, racial/gender bias can be presumed to exist without much difficulty; we all know it's there. However, I think it would very interesting to see whether it was a cross-cultural or cross-gender phenomenon, and not just that it exists. Also, I've known just as many black people that were more suspicious of a black man than of a white man! Normally that has come from those that grew up in, shall we say, less-than-upscale areas, and who have dealt with bad male role models, etc. I think the experiment was interesting, but pointless without more depth. Proving the existence of racial bias, even VIRTUAL racial bias, is a lot like trying to prove that the majority of people enjoy sex. It's more of a "No, really?!"
Last night I played a blank tape at full volume. The mime next door went nuts.
I play there.com and i see this as being very flawed experiment. First off, It does not take 2 hours to teleport to 50 landmarks with in the game. Second, one of the places that they mentioned Duda Beach is an overcrowed section of land with to many personal area zones that have many animated items that cause alot of lag so of course people will not want to teleport to that location. I wounder where they were going for those 50 locations. Did they actually check out those sections first? How long have they actually played within there to experiance the virtual world before they started their experiment. Who were they asking...People that have been in game for more than 2 years or new avatars that are less than 6 months old?
I assume that in the US, racism of black people among themselves might be less prevalent, but, yes, it exists. Here in Brasil (zil for you USers) it is rather common. Being no sociologist, I would say it comes from a low-self esteem, derived from the lack of people you perceive similar to you in commendable positions.
I would invite you to watch brazilian television. If you know nothing about where it came from, you might guess you were in Sweden. I've seen more black/dark colored skinned people on TV when I lived in Germany than here. This does have an incredible effect on young people; if you see no black people labeled as "good", whatever good means in your society, you start to believe you aren't good as well. Over the years, I guess I only saw one Playboy magazine with black woman "bunny". No wonder black women feel diminished in relation to white women, and even black men who achieve financial success prefer to marry white (usually blonde) women. Yep, brazilian society is very different from american - I'd guess we won't even say that Obama is black here. But I doubt the self-racism isn't present at some level in american society.
As for the experiment, and for the people which says someone with a racial bias is not necessarily a racist, consider this: suppose you are the one doing job interviews. What are the odds you will give someone a job if you have a bias against him/her to start with? Perhaps if he can prove he is much better than others, he will get the job, but he starts with a handicap. This is racism. I agree it is not in the same league as wearing KKK vests and burning people, or even cursing them, but it is racism.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
It really is that simple.
What falls under freak depends on the person. But some things most of us consider bizarre.
Personally, I'm not willing to draw any conclusions until I see the results of the FITF (foot-in-the-face) or even better, BTTH (boot-to-the-head) experiments.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Unfortunately, the random "foot in the face" (FITF) experiments were cut short by a class-action lawsuit.
stuff |
"virtual world avatars respond to social cues in the same ways that people do in the real world"
This phrase made me lol. Though I understand it's a metonymy, I choose to nitpick this fine morning, so there.
Avatars can't respond to anything, being representations. But people respond to representations in much the same ways as to the represented. So, to fix the phrase: "People respond to representations of social cues through avatars in virtual worlds in the same ways people respond to social cues." The claim has this "duh" quality. There is a reason those things are called "representations": they represent something for humans. We react to a video, a story or a picture of a love scene or a murder scene in ways similar to our reactions to the real thing, if weaker. All culture, from casual conversations (word representations) to art in any media is based on that premise. Why would the Second Life be any different?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Racism is obviously not limited to the real world. It becomes clear if you read forum threads, play World of WarCraft, chess with avatars on Yahoo and whatnot. Our picture of a black or white dude doesn't change just because we enter a virtual world. After all, that's exactly why movies use shady-looking guys as villains, because we all know what that guy looks like. If we met this person in real life, we would - at least subconsciously - perceive him as a less-than-good person because of what he or she looks like.
Full Tilt
While results of the FITD experiment revealed no racial bias, the effect of the DITF technique was significantly reduced when the experimenter took the form of a dark-skinned avatar.
They never saw a good /b/ raid in Habbo.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Seriously, I create a suit wearing African American with an afro in Habbo Hotel and I get banned instantly... WTF DID I DO?
De Georgio: "Ah that's one thing about our Harry, doesn't play any favorites! Harry hates everybody: Limeys, Micks, Hebes, Fat Dagos, Niggers, Honkies, Chinks, you name it."
