Tuesday, November 13, 2007
10: Second Life
Assignment # 10: My Second Life Isn't so great
The first step in creating a name and general appearance of my avatar seemed pretty simple, however, once I was transported into the world of Second Life my feelings of comfort quickly disappeared. I felt as if I were split in two. Part of me was sitting in front of my computer in my room with the door closed, by myself. The other part was in a place called Orientation Island where my every move could be observed by any other Second Life user. As I learned more about this virtual world through instructions and exploration, I began to feel more comfortable and was able to get over my initial concerns.
The next important step I took was to edit my appearance. I found myself excited with the ease and little thought required to create and alter my outer appearance which contrasts with real life where it requires far more pain and effort to do so. This helped me to see why individuals might prefer online communication as opposed to real life interactions. They can change their appearance and have more confidence. This makes Second Life a great resource for those who are perhaps more shy, however, it seems likely that Problematic Internet Use could be a likely consequence. As I started to modify my avatar, I became astonished with the wide range of features that could potentially be changed. To be honest, I didn’t know that all of these features existed in real life. I made the decision to alter my appearance by making myself rather unattractive. For almost every feature, I chose the opposite of what I would ideally choose for myself. For example, I requested to be short, rather heavy, have short legs and arms, sagging breasts, pointy ears, and an under bite. I also changed my clothing to be tight and rather revealing of my many flaws.
With my new, not improved, appearance, I began to explore the world of Second Life, transporting to different places, trying to converse with anyone who was willing. My first few interactions with others contradicts the predictions made by the Proteus Effect which says that a transformed self-representation will alter a person’s behavior by conforming to behavior that they believe others would expect of them. At first, I completely disregarded my transformed appearance and behaved similar to how I would in the real world. Unfortunately, this unwillingness to conform made me an outsider of the virtual world. If I tried to walk up to someone and start a conversation, I was usually ignored and most people just walked away. After feeling rejected multiple times, my behavior began to conform to my new transformed self-representation. I realized that I could not ignore my appearance anymore than other Second Life users and instead, I become more of an observer to this online world. My experience can be explained by the Proteus effect. Even after reading about this effect and consequently trying to avoid doing it myself, the pressures from other online users ultimately led to conformity behavior based on my unattractive appearance.
These details also show how the Proteus Effect differs from the SIDE theory with regard to conformity among the group or the individual. The SIDE theory emphasizes conformity to the group whereas the Proteus Effect emphasizes conformity to an individual identity. Although my conformity was a result of pressure from others in the online space, my behavior conformed to reflect my altered individual identity, not that of the group of people.
# 10 Second Life
Second life is like other RPG I’ve played. You have the chance to choose the appearance of your avatar, and need to work or complete certain tasks for money. Always want to try a totally different life style, I chose one of the defaults features “nightclub”. By adjusting her appearance, I tried my best to make her look like me, but improved a lot of course. It’s interesting that although users are permitted to set their avatar to be any way they want it to be, seldom did I come across some horrible looking guys/girls in the street. Most people chose to be “normally” good looking.
Referred to as the Proteus Effect, Yee & Bailenson (2007) suggest that an individuals' digital self-presentation may help dictate that individual’s behavior, independent of how they are perceived by others.
Most girls including myself learned from experience how important their appearance could influence them in their social life. I don’t know how much did my appearance influence me in my second life in the way people treat me, but they are all kind and helpful. Most of the time, I don’t have be the first one to start a chat with strangers. People are willing to chat with a pretty looking girl. But it seems too early to tell how Proteus Effect play a role in this game. Maybe it’s just because I am a newbie, and people are just trying to help. So I decided to change my appearance. In their study, Yee & Bailenson tested the effects of attractiveness, and found that participants with more attractive avatars walked closer to a confederate and exhibited higher degrees of self-disclosure than those with unattractive avatars in virtual reality. I found it really true, when I put more than 20 pounds on my body, I found that I don’t have to stop and chat anymore. People suddenly became obviously less interested.
I found it fun to spend an hour sitting in front of my computer to have another life. But after that, I am not likely to spend more time in virtual space. Maybe the reason why lots of people are willing to spend hours on Role Playing Games is the ability it offered to have an appearance they want and experience a whole new world they failed to experience in real life.
Assignment #10
For this assignment, I decided to play Second Life due to all the recent media hype surrounding it (and its free). After signing up and choosing my name, Patch Pomilio, I joined the game world and was able to explore. When I chose my avatar, I decided to be the default city guy. I felt this appropriate and accurate due to my actual life experiences.
Once I entered the game, I had no clue what to do. There were a lot of logistical things to learn before you can actually play the game. For example, how to maneuver, to find different locations, and to communicate with others. Upon entering the game world, I initially asked a few avatars I saw for some help. Both guys were more than glad to help and took a few minutes to explain me the ins and outs of the game. One guy pointed me to some landmarks that I can get some free stuff and basically held my hand for about 15 minutes while I got comfortable playing the game. Overall, this experience was different than any others I’ve had where I entered a new game space already filled with experienced players. In other games, users were rude and antagonistic, while in Second Life, the users were friendly and helpful.
I noticed that when I first started playing and seeking help, my communication was more formal and polite than normal. I wanted to type in full sentences and not use AIM-oriented abbreviations to appear more genuine and mature. I didn’t want others to scoff at me thinking I am some 12 year old that is just going to screw around in the game. However, as time went on in-game and I became more comfortable, my typed-word began to resemble how I normally communicate.
Yee and Bailson describe the Proteus Effect as conforming to behaviors others expect them to have based on their avatars. I observed this slightly while I played Second Life. The default city guy is tall and good looking; I think this is the reason users were friendly to me upon first starting. Just as real-life, physical attractiveness plays a large role in how others socialize with you.
