Finding my way through this world was both fascinating and much harder than I had imagined it would be. The instant I arrived to the orientation level of Second Life, I was immediately greeted by a male avatar who was also new to Second Life and looking for a friend. I am never hesitant to ask for directions, so I was glad that people were so willing to help and offer instructions. His name was Simon and he was much better at navigating his way through Second Life, but this “orientation period” still took me about a half hour to complete. I did not expect there to be such rigid rules upon entering this space, with the ability to continue on to a different land solely once I had completed the four tasks of orientation. I felt like a freshman in college again, not knowing anyone or anything around me, and attending mandatory meetings about the different areas of college life that would be important for me to know over the course of the next four years, or in this case—however long I would remain a Second Life “resident.”
I saw another avatar across the island with a bubble above her head that said “changing appearance” and so when she was finished, I asked how she did it. Once I figured out how to change the different features of my physical appearance, I began to think about Yee and Bailenson’s (2007) article about the impact of an avatar’s appearance on one’s behavior in the game. They found that an attractive physical appearance led to greater self-disclosure in addition to closer movement toward other avatars. When I first entered Second Life with a generic appearance that I picked from about eight choices, I was much less likely to move close to others, and kept my distance. I am not sure if this was due to discomfort with my own appearance or simply being new to this virtual world, but once I was able to change my appearance, I found myself opening up more easily. I would attribute this change in self-disclosure to both my comfort with the game level and to my avatar’s physical appearance.
After changing all other features of myself including body type, facial structure, and clothing to characteristics I deemed similar to my own, I decided to make my hair blonde as a change from my real-life persona. I entered a land that resembled a beach and started to explore in search of other avatars. According to Yee and Bailenson (2007), a person’s behavior aligns with their virtual self-representation regardless of how others perceive or treat him or her. I think that my initial choice of a beach scene was absolutely related to my blonde hair, believing that it somehow would match my personality as this character. The deindividuation effects of this internet space likely led me to conform in this way to mold to the physical characteristics of the character I was representing as myself. I was much more outgoing than I had been with the default appearance and found myself approaching more people. However, more people also approached me in this site, which likely impacted my self-presentation as a result of the effects of behavioral confirmation in addition to the Proteus effect. As people commented on my avatar’s appearance and friendly persona, I was definitely more likely to try to fulfill this role in which they placed me in addition to how I perceived myself.
It is difficult to determine if it was the blonde hair, or simply changing my avatar to be more like myself in other ways, but I definitely felt a change in my comfort level interacting in the game as I grew more comfortable in my physical appearance. I think that I felt the need to be the fun, outgoing, and possibly stereotypical unintelligent blonde girl as this was the only feature I intentionally made different from my own physical appearance. Since I made an effort to change that aspect of myself in the form of my avatar, I believe that I was absolutely moved by the Proteus effect to be that role as opposed to just trying to be me. In addition to the behavioral confirmation that took place in my experience, I also was able to choose the different aspects of my appearance, both features which were controlled for in Yee and Bailenson’s (2007) study. These differences likely made my experience more like the situation that people would actually encounter in these virtual spaces as it is not a controlled experiment. I would say that my choice, however, augmented the Proteus effect, as I purposely chose blonde as my hair color, therefore pushing that forward in my mind as being part of my false-self concept or self-stereotyping as described by Yee and Bailenson (2007).
2 comments:
Randi, you did a really good job in explaining the important aspects of Yee and Bailenson's paper that apply to changing your avatar in Second Life. I like how you attributed your increased self-disclosure to the possibility of the Proteus effect, behavioral confirmation and also your comfort in the game. I enjoyed reading on how you though you acted the way you think a stereotypical blonde would act.
I wonder if you would want to continue playing Second Life as a blonde or a brunette. Can you give an example of how you were more outgoing as a blonde than you would be playing, say, a brunette?
The title of this blog fits it perfectly. It is interesting how on orientation island you were not concerned about your appearance, but once off the island you noticed that your appearance wasn’t up to your standards. By changing to a more “comfortable” appearance you were able to open up a lot more, which proves the theory expressed by Yee and Bailenson. We don’t think about it, but we really do feel more comfortable when we can be ourselves. When we are communicating by CMC we are able to open up a little more than normal. Nice Post.
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