Gonzales: "How does he feel about Mexicans?"
De Georgio: "Ask him."
Harry: "Especially Spics."
While I expect your post had no other purpose than to be funny, what you propose is certainly research-worthy.
If an individual has racist tendencies I would have thought it a natural extension for them to have racist tendencies in a virtual world. However, it is not so clear that people would treat the opposite gender the same in a virtual world. There's no visual cues, no (or extremely little) chance of getting in bed with the other person. There's no pheromones to screw with you, no visual/physical distractions.
Also, in a game of Counter Strike when I'm short on cash and I need someone to buy me an AK or M4, I change my handle to "Flowerpower22" and the problem takes care of itself.
I'd be interested in seeing an actual scientific study into this.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
humans are hardwired to hate humans different from thenselves, no new news on this
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
i'd like to see this experiment conducted in my beloved PlanetSide. Most of the time the avatar's skin isn't visible. It's also purely PvP, so it's very us against them. Meaning, either you are an ally, or you are an enemy. There are no AIs. People of the same empire are either too busy to help or they are helpful. If i heal so and so, he can rejoin the fight sooner. If you're not of my empire you are walking XP... or a threat to my mission (so i turn on Sensor Shield, crouch and wait for you to leave).
Within an empire, there are many outfits (guilds). Most of the time, they get along, but there are rivalries and outfits with dubious leaders. Most of the time, between individuals, such affiliations are less important than the greater imperial affiliation.
In Real Life (tm), people are more likely to be helpful to people who are important (looking) or are attractive. It's not always about race or tribalism, and not even always about sex. Good looking guys of equal talent get better raises and faster promotions than average looking guys (even if guys are deciding who gets what). Nature is advancing the desirable traits.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
What about User's with black avatar's? How about User's with a female avatar? Were they more likely to give compliance, or less? Were the researcher's Avatars always male, or did they use equal white/black/male/female?
More interesting still, what are the genders/races of the real human beings using the Avatars? An ugly, seldom mentioned aspect of ethnicisms of all kinds is that, quite often, members of the "targeted" ethnic group are themselves be incredibly *ist against their own group. Examples include some of the Jewish collaborators during WW II, black-on-black bigotry (often a taboo subject), and women coming out far more aggressively against suffragettes and feminists than even the most misogynistic men.
If we knew this, we might be able to factor out "tribalism" and establish (or refute) cultural biases that everyone (including the bias-targeted population within the culture) may have absorbed.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Even those damn dirty furries know the score. Job-stealing polystyrenes.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
Group identity should be your family members, individuals who actually share your genetic code. They might not look like you but they still share the same bloodline.
The second should be those who think like you, your religion, your faith, Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc.
Race doesn't have anything to do with group identity, it's social identity. And honestly I don't see how it's rational to share any identity with people you've never met merely because they look the same. If you don't know how they think and act then you just don't know them.
If you believe in racial identity then you are the sorta person who supports Jeff Dahmer, OJ Simpson, and others because you feel like they are a part of some fictional group that only exists in your mind. Now on the otherhand if you are a gang member, a member of the mafia, or an actual tribe member then it's different but lets be realistic, most everday racists aren't members of anything, not even a church.
If everyone in your family is honest, then the liar is one of them, right?
As so many stories, important info seems to be left out of this one.
The absolute conclusion is that people are "racist" toward dark-skinned others.
The relative value seems to be left outof the test : What was the skin-tone of the test-subjects themselves (and I mean real-world skin-tone there) ?
The answer to that one could change the outcome from racist-against-blacks (which carries a very negative connotation) to racists-against-different-others (which is quite sensible defence-mechanism) ...
"There are lies, big lies and statistics."
People are different. As a species we tend to distrust and mock people that are different than ourselves. The whole racial sensitivity bullshit these days is getting pretty old.
Racial bias in Second Life? I didn't realize they had Affirmative Action, there.
Was it just the skin color? Was it two avatars in the same suit, just different skin tones or was one a black rastafarian and the other a white office worker?
That puts it at far more then simple racism. If I avoid the black drug-dealer on the corner but happily sit next to the white nun you could say I am judging on race but that ain't really the case. I would also avoid the WHITE drug-dealer and sit next to the BLACK nun.