#10 - 2nd life
Upon entering the space, I chose one of the five default avatar types: Girl next door, Harajuku, Gothic, City, or Club. I chose Girl next door. Based on Yee & Bailenson’s attractiveness rating, my avatar was at medium attractiveness. I was mostly ignored for the first half of my experience. I had regular brown hair, a purple sweater, tennis shoes, and jeans. When I happened upon new communities, I collected new clothing and altered my appearance. I made my avatar taller and increased its attractiveness to high attractiveness. After doing this, I was not only greeted more often, but I received many private IMs. I was distinct from everyone else because I was relatively simple in my attire yet unique because my clothes were not from a popular store.
The Proteus Effect describes the change in a person’s behavior to conform to that which others would expect them to have. In terms of virtual reality, users may conform to the stereotypes or expectations of their avatars. In the case of my one hour experience, the Proteus Effect was supported. When my avatar was shorter, people would bump into me, ignore me, and remain annoying close to me so that my view was blocked. Upon increasing my height, I found less people bumping into me. Rather, I began to bump into others. Also, others were surprised to realize that I described myself as shy. They would often say I didn’t seem shy. After hearing this, I began to act less shy, especially as more people began to individually message me.
Overall, my experience supported the article by Yee & Bailenson. The attractiveness and height of my avatar affected my behavior. I conformed to the beliefs of those around me; the more tall I became, the more assertive I was; the more attractive I became, the more liked and noticed I was. I also began to act more assertively and felt more confident in the space I was in.
#10: Meet Drake Selentiak: Your Boy/Avatar-Next-Door
When I first entered the “land” I quickly realized that my avatar looked EXACTLY like at least 10 of the other avatars in the room! I had to change and personalize “Drake Selentiak” to make him distinguishable from the others in the room. I began by giving him appearance that resembled my own—I gave him black hair, brown eyes, fair complexion, and even decked him blue clothing that emphasized my own fashion and colors tastes. I was then going to make “Drake” more anatomically similar to me, but then for a moment I hesitated. For some reason I decided to make my avatar a bit more masculine and “buff” than I am in real life. For a moment I did feel a rush of confidence and excitement because of the appearance of my avatar. However, this quickly faded because I became aware of my surroundings—I was totally lost! I had no idea how to maneuver or guide the avatar around the strangely designed “land.” Even though I had an amazingly attractive avatar (if I may say so, myself!), I found myself not reacting any differently than I would have if it were actually myself in the land and not a digital avatar.
After roaming the strange surroundings and occasionally altering my appearance and chatting with a few other avatars for approximately an hour, I came to the conclusion that my interactions do not necessarily support the suggestions of Yee and Bailenson (2007). According to their research on the Proteus Effect, it is suggested that the Proteus Effect occurs when users in online environments conform to the expectations and stereotypes of the identity of their avatar. As mentioned, my avatar was a bit more athletic and buff that my actual appearance. However, I did not let this appearance affect my behavior and interactions. I could have easily approached others that seemed equally as attractive or athletic, but I did not. I did feel a bit of confidence initially, but this ultimately did not affect behavior; I decided to mostly remain to myself and only chat with those who approached me. This may be the result of being in a new online environment and the fact that I had to learn so much in such a short period of time. When others approached me, I chatted and replied to them in a manner that I, myself, would have responded.
Though I am still a “newbie” to the phenomenon, I am rather intrigued my “Second Life” and the role of avatars. Even though my own avatar resembles me to a great extent, I can’t help but wonder how many of the avatars in “Second Life” are completely different than their creators. Is it really possible for others to rely on a digital character to give so much confidence in regard to communicating with others while online? If so, I then wonder about how many of these avatars actually resemble the creator and how many of them are deceiving.
To me, the concept of using avatars to understand and “get to know” other online players is still a bit odd. Call me old fashioned, but I think I’d much rather prefer my first life in comparison to my “second life!”
- Joshua Navarro
My Comments:
http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/11/second-life-not-worth-living.html
http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/11/assignment-10-second-life.html
"My life was so great I literally wanted a second one. Absolutely everything was the same... except I could fly."- The Office
For this assignment I decided to enter the world of Second Life, inspired by Dwight from The Office and his exploits in “second second life.” In a recent episode of the show, he jokes that his Second Life avatar, who looks exactly like he does, leads an almost identical life, selling paper and playing a game called Second Second Life, the only difference being that he can fly.
I tried to replicate this experience for myself this past weekend, as I found a program that was supposed to map a person’s face from any digital photograph onto an avatar. I even had a picture of our beloved professor all picked out and ready to go. However, it was not meant to be, and the software simply would not work.
Instead, I found I had to settle on creating my own avatar. Unlike many of the other posters on this week’s blog, I opted to represent myself as falsely as possible. My tall, slender, blonde, female avatar had proportions similar to a life sized Barbie doll. She should not have been able to stand, but luckily, she had the power of flight.
I managed to find a few people willing to talk to me in the first area I spawned in, but all of them seemed to be new as well, and were not very interested. I managed to fly to a more populated area, after half an hour of difficult travel. I could not figure out how to teleport. I found a woman walking in to her own house, and quickly flew in after her while the door was open. She ignored all of my attempts to establish conversation.
Eventually I made it to some kind of event, where real music played loudly and many avatars stood around in a sort of town square. I found it fun and exciting to play the part of my avatar, and it was not hard to attract attention. The more complicated and accessorized avatars, however, were not interested in talking to me, as I clearly did not posses the level of sophistication they did, and was not wearing any items other than the default clothing.
Yee and Bailenson’s article “The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior” states that we conform to the stereotypes and expectations of our personal avatar. I found this to be quite true, as I used the handful of default gestures to make physical contact with the male avatars I met, and giggled quite a bit. This attracted even more attention to my avatar. The Proteus effect manifested itself in my behavior. Though I know who I am in real life, I also consciously designed my avatar; and thus I wish to conform to her appearance. Therefore, I take advantage of the intense and narrow band of cues available to my conversational partners, as well as the slight asynchrony of text based communications, in order to ensure that my actions truly match up with my assumed persona. This strategy was extremely successful, and I had a few interesting conversations, though at least two ended with my partner suggesting actions which required behavioral sequences and animations my avatar did not yet possess.