In the series frazier there is a character called Ken Winston or something. What do you first think when you see him. 'Snob', 'brit' or 'black'? I didn't even realize he was black until someone commented that this was the only black character to appear on the show repeatedly. His dark skin tone alone was not enough to trigger the 'black' response in me, because he is whiter then Niles.
Same in real life, do we judge people of other races purely on their skin color OR on behaviors that we have come to associate with negative experiences with people in the past?
I do know racism exist, but do you know where I find it strongest, among so called minorities themselves. Was on a job with an older turkish man and we were in and out of the car constantly, I asked if he shouldn't lock it. He said, no need, there are no morocans around. A white person would have been in serious trouble for saying that but a turk had no problem saying it.
There is plenty of scientific evidence to back it up. Turks are, in holland, less likely to commit crime then other immigrant groups. Turkish men have a rep of being a bit slow/stupid mostly because their language skills tend to be poor but on the whole trustworthy. Men that look 'turkish' get no overly negative response. Turks tend be slightly heavier and hairier. Morocans on the other hand are lighter, often thin and less facial hair. They got a bad rep in holland, not entirely undeserved as a group.
The odd effect is that I seen a morocan guy with a high education but who physical appearance is associated with trouble youth get badly treated while the turkish guy is treated friendly but as a retard.
Of course, that was if I stood WELL to the back. Because invariably if people got a choice between a white guy, a turk and a morocan, they talk to the white guy. The killer? I ain't white, just pale but my genetics come from the same corner of the world.
So I wonder, did this experiment PURELY test skin color or where the avatars behaving differently as well and what does it ultimately show? That we use past experience to judge our reaction to new situations.
I am convinced that if a person never had any reason to associate race X/group Y with a negative experience before, they wouldn't react to it.
The proof? Do you react negativly to say an american indian as a european? No, you never dealt with them, never heard negative stories about them, didn't see them hanging on street corners, so you start the encounter with a blank slate.
Do another experiment, this time use a green-skinned avatar. Then you know wether it is about skin color OR the association we make based on visual signals about what type of person we are dealing with. I am convinced that as soon as you add other signals that this person belongs to a group you can trust, the skin color quickly disappears.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Is the fact that I'm a Catperson in EQ2 and hate all Rat people make me racist, or Role playing? My point is in a virtual world, how can you decide if someone is showing there true feelings or playing a character?
I'm not going into the all out racism thing, but as a World of Warcraft junky I have noticed that there is a certain bias. If you look statistically at the game, the two most common races are Night Elves and plain'ol humans. There aren't a lot of customizations in WoW, but one of them is skin color. I finally decided to make a human for whatever reason, and I decided to give her dark skin - not black as in African, but probably the sort of skin tone the average person in India would have.
Nearly all other characters in the game are white. And when I say nearly, I've seen two low level "banker toons" (also chose female avitars with white hair oddly enough), and I ran into one level 3 character with dark skin. I have yet to see anyone seriously level a character with dark skin, and I see hundreds of other human avitars in passing every day and not one of them has darker skin?
I generally mind my own business and I can't say race is much of a concern in my sphere of reality, however the fact that virtually no one in WoW chose a dark skin character really makes me wonder about a few things.
While the linked to article is pretty good for the general audience, it does leave out a lot of the specifics. Here is a link to a pdf of the actual article
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Wouldn't it be more interesting to have a bunch of people adopt racially neutral avatars and see whether, being unable to see skin color, they do or don't group themselves socially along racial lines?
That might help to shed some light on whether group association depends more on actual skin color perceptions, or on perceived cultural differences.
I doubt you were as successful as you remember, you're most likely experiencing a confirmation bias.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
It's because you can get away with it. If anything it's even more common or peoples true emotions come out because of the fact that it's mostly anonymous.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
i am not racist, i hate everyone equally!
They should study how looks & beauty affect how you're treated on Second Life..!
All you have to do is /blush (emote) and you can practically get free gil (FF XI currency) from perfect strangers.
People actually play Second Life. I have a lot of gamer friends, both male and female, many of whome play MMOs, yet I don't know anyone who has ever played Second Life. Is it just me or does the media machine give this shit attention disproportionate to it's actual popularity? Is there anyone actually playing this other than the businesses that invested in it thinking it was going to be the next big thing?
"And since when is total isolation natural? Humans evolved in tribes. We've a whole bunch of routines hard-coded in our brains to distinguish between 'kin' and 'other'. A different skin colour is a massive red flag. "
The flaw in that for example would light-skinned blacks. Are they "kin" or "other"?
"You can't... dye the color of your skin."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_jackson
So much for that point, and frankly, there isn't much to the rest of your points either. You're drawing an arbitrary line where none really exists. The difficulty of the procedure is no measure of anything.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
Meanwhile, in Second Life, they found that the best reactions were when the avatar making the request was a five-foot-five, skimpily clad, anime catgirl with a suggestive name and title using a really "frisky" set of animations and cute misspellings.
I'm not sure why they even brought SL up, actually, given that the experiments were done in There.COM.
Besides, Google Lively is the new next big thing, haven't you been paying attention? Second Life is soooooo 2006.
"So what does it mean when you hate people of your own race then?"
That your opinion isn't worth listening to and that you're not terribly bright.
I'm serious, by the way. And before you mod me down, I'd feel that way if you hated anyone (with the possible exception of people who are intentionally ignorant).
So I guess that means, in light of the fact that I despise people who remain ignorant by choice, that I in fact despise you. Thanks for the insight.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
Actually, it's more primitive than tribalism. Humans are pack animals. You accept members of your pack, and reject members of other packs. Not surprisingly, members of your pack tend to physically and behaviorally resemble you.
You'll see the appearance element pop up in the workplace. Ever hear the local suit guy advertising "The suit makes the man!" or "Dress for success!"? I used to have a manager who judged folks by their shoes. He said that people tended to wear clothes based on a desired perception, but their shoes tended to have more subconscious elements. In general, I think he was correct.
Years ago, I attended a community Labor Day parade. I wore a bright orange T-shirt with the word "STAFF" across the back. Worked wonders for gaining access to areas off-limits to ordinary "unwashed masses" folks. Social engineering can be entertaining.
What? Really? I thought... I mean there was this cute anthro-kitten girl and she said she was a cat IRL... You mean... Damn, now I feel used ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Given all the GNAA BS that gets posted here (that thankfully is pretty much hidden), it doesn't surprise me that racism carries on to the internet for many people, even if they do try to pass it off as just trolling.
Before the world of MMOs, when the web was young and IRC/ICQ was still dominant for chatting, I frequented a strange little website with an early (and in retrospect, fairly painful) fantasy virtual world. Parts of this site (though not all of it) were sexual, and people could be/do anything they wanted. What did we see?
Time and time again, people dragged their real-life baggage into the fantasy world. In a completely fantastical setting, where being a puppy dog or a goldfish was possible, straight white homophobic slightly racist males would create the completely unique persona of...lesbian white androphobic slightly racist females. Ultimately, most 'fantasy worlds' ended up being pastiches of the contributors' real lives.
People can't easily let go of their own issues, and tend to recreate them in the absence of roadblocks. Furthermore, in MMORPGs at least I've noticed that the racial and sexual separation is played up quite heavily. Play a burly knight, and in a lot of games a few of the female NPCs come onto you. In games with realm-vs-realm play, the "us vs. them" attitude is generated by the NPC scripts, and carried into the playing fields. "Filthy elves/orcs/humans must be destroyed." Of course, the worst is always a half-, because that means that someone of your race is a traitor!
Racism in games isn't necessarily white vs. black vs. brown. It can be white vs. blue, skin vs. scales, or whatever. People create it, games encourage it, and nobody is willing to let go of it and live purely in a fantasy setting.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Can't stand the greedy little bastards. Next time I hear "Time is money!", someone's getting a personal tour of all four of the nearest Tauren's stomachs--visiting order to be determined.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Years ago, I attended a community Labor Day parade. I wore a bright orange T-shirt with the word "STAFF" across the back. Worked wonders for gaining access to areas off-limits to ordinary "unwashed masses" folks. Social engineering can be entertaining.
Entertaining, yes... so I figure you"ll appreciate this. http://improveverywhere.com/2006/04/23/best-buy/
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
A lot of trolls have poisoned the well for dark skin colors in games (Slashdot analog: GNAA). If you see a giant black guy avatar, there's a pretty good chance that it's piloted by a 13-year-old griefer in his parent's basement.
This would also explain the results. When the black avatar asks for a small favor, participants went along with the request. Even if it's a griefer, we can all be civil, right? And then out comes the big request which confirms it - yep, troll - and the would-be helper runs the other way.