I greatly enjoyed my adventure in Second Life, and will probably play again. However, I will never pay real money to play the game, and consequently, will never be able to acquire more complex behaviors, objects, or physical property. It was definitely a fun assignment, and I will continue to try and get the software working to map my own face onto an avatar- if only to see how I am really perceived.
#10) My Avatar: Pirate Hoobinoo
Because I am very unfamiliar with these online games, and have a hard time taking them seriously, I chose to pick and avatar entirely different from my actual self in my Second Life experience. "Pirate Hoobinoo" (Hoobinoo being one of the designated choices for a last name... somehow) was a "city chic" male (contrary to my actual female self, whose "chicness" is questionable at best). My goal was to pick an alternate avatar and determine whether his gender and perceived social status would cause me to display more confidence in social interactions than I would ordinarily in real life. However, my experience in Second Life had much more to do with my inexperience with the given space, rather than my actual chosen identity. Because of the extended time period it took me to get through orientations, and my discomfort with the game, I soon became frustrated with the experience. My inability to relate this experience to anything having to do with my real life, meant that I had no problem approaching other individuals in the space regardless of my appearance. Half way through my time in Second Life, I changed to a female in an attempt to relate the experience more to my own. Contrary to Yee & Bailenson's (2007) hypothesis, I did not find myself altering my behavior based on my digital self presentation.
In other online spaces that I use on a regular basis, primarily facebook and email, I find myself following the hyperpersonal model's theory of selective self-presentation . Furthermore, I find myself identifying with certain social groups in order to create my own sense of self (which reflects the SIDE theory). Although this theme closely relates to Yee & Bailenson's research (2007), I do not feel as though my use of these self-presentation and online social identifying tactics can relate to their research or to my experience in Second Life. My inexperience in the space led all of my social interactions to follow the same general pattern, and it was generally easy for individuals with whom I chose to interact to to spot that I was just "popping my Second Life cherry." My lack of interest and inability to relate the experience to real life led me not to be affected by the "Proteus Effect" in this scenario, but I certainly feel as though their hypotheses are valid for those individuals who are able to take this experience more seriously.
Living the life Online
Once I began to really take part in Second Life, I began to notice that I was able to make myself become accepted by the online society. Everyone that I talked to, male and female, enjoyed my company and gave me the feeling that they were being genuinely nice in responding positively. I didn’t spend too much time getting into deep conversations but definitely brought light onto the whole world on online chatting that I never knew. Being able to recall the point made by Yee & Bailenson’s in The Proteus Effect, I can say that people thought I would be of a popular, and free-spirited nature. They didn’t really take anything I said too seriously but I think they got the point I was trying to make. I spent time making sure that I didn’t conform to the general stereotype presented by my appearance and really expressed myself, through chat, as who I wanted the people to see me as.
I was able to define this scenario as The Proteus Effect because I wasn’t conforming to SIDE necessarily, just the persona that I was an athlete with little knowledge. I feel that I was able to portray myself this way and enjoyed my time within the online world.
Assignment 10...WOW
Many pieces of psychological literature have shown that being attractive will have a major influence on who you are and how you act. This draws another question, however, which is what affect will the appearances of your avatar have on your online behavior? This is the question that Nick Yee and Jeremy Bailenson looked at in their paper, The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior. In this paper, Yee and Bailenson found that the appearance of your avatar does have major affects on how you behave online.
At the beginning of their paper, Yee and Bailenson present a theory, known as the Proteus effect. This theory, essentially, states that our avatars will have a significant affect on how we behave online, and also states that we will conform to our individual identity cues. In order to test this theory, I decided to enter an online gaming space that uses avatars. The game that I decided on is the much acclaimed World Of Warcraft, or WOW, which I thought would be highly appropriate for this assignment for a number of different reasons. First, in WOW avatars play a major role in identifying oneself, allowing you to choose a number of different races and classes, many of which carry certain connotations with them. Additionally, as your character levels up you have the opportunity to collect armor, weapons, and spells that will distinguish you from lower level characters. Finally, I feel that WOW is an excellent space in which to study the Proteus effect because it eliminates the possibility of confusing the Proteus effect with behavioral confirmation. Since the characters in the game are generally not human, you do not need to be concerned about an attractive avatar being played by a player that considers themselves to be attractive, thus allowing you to know that the Proteus effect is occurring independently from the behavioral confirmation effect.
When I first entered WOW, I decided to play as a number of different characters. Fortunately, having access to my brother’s account, I had access to characters of different levels and races. The first character that I decided to play as was a Blood Elf hunter, named Shimake. From what I know about Blood Elves, they are generally a harsher race, one that is cold and ambitious. Incidentally, as I continued to play as Shimake I found myself, somewhat to my surprise, acting curter, straighter forward, and more condescendingly with other characters. This affect on my behavior, as a result of my avatar, is exactly what is predicted by the Proteus effect. Next, I decided to experiment with a different race, the Gnomes. When I first logged in as my new Gnome, I noticed an immediate change in the way that I perceived my role in WOW. I found that I started behaving in a way that was more comical, light hearted, and friendly, features which correspond to those traditionally attributed to the Gnome race. Once again, this change in my online behavior can be attributed to the Proteus effect.
Finally, I decided to test one more aspect of the Proteus effect: that of attractiveness. WOW players do not define attractiveness in terms of physical appearance, but rather, in terms of level and equipment. I found that while playing as my brother’s level 70, the highest attainable level, Warlock, that I was far more comfortable in taking a leadership role. I also found that I was more aggressive in my negotiations with other characters, and, overall, far more confident than I had been playing as a level 16 hunter. The reason for this is simple: my avatar was more attractive. This is another point that the Proteus effect addresses, and another point where my personal experience perfectly reflects the predictions made by the Proteus effect.
In the end, I found that the Proteus effect held very true in the online game, World of Warcraft. My behavior was directly influenced by the appearances of my avatar, as predicted by Yee and Bailenson in their paper. This shows that physical appearance is not only important in the real world, but also important in the virtual world. Fortunately, our appearance in the virtual world is completely within our control, allowing us to be as attractive, or unattractive, as we desire.
Assignment #10: second life is harder than real world.
Seconds after my arrival, two more characters, one female and one male arrived. Inevitably Carol and I looked exactly the same, except she could walk straight. She initiated the conversation. It was interesting to see the same looking-characters talking to each other. I felt anxious to change out of my default brown hair, jean wearing character and develop my own avatar. My attempt to get my avatar to represent real-life characters of myself showed in name selection and appearance edit. I kept my initials SC and tried to adjust my avatar's appearance to match my own. Suzie had straight dark brown hair and wore a black shirt, jean shorts and hot pink flip flops. For fun I added hot pink long gloves.
According to Yee and Bailenson, "an individual's behavior confirms to their digital self-representation independent of how others perceive them." They argue that perceived appearance and height of avatar influence how players act in virtual world. My experience did not confirm the Proteus Effect. I thought my character looked attractive, but I was preoccupied with trying to stop walking into objects. Navigation was tough, because I wasn't used to maneuvering in virtual environment. Even after a lengthy orientation, I had a lot of trouble making turns. Whenever I stopped "flying," poor Suzie Caproni fell on the ground face-down and shook dirt off her clothes. To avoid embarrassment of blocking others, I did not walk closer to other characters or feel the urge to join others' conversations. One person did ask me to go swimming with him. I teleported to various locations labeled popular and friendly to new users, but they looked mostly deserted. My character was average height of 5'4" which is my actual height, but height in interactions played minimal role. I couldn't judge other character's height, so I did not feel the effects of height differences.
Monday, November 12, 2007
10: Is This A Real Challenge?
For assignment number 10, I decided to play a multi-player videogame called Madden ‘08. This experience will be different from others because the avatars are pre-made since they are the logos of professional football teams, but the team you pick and how you represent yourself is your imagination.
The great thing about Madden is that your appearances can not be modified by changing your facial or body features to look more attractive. You are who you choose to be and that choice is backed up by your performance and trash talking ability. I normally play with my favorite team (Arizona Cardinals), but after the reading I felt as if my team just did not give me the edge on my opponent according to Yee and Bailenson. A person with a more dominant team will self disclose with others more than a person with a team that has a lower ranking. Because of this I decided to be the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers are ranked the second best team in Madden with a rating of 95% overall and show strong signs of both offense and defense.
With my team picked out I got right into the lounge in order to find a competitor. Now having a new “avatar” since I normally play with a different team, my attitude changed drastically. I became more confident and a little (ok maybe more then a little) cockier. So finding a game was not difficult at all since people seemed to want to play me since I was talking a little smack about being the almighty Chargers. I received a challenge from a player who was the Oakland Raiders. I gladly accepted with out a flinch of the controller because I knew that I would beat this person since the Raiders are ranked 67% overall. This just added to Yee and Bailenson’s idea about a stronger avatar giving you a mental edge over your opponent.
I was really excited to start this game off because I had an attitude that I was going to crush this person especially since he was the RAIDERS. Opening Drive I went 3 Plays 72 yards for a touchdown, then the next possession 9 plays 63 yards for another touchdown. In the second quarter, I had an interception at his 30 yard line, which I took back for a touchdown. The score was 21-0 at halftime which was when I realized that the “Proteus Effect” of me playing to the expectations that the avatar (Chargers) brought upon me. I was playing like a champion and decided to finish out the game and did so by a final score of 31 Chargers – 10 Oakland.
Looking back on my experience today and with my previous experiences with the Arizona Cardinals, the Proteus Effect by Yee and Bailenson (2007) is very true. My feelings toward the two football teams were completely different at the start and I noticed the dramatic change while playing. The level of respect was also completely different since more people respect and acknowledges the more powerful teams.
Reference:
Madden 08: Team Rankings
http://nflguru.net/2007/madden-2008-team-ratings-revealed/
Assignment #10 - I'll stick with my present life...
I decided to start my avatar with the “girl-next-door” look, which was a thin female with long brown hair, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. I wanted see the effect of changing certain features to make her “more attractive”. As my dirty blonde hair is rapidly turning brown, the minute I figured out how to change her hair color, I made her a blonde and I also put her in nicer clothing. However, after doing so, I didn’t feel a surge of new confidence as I tried interacting with other avatars. In fact, I found the whole thing a bit awkward as I was constantly trying to figure out how to maneuver in the new environments I transported myself to while simultaneously enhancing my appearance and attempting to talk to complete strangers online.
My encounter with the Second Life world was less consistent with the Proteus Effect than I had initially expected. According to Yee and Bailenson (2007), a person will conform to individual identity cues (his/her digital self-representation), independent from how others perceive them. A more attractive person would self-disclose more about themselves and tend to interact with attractive others. I thought that my anonymity mixed with my attempts to make my avatar more attractive would have provided an environment in which I felt completely comfortable in and that was conducive to self-disclosure. Yet, as a newbie to the gaming and chat room world, it’s perplexing how one can really think that avatars are that attractive in general. Additionally, I’m really not great at entering a chat room and making a connection with someone beyond learning their most basic information. While in the “Dance Island” location, I tended to interact with people not who I thought were attractive, but rather who presented themselves in a less eccentric fashion, which is similar to my preferences in FtF interactions. My lack of experience in Second Life and with avatar based computer games in general made me feel extremely distant from my digital-self representation and therefore disagreed with the Proteus Effect.