I'd like to see the same study with non-human avatars. What would the results be for, say, Hello Kitty versus a giant sex organ?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
It was done long ago at Habbo and they closed the pool due to "AIDS". Habbo's admins and users were proven to be racist. :)
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
For anyone interested, look up the recent posts of Thufir. He's nothing but a Vanilla Neo-Nazi. I have to say, I'm almost amused by the logical contortions Neo-Nazis create to justify their bigotry. They've created some interesting new definitions because they couldn't defend their old definitions. Just in this post, I see brand new definitions for:
Racism (Racially Biased)
White race (organism)
Lynching (helping your own race first)
Nice work, ass-pirate.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
This is believable.
I'm not terribly racist toward any real life race, however, I support any efforts to eliminate halflings in the upcoming fantasy race war. They're disgusting. Their furry feet, their offal-eating grins... They're trying to take jobs away from hard-working dark elves and corrupt our glorious matriarchy.
Death to halflings!
A Blue Man on /.? :D
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
In Ragnarok Online every single person had a white avatar. I found there was a fair bit of resentment between player classes for some people. As an up close melee fighter, I found a lot of others, and myself too at times, spiting ranged attack players because the system was skewed so far in their favor - they could level in 1/100th the time, and were monsters in 1:1 PvP.
Mammal wired for tribal behavior behaves tribally! Virtual film at 11!
http://www.goodrumj.com/RFaqHTML.html
The Race FAQ is a good place to start.
I found this link after a previous article, on how European ethnicities can be determined by genetics, caused a hilarious flame war.
Anti-Globalism, Traditionalism, and FreeBSD.
I wonder what the statistics might have been on dark skinned avatars vs. dark skinned avatars... It treated the responders all the same, if I read that article correctly.
Actually, I seem to recall reading a column a long time ago, in a galaxy far aw... err... on The Register. Apparently the author had made a light-skinned female avatar on Second Life, and got hit on all the time. Then he/she/it made a decent looking black girl, and pretty much disappeared off most people's radars. If I remember the screenshot right, there wasn't nothing fundamentally wrong with her. Not beauty queen material, mind you, but certainly not worse than avatars which do get hit on.
So apparently the standards for "@#$%ing hot" are a bit different when you're playing a black girl.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Lisa: Dad, you can't judge a place you've never been to.
Bart: Yeah, that's what they do in Russia!
That makes me think of many annecdotes. One of them being just to who does 'nigger' apply to.
At least with the advent of the internet, it's generaly agreed upon that if you're lacking knowledge and not willing to better yourself, you're a nigger.
Well, that and the whole wearing grills, baggy pants, and repeating Soulja BOI!! ad nauseum...
Racism on the internet? Wow, well there goes man's last bastion of thoughtful and polite social intercourse.
Why would the virtual world be any diff. then the real world. If you have prejudiced people in real life then for sure your going to have them online where no one sees them or is able to discern who they are
Humans are extremely tribal and are much more responsive to fellow members of their group.
I'd be very interested to know
a) the colour of the users avatar, and
b) the colour of the user (though that's probably impractical to discover).
I stole this Sig
News at 11. People are racist.
If I had a quarter for every time I heard the word 'n*' in a CS game, I'd buy that new car I've been dreaming about.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
It can be yellow vs. brown, brown vs. black, etc.
In Fiji, the Fijians and Indians hate each other, in LA its the Mexicans and the Blacks, etc.
Racism is just a convenient shorthand for cultural dislike.
please rephrase with cars. No one here understands this "jogging" or "football" you speak of.
You jest, but this actually applies to cars quite well.
;) I also get the chance to show off how much I know about these cars - so its more likely that I'll be able to help than with some unfamiliar car.
I am more likely to stop and help a fellow Volkswagen motorist on the side of road when I drive my VW than if they are driving some shitty American car.
Why?
Because I associate Volkswagens with community. Subconsciously, I assume that if somebody bought a VW, we'll have an instant rapport if even on a superficial level. With all the quirks of these cars, you have to be a little crazy to love em
You're assuming that the response to the hypothetical green-skinned dude is based on subjective reactions to objective observations; i.e., for example, you observe that he interrupts you a lot, and then which conclusion one draws is influenced by biases.