A Second Life not worth living
Having played only a couple of video games throughout my life, I decided to chose the suggested Second Life. After downloading a billion files, I finally was able to log on. I began by choosing an avatar. I wanted to make my avatar as similar to me as possible, so naturally I became a pimp. Walking around with a solid, muscular build, I felt quite confident that I would be the talk of the cyber world. Unlike real life, I was wrong… no one paid attention. I briefly talked to this one girl, but quickly found that I am incredibly socially awkward in online gaming. Finally, I reached a clothing store with a few women and my luck changed. I began talking to a girl looking for lingerie and it was going well- until another avatar dressed exactly like me came and I was told to go have fun with my twin. Instead of walking around bored for the next hour, I decided to change my avatar to a girl. Looking through the various clothing options, I chose to go completely naked. That way no one would accuse me of being someone’s twin. As a naked woman, I was quite short, rather plump and incredibly un-endowed in the torso region. After playing around with the different commands for a bit, I became more accustomed to the game. As a result, I found out how to teleport and decided to visit a local strip joint. Unfortunately, my experience was not great. I was told to put some clothes on and was humiliated in front of my fellow Second Life members. After enough harassment, I left the game.
My experience with Second Life greatly relates to Yee & Bailenson’s research on The Proteus Effect. The Proteus Effect occurs when users in online environments conform to the expectations and stereotypes of the identity of their avatar. As a tall pimp, I walked around very confident and had no fear in talking with women, thus conforming to a pimp’s stereotype and confirming Yee & Bailenson’s third hypothesis in which taller avatars behave more confidently and aggressively than shorter avatars. As a nude, unattractive and short woman, I again conformed to the stereotype in which the shorter the avatar, the less confidence. In addition, I admittedly felt a little weird being the only nude avatar my first time playing the game.
As I was unaware of Second Life’s goal throughout my playing time, I am unable to confirm Yee & Bailenson’s first hypothesis, which states “participants in the attractive condition walk closer to the confederate than the participants in the unattractive condition”. Nevertheless, if my confederates were the people around me, I can confirm the hypothesis, as I tended to linger around people more as the attractive pimp than the overweight naked woman. Lastly, I can certainly confirm hypothesis two, as I (the pimp) gave more personal details to those I spoke with than as the nude woman (in which I really did not talk at all).
In my hour of game play, more emphasis was placed on individual identity cues than conformity to group norms (SIDE). It seemed as if every avatar in the game played more as an individual than as a group member. Consequently, my experience was very similar to The Proteus Effect.
Assignment 10: Second Life
I figured out that a Gossip Girl Community was offered, so, being a fan, I of course created an avatar under the name of Monica that would be living in the virtual Gossip Girl world. After I read Yee and Bailenson (2007) I noticed how some particular aspects of my avatars made me act in certain ways while on the site. The show is centered around rich, (some) stuck-up characters in New York City. I've been watching the show since it aired, and because of that, I was leaning towards acting more snooty than I normally would in real life while interacting online. You could shop with the character, and putting expensive clothing on the avatar made acting pompous even easier. Another factor playing into how I used my avatar was the attraction with which I created her. Because she was created as attractive in conservative clothing, it was easier to interact with other attractive avatars.
This assignment was difficult at first since I couldn't figure out how to get around the site to save my life, but after a bit, it was interesting to see how people interacted through their little avatars in the Gossip Girl Community.
Assigment 10: One time I don't feel like a complete nerd for blogging about World of Warcraft.
I will admit, I am a huge fan of video games. In fact, the reason why I posted this blog assignment so late is because I was playing Guitar Hero 3. But anyway, World of Warcraft is once again a great subject for me to write about, because I spent upwards of 30 days worth of my life playing the game (which is probably below the mean time played), let alone one hour, and even now I occasionally play for a few hours at a time.
As I pointed out, World of Warcraft is something that I have become more than well-acquainted with. The basic premise of the game is this: you start out as a level one newbie, you kill monsters and complete quests to gain experience points, and do this until you reach maximum level (which is level 70 now). Of course, this is a very simplified view of the game. There are also different encounters against other players in both controlled and spontaneous instances, and you can also band together in groups and enter dungeons, where the monsters are a lot nastier but the rewards are so much sweeter.
My experience playing the game was varied. The problem is that unless you are leveling your avatar with a group of friends, getting to max level can be extremely tedious. I remember trying to level with my friends who have much more free time than I do (thanks Cornell Engineering), and after a few weeks they would be many levels ahead of me. In all honestly, the game is more like a job than anything else until you get to maximum level, because that is when you start getting the really powerful and cool-looking items. It's also when the game starts becoming competitively fun against other players, with both objective-based and killing-based competitions. Some of the best times I have had in the game, though, were the forty person raid dungeons to get the best items in the game (at the time). While battling our way through the dungeon there would be forty of us talking on Ventrilo (an internet-based voice chat program), making fun of each other and making ridiculous jokes. I think the best part about video games in general and large scale games like World of Warcraft in specific is the community, and I sincerely believe that without it, these sorts of games would not be nearly as fun to play.
In their paper, Yee and Bailenson describe something called the Proteus effect, which is similar to SIDE in some respects. Basically what the Proteus effect claims is that an attribute of your avatar (tallness, for example) will cause you act in a manner associated with that attribute (dominant in this case). In my experience, this has only been somewhat true. For example, I have always played as attractive female characters, and although I did act more female, it was for completely different reasons. The female to male ratio in video games is almost negligible, and female players tend to get more help, both with advice and pseudo-tangible items, so I "act female" strictly for the benefit of free stuff. Additionally, the authors hypothesize that having a tall avatar will be associated with aggression, leadership, and confidence. My guild leader was a gnome, which is by far the shortest and least-threatening race you could choose to play as in World of Warcraft, and he was probably one of the toughest people I know. However, the authors' second hypothesis, that those with attractive avatars tend to disclose more, is most definitely true, at least for female avatars. Again, because of the unbalanced male to female ratio in World of Warcraft, girls tend to receive the most attention, and when engaged in casual conversation, I noticed that those who play as the more attractive avatars tend to disclose more when conversing.
10: Do Blondes Really Have More Fun?
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).
Assignment 10 -- Not that interested...