The problem is that deep-seated biases will go deeper than just influencing which conclusion you draw from what you observe; they will influence what you observe. You may only be bothered so much about the guy interrupting you because his skin is green. Behaviors that you would hardly notice or remark on from somebody of a positively valued skin color will be seen as glaring coming from a green-skinned dude.
Are you adequate?
I saw the subject and the first thing that came to mind is 'For the horde!'
This Article needs to be tagged "Wateriswet" and "noduh"
Seems a bit odd to specifically use SL as a research base, maybe the researchers just wanted to hang out with a bunch of hot newbies and get naked or whatever on SL using research dollars?
my last "first date" was JP Seafood.
So, you believe "13-year-old griefers" have poisoned the well against the specific combination of "black, unreasonable request". I don't know how far I'd go along with that, but it's superficially at least as convincing as their conclusion.
I haven't noticed big black guys being particularly common in Second Life griefers. In Second Life those kinds of people tend to present as extremely distorted avatars (giant belly, skinny limbs, huge nose, random patterns all over their body), GI-Joe types, or extreme non-human avatars like "Mister Hankey" from South Park. Possibly There.COM doesn't give the 13YOG enough room for their natural urges?
In a free society, one should be able to like/dislike anyone they wish for any reason. If latte sippers don't like it, tough. They need to HTFU anyway.
On many such MMORPGs, I tend to have a few albino or fair-skinned characters to do in-person deals and recruit people, and I have my tanks and gatherers all be dark-skinned.
It's amusing to me to see the same player react differently to me with different characters.
Not to mention how they react when I use a different gender than I am.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Racism is a hardwire. Read Rahmachandran and weep, lib.coms. PooPoo. Only a STIFF Stalinist stormtrooper society will act otherwise.
"And it took Micheal Jackson what, 20 years to become olive white instead of black? "
No, actually it didn't.
" And your attempting to make the case that being denied a job or some other opportunity open to anyone else for 20 years of more is as just as someone who picks up some hair dye and has a different color of hair in the same day."
NO actually, that would be you using a strawman to attack a point I never made. The "20 years" figure came from you and isn't accurate anyway.
"You right, the rest of my post created an arbitrary line."
I know. You'd have been beeter off if that was your whole post.
"Well, it isn't the same thing and if you can't see that, you just an idiot who needs to pull their head out of their ass."
Where did I say it was "the same thing" at all? How many strawmen do you need to make yourself look correct? And is being an asshole and using logical fallacies the sum total of your debate technique?
Your last post seems to make the case that it is. Save your reply I won't read it, you're a dick and we're finished.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
I moved from a smaller city in western Canada to a large city in Ontario. Culturally, Canada is a pretty good mixing pot in general, but there's definitely a bigger mix here.
Hopefully I'm being honest with myself when I say that I didn't come with a lot of preconceptions about certain races/origins. I had never really met people from these places before, and had nothing to form an opinion on (either positive or negative).
However, I have come to recognize certain patterns derived from cultural backgrounds of various ethnicities.
Do these apply all the time: no. But they do apply often enough that one begins to profile, even if unwillingly, various others. Ways of doing business, driving habits, etc, can be very strongly influenced by one's origins. Certain countries have driving conditions much different than here, and it seems their driving habits often reflect this. Certain countries do business differently, and their business-habits reflect this. What's polite in one place can be rude in the other.
So, when coming across people from these various origins, whether driving on the road, in the store, or elsewhere, is it truly racist to have some bias based on prior experience?
If 85% of purple people tend to drive aggressively (maybe because in their originating country traffic patterns dictated this as normal), is it racist of me to take extra care when driving around somebody that appears to be of this origin?
If people from a predominantly Mauve country have a tendency to fudge facts on their resume (maybe it's easier due to corruption/politics in that country), what does it mean if I take extra care to verify the details of a Mauve person's resume.
One of the things I hate these days is feeling like a racist due to situations like the above. What's racism and what's prudence. Certainly I wouldn't hire a less-skilled Blue person over a more-skinned Orange person over personal bias, nor would I intentionally treat either one person with less respect. But what's bias, what's profiling, and what's experience?
I think you misinterpreted.
He didn't say you shouldn't change your skin color, should you be willing and able to do so. He said you shouldn't have to do so [in order to gain preference with others].