Yee & Bailenson (2007) suggest that an individual’s behavior may conform to their digital self-presentation, independent of how they are perceived by others. This is referred to as the Proteus Effect, and they find support for this claim in conducting two studies. They first tested the effects of attractiveness, and found that participants with more attractive avatars walked closer to a confederate and exhibited higher degrees of self-disclosure than those with unattractive avatars in virtual reality. The confederate was blind to the attractiveness condition, eliminating the possible impact of behavioral confirmation. The second study tested the effects of height in a similar manner. The results suggested that participants with taller avatars negotiated more aggressively in a virtual environment.
I chose to enter the virtual environment Second Life. As “Kayla Gloster,” I chose from one of the initially offered avatars, and (for simplicity sake) stuck with it. Although all of the available choices were essentially attractive, I chose a female avatar I found to be particularly appealing (I chose female because I wanted to maintain my actual gender). The avatar was tall and thin, with short dark hair, dark eyes, and a cute, little red dress.
Contrary to Yee and Bailenson’s Proteus Effect, I do not think the appearance of my avatar influenced my behavior in Second Life at all. Perhaps it is difficult to be self-aware of such effects, but I think the lack of conformity to my digital self-representation was related more to my lack of experience with any sort of virtual world previously. This was, in fact, my first time playing a game in which one takes on a virtual presence as an avatar. I don’t play video games, computer games, or any sort of interactive online games either – mostly because I don’t find them to be enjoyable. Thus, the main influencing factor in my virtual experience was my lack of experience. I found it very difficult to relate to an avatar in any way – let alone consider it a self-representation. Accordingly, my behavior probably would have been just as disinterested, and shamelessly newbie-like regardless of the appearance of my avatar. In fact, I didn’t even make it off “Help Island,” and I had no reservations walking close to other avatars because it didn’t seem real to me. Perhaps reading about the Proteus Effect beforehand influenced my self-observations in some ways too.
I believe the Proteus effect is a valid theory, and that the evidence offered by Yee and Bailenson’s studies substantiates their claims, but I also think the context of my experience negated this effect.Comments:
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Assignment 10: Me as an avatar?
My first experience as an avatar was very interesting. I was immediately anxious about picking a name because at the time I was not sure whether or not my avatar would be male or female and how big of an impact it would have on gender and my ability to interact with other avatars. I chose the name Lo because it can be seen as either male or female, and I chose Wrigglesworth from the given list because if found it to be funny. However, my anxiety diminished when I first entered the space; the first thing I saw when entering Second Life was a beach with beautiful trees and mountains behind it: a very peaceful sight. Before talking to any of the other avatars, I took the time to learn to move around the site, which took a lot longer than I had expected, because I knew that I would have difficulty multitasking…moving and talking at the same time may seem simple, but are actually difficult.
I then decided to change my avatar’s appearance before interacting with others so that I would be able to better participate in conversations as a certain personality and use Yee and Bailenson’s article to analyze my experience. Although you can change every aspect of the avatar including eyes, body shape, height, I decided to, in a way, analyze myself. I did this by trying to make the avatar look as similar to myself as possible: I am relatively taller than other girls, almond shaped eyes, curly hair…etc. I chose to do this because I wanted to see if the Proteus effect is true: that my behavior conformed to my digital self-representation independent of how others perceived me. For example, I am taller than the average girl by about four inches, so I wanted to see if Yee and Bailenson’s third hypothesis was true, that participants in taller avatars would behave in a more confident manner and negotiate more aggressively than participants in shorter avatars. I am not sure if these hypotheses are true in person or not (I am sometimes uncomfortable being so much taller than others when I wear high heels), but thought that it would be interesting to determine if it was true in online situations.
While I did not make any monetary splits with the other avatars, I did make my avatar taller than others. However, I personally found myself to be slightly antisocial as an avatar, which I do not consider myself to be in person. I was not confident in this online situation, not necessarily because of the appearance or representation of my avatar, but because of my lack of experience of these types of online situations. I am not used to interacting on these online spaces, thus changing my behavior norm (even though I attempted to make my avatar look like I do in person). The reason that I acted differently in this online space might be because I did not feel deindividuated; I did not adhere to a new identity and therefore did not conform to a new behavior that others would expect my avatar’s identity to have.
Although my first online virtual reality interaction was interesting, I did not really enjoy it. I felt overwhelmed trying to keep up with the other avatars, talking to them and moving around the space. If I were to do this another time, I think that I would change the appearance of my avatar and go on the space for a longer period of time; that way I could truly see if my observations followed the Proteus Effect and I could become more comfortable with the online space.
10: Second Life...because I saw it in 'The Office'
The first step in the Second Life process is creating the name and look of your character. I chose to name my character Alais, after the main character in a book I have recently finished. To stay consistant with Alais' book persona, I attempted to make myself dress in the fashion of a medeival French princess. However, I found that Second Life's clothing designs are better suited for today's style of dress. Alais ultimately found herself wearing a blue skirt and yellow long-sleeve shirt, much like I may wear on any given day. Alais and I ended up sdiffering in body type, amount of freckles, and height. The most distinct difference between us was that Alais had straight, black hair while mine is light brown and curly.
After I finished the numerous required tutorials, I set off on my Second Life adventure. However, I soon discovered that there is not much to do in Second Life without money. My mission was clear: I had to find a job. I searched the listed job openings, and was a little bit surprised at the options. I could be a hostess, a real estate agent, or even a stripper/escort. The problem was, however, that not many jobs were open to "newbies" like myself. Many listings had disclaimers such as "Candidates under 30 days old need not apply." This disclaimer did not appear on the stripper (excuse me, experienced dancer) ad, however, so I "teleported" to meet the owner of the club. However, I was politely turned down and informed that my avatar's face was not attractive enough to land the position. I quickly made the adjustments to my face after leaving the club.
Finally, I sighted a listing that said "Make money just for being here!" A player was seeking female avatars to attend a pool party for $50. A little bit embarrassed that I had stooped to this level of desparation, I attended. Sure enough, a transaction took place and I had $50 to burn. However, by this time I had grown tired of my Second Life experience and chose not to pursue it any further.