I know a Chinese girl who got "Asian Eye Surgery" (basically making the eyes look more caucasian). It seemed odd to me. What would it be like if you could get "[color] skin surgery?" What if it were shown that doing one of these surgeries improved your chances of finding a mate/job/[other]?
I tend to hang around with a lot of Chinese (friends, and often dating). I find that I'm more comfortable with people of that particular culture than locals. I don't think it's a physical issue, because in many cases I only find myself attracted to foreign Chinese (local-born have the same habits as local-born Caucasians).
I've also found that people of certain European backgrounds are equally as interesting/attractive, though these seem to be less prevalent in the area, or perhaps just less visible.
Are pack behaviour and tribalism not just two words for the same thing?
The results of this study are obvious. Racism is in the eyes of the beholder. That individual will be inclined towards racism regardless if its a person or a picture in front of them.
However, what definition of racism are we using? To simply use racial epitaphs is not racism. To truly be be racist you have to deny rights and opportunity based on race. Contemporary media blows the racism out of proportion for profit. And many times the so called victim perceives racism and being a victim when no actual act of racism has occurred. Hate or bias is not always racism. It is perfectly allowable by law for a person to hate others or a group as long as they do not infringe on rights or deny opportunity.
I get more crap for being a gnome as a race in World of Warcraft than for skin color ... Must be some social bias against gnomes.
"Let's punt the gnome!"
It would be interesting to see the demographics of players of these online games as compared with society as a whole. I could see how prejudice could be even worse in on online situation because groups that are less economically advantaged would probably have fewer players.
I didn't need a study to tell me this...
they would not get further funding.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
People figured this out a long time ago when naked female wood elves paraded through everquest.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
People who annoy you. N_GGERS
The only bias in MMORPGs is toward girls, as anyone who's spent any time playing knows, unlike these "researchers." Plus even if their theory is not complete crap, their method is laughable.
Uh, like, let's see, who would have ever assumed that when one immerses themselves in a virtual world, he/she will automatically become a model citizen of that world.
As if, they would somehow sublimated all their biased views which they have in the real world and not exhibit them in the virtual one?
Crap, if anything, they will be even MORE themselves on these virtual worlds, because in the end, they can always LOG OUT.
It may be virtual, but it doesn't mean, "improved".
These researchers didn't need to work very hard for that. I hope there wasn't too much money involved in that study, they could have saved a ton of cash, by asking me :)
Heck, just go to any idiotic forum in any of these dating sites, no need to go far. A virtual world is just better trimming and graphics.
Roll a Gnome and a Human on a World of Warcraft PvP server. Keep track of how many times hostile players gank you vs leave you alone. I guarantee the gnome will recieve more punishment. Anyone who has played a gnome and some other race in WoW can attest to this statement's accuracy.
It's basically virtual racism. But I'd be seen as a tool if I called these people racist... "Lulz it's just a game". I put it forward that more often than not, one's attitudes in a virtual world do have an anchor in real life... game or no.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
Obviously the government should regulate VR under the doctrine that such discrimination represents a "badge of slavery".
Seastead this.
This shit has to stop. I am so tired of hearing about racism that I am ready to puke. As far as I am concerned, its the most over-used word and has become the most diluted term in the world.
GET OVER CHIP IS ON YOUR SHOULDER ALREADY.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=485450&cid=22735124
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
You can try, but I already prevented:
The Twilight 2000 War that was supposed to start in 1999 and cause an oil and gas shortage and a big war in Europe with Russia.
The reign of terror of President Al Gore. But as a side effect we got a reign of terror of President George W. Bush, but that helps set up the next election to, ah but that would be telling. At least I stopped the reign of terror of President Hillary Clinton, for now. Unfortunately John McCain got the nomination instead of Ron Paul. So I have some work to do.
I gave Richard Branson some starship designs and helped get the X-Prize started to get the Solimani space projects back on track. Hopefully that will lead to Jump technology or at least some better tech for when the Solimanis meet the Imperium, plus with the social manipulation I have done (learned from the Hivers) Solimanis should be less racist in the near future.
So unless you can time travel back and change all of that, your chances are slim and none. :)
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I think the term ginger has to do with the similarity in colour to the spice ginger.
A tribe is much more sophisticated. There's language, religion, beliefs, history, etc. Members of a tribe can demonstrate pack behavior.
Like we didn't already know this. Nothing useful here move along.