I did not find my experience consistent with Yee and Bailenson's paper. After adjusting my face so that my avatar was pretty, I found myself no more confident in such a strange online environment than I ever had been previously. The authors, on the other hand, suggest that our avatars' appearances reflect their behavior in the online space. Though Alais did not look like me, I could not separate her from me. In my mind, I viewed her as a representative of Brianne; thus, we were one in the same. Alais looked no less expertly constructed than any of the other avatars, but while some of the avatars were, as the ad said, more than 30 days old, I was barely thirty minutes old. My inexperience overshadowed the appearance of my avatar as it affected my attitude toward the game.
Assignment 10: So this is what it’s all about
So when I logged in, the first image that greeted me was the game channel. This showed your friends and their online/offline status. Apparently you can join another game or make your own, and since I was a newbie, I joined someone else’s game. Then I waited for all the slots to be full, in order to actually play the game. There are two sides (aka Good versus Evil) and I picked a Hero to use as my avatar. The goal of the game is to destroy the opposite side’s base, which is a mirror image of my own team’s base.
After all the waiting, the game pretty much started right away. I was very overwhelmed by the pace and action, especially with all the sound effects that came with each attack (I had my speakers on). The terrain itself was pretty simple, consisting mostly of a forest with paths, a river boundary and the team’s bases at the corners. I noticed that there was little chatting going on, unless it was important to the game and when allies warned each other. There was certain lingo that made no sense initially, such as “bot mia” which meant the enemy at the bottom of the screen is missing and might ambush, and “pwn (blank) head for (blank) gold”. The game makes it simple for one to leave at anytime, so there were random departures, especially when the game was shifting more towards one side.
Yee and Bailenson’s study of the Proteus Effect did not really apply to my experience playing this online game. None of the avatars were particularly attractive, and that feature had no impact on the physical game. Also, I chose a threatening-looking Hero with huge blades because I wanted to compensate for my lack of experience. However, I felt no more confident since the game was so overwhelming for a beginner. At the same time, I did feel intimidated by particularly ugly or scary looking avatars chosen by other players but that was because these characters were so alien to me. In this game, size and looks mattered little, compared to the strength and skills characteristics of the avatars. Finally, who I chose did not affect how much I self-disclosed to my fellow team mates. The only conversations going on were based on strategy or some taunting, or in my case, asking for help. Yee and Bailenson’s study would apply more to games in which avatar choice was essential to an online identity, and where online interactions make up the basis of the game.
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Assignment 10: Experiencing World of War Craft
The computer-based multi-player videogame that I played over the weekend was World of War Craft. I’ve heard about the game especially throughout this class but I never had an experience playing it. I went home to visit my family and I saw my cousin playing the game. I decided it was a perfect time to kick him off and get some homework done. At first I had no idea what I was doing and it took me a while to get used to controlling the avatar because I had never played a videogame on the computer before. The game space was actually very interesting. It was a complete fantasy world. The area that my cousin helped me get too was a forest. There were trees, grass, little huts where you could find other players, and there were also some evil enemies running around.
Although I did find the environment impressive in terms of graphics, I did not really enjoy the experience I had. I also did not feel that the hypotheses Yee and Bailenson set out in their article, applied to my gaming experience. My avatar was a white tall man with white long hair and a long beard. My avatar travelled on an animal that looked like a big white tiger. Although I was tall and had dominating features, how I interacted with other avatars was not affected. I did not perceive myself to be especially attractive or unattractive. The characters that I stood close to were characters controlled by people my cousin knew. Because my cousin knew them and often played with them, I trusted them. I felt that they would help me out throughout the quest. I also did not disclose much information throughout the game. Perhaps that was because I did not feel that my avatar was attractive. The only time I really spoke to other players was when we were discussing what was going on within the quest. There was not any real conversation about life issues going on. My avatar was also tall. However, this did not affect my confidence. While my avatar was tall, my confidence in the game was actually low because I was a newbie and I was unsure of myself.
Overall, I did not find any of the ideas outlined in Yee and Bailsenson’s article to be true of my gaming experience. I feel that the main reason why this is true is because I was a newbie. I was completely unsure of everything I was doing, so the people I kept close to were the people who I thought would help me. Even though I was tall, I was not confident at all. My conversation also did not include self-disclosure because I was new at the game and I was concentrating more on what was happening on screen with my avatar than disclosing information to strangers or to my cousin’s friends. I feel that many of Yee and Bailsenon’s ideas probably do come up with people who are frequent videogame users, but for someone who is new to it; it definitely takes time (more than 1 hour) to become comfortable with the game. Once you are comfortable with the game and all of the features, then I think you will more likely see some of the correlations between attractiveness and behavior described in the article.
10: Avatars vs. The Self
I began Second Life on Orientation Island with other new users. There was so much going on and I did not know where to begin. I was looking at the instructions and back at the keyboard, totally ignoring the chat window that opened. It was difficult trying to read the instructions, follow them, and pay attention to what other people were doing at the same time. Once I started talking with them, I stopped “playing” and when I was “playing” I had trouble keeping up with their conversation.
I passed the four different stations and received my transport key to Second Life. This time, I was in a world where there were people there specifically to help me and answer my questions. I spent the rest of my hour in this world.
From the beginning, I saw that my avatar choice and other peoples’ avatars affected my behavior. Starting in the orientation world, I was frustrated with my physical appearance because my avatar did not look anything like me and I did not like the idea of people looking at my avatar and connecting it back to me. I was making judgments based on other people’s avatars – I stayed away from the scary looking older man and did not really respond when he started talking to me, but moved myself next to the younger, cute boy and started talking to him – and I didn’t want people make judgments of this avatar who really did not represent who I was. Because I saw myself immediately making these judgments, it made me even more motivated to change my avatar to look like me. I learned how to change my appearance right away and was focused on getting my avatar to resemble me.
The Yee & Bailenson (2007) article was also focused on how avatars and self-representation, questioning how peoples’ avatars change their behavior online. I think for the most part, my avatar choice did not affect the way I behaved in Second Life. According to Yee & Bailenson (2007), “in online environments, the avatar is not simply a uniform that is worn, the avatar is our entire self-representation.” But for me, the avatar was more of the “uniform that is worn” rather than a true self-representation. In the Orientation World, there were three other people with the same avatar because it was just a model you chose to sign up to play. I was uncomfortable with my avatar because I did not like the idea that people were going to interact with me based on what I looked like, yet I looked like so many others in the room.
However, in some ways, I do think that my avatar choice affected my behavior – but not in the ways discussed by Yee and Bailenson. While this study focused on whether one had an attractive or unattractive avatar and how height affected behavior, I was more affected by the fact that my avatar looked nothing like me and a lot like other people in my room. That made me feel uncomfortable, and thus made me more shy and less friendly with the other avatars. The whole time, I was thinking “this isn’t me” and I think it made me less willingly to talk with the other avatars – I didn’t have a sense of self. While I eventually figured out how to change my avatar’s physical appearance, it took me a while to do so and that whole time, I did not have a positive outlook on the situation.
My first experience with the virtual game world online was interesting. I was glad that I finally got to see and experience what I had heard so much about, but at the same time, I did not really enjoy my time in Second Life. I was frustrated that I didn’t know how to play, and learning took time and effort and the avatar’s physical appearance in the beginning. While I can see how people can get very involved in the world and their avatar, for me, I’m more comfortable with FTF interactions and people seeing the real me.
#10... I'm moving on from Second Life
The reason I hesitated to use UrbanDead for this assignment in the first place is that graphics do not have a huge role in the game. The city of Malton is basically a grid of blocks that represent different buildings and streets. Not very exciting.
The game does involve interaction between players (the 3 players controlling the 3 zombies I killed may be unpleasantly surprised when they log on). But there are no avatars to visually represent the players. The game somewhat makes up for this by having a character profile in which you can describe your character's physique, clothing, etc. But still, a written description is very different from a visual avatar.
Therefore I thought UrbanDead was unfit for this assignment. Until I remembered the group forum that I am a part of. The forum provides a more holistic experience to the game because it allows for more player interaction and role-playing. It also helps complete the premises for this assignment: every player has a signature that they display for self-presentation. The signature consists of the player's character's name, rank, activity zone and most importantly, a picture of the character. The picture shows the character's physical appearance and to a large extent, the character's personality by the props (a gun, a syringe, a cigarette, etc) he/she is holding and the posture he/she is taking (swinging an axe, running through fire, etc).
The Proteus Effect discussed in the Yee & Bailensen paper is basically behavioural confirmation except it's the self-perception instead of interactions with others that confirms the individual's behaviour. The individual may judge from the point of view of an impartial third party. For example, if my avatar is wearing black, I would think that a third party will think I’m aggressive and unfriendly, and I would subconsciously act more toward that end of the spectrum to match the behaviour I think people will expect from me. Even if I’m wearing black, people may (or may not) still think I’m friendly, but that’s not what my self-perception is telling me. The Proteus Effect tries to exclude the influence of behaviour confirmation from others and focus on the influence of self-perception.
Yee & Bailensen go on to pose the hypotheses that people with attractive avatars will be more friendly and more willing to self-disclose and walk closer to other avatars and that people with taller avatars will be more confident Due to the limitations of the game UrbanDead, I cannot really judge these in the UrbanDead virtual space, but the forum helped greatly, even though interaction in a forum is slightly different. People with clearly defined, attractive pictures in their signatures behave in a more friendly manner and are more willing to engage in role-playing that disclose their personalities. They are also more willing to answer questions others post. People with ambiguous signatures (no clearly defined pictures; face hidden in fire or smoke, etc) have more cut-and-dry posts which mostly relay combat information and contain little or no role-playing.
An interesting phenomenon occurs when people change their signatures to get new, more attractive ones. Their activities in the forum usually increase drastically. They become more open and pleasant as people compliment them on their new signatures. Some of them who have been dormant for a while can even transform into the “center of attention” in some threads.
Because signatures can come in different sizes and not in the same scale, it’s virtually impossible to compare them to determine the characters’ exact height that the players have in mind. One can of course distinguish if a character is meant to be stocky or petite. But accurate comparisons are not possible.
An important thing that Yee & Bailensen mention is choice. In their study, participants didn’t get to choose their avatars. But in real life, players do. Players usually don’t purposefully choose an avatar they perceive to be unattractive. And if they really don’t feel confident with a short avatar, they would simply choose a tall one. This is the case in the UrbanDead forum: everyone designed their own signatures so the signatures should more accurately reflect the way the players wish to self-present.
#10: Looking tough gives you the confidence to be tough
I have never played a virtual space game before, and it took me a while to get adjusted to Second Life. Once entering the environment, I was put in a circular middle section with different doorways around it leading to different areas. Example of how these different areas were labeled is “appearance” and “communication.” I entered the “appearance” place first because I wanted to change my outfit. Once I entered I had difficulty figuring out how to alter my appearance and I started talking to other players. I was friendly and polite so that they would be willing to help me. The only shirt I could figure out how to change into was a shirt called a “chained shirt.” Once I was wearing it I felt like I looked like an apprentice from the Middle Ages who was learning how to be a knight. I left the building and decided it was time to start interacting with other players and making virtual friends.
I went into an area that was meant to look like a deserted city. There were signs that said “rat crossing” and pretty soon I noticed that there were a lot of rats hanging out in the middle of the street. I felt really alone at first because as I walked around all I saw were deserted cars and desolate buildings. After a few minutes, however, I found a deserted segway and thought it would be really cool to try and ride it. As soon as I walked closer another player came over and I began a conversation by asking if he could help me. He said yes and I started asking how I could change my appearance and if he knew how to drive the machine. He didn’t answer and instead started walking away. Thinking it was a mistake and the person didn’t know how to work the game yet, I started following him, and then the character started running! I ran after him and chased him down three streets. When I was finally close enough I started typing in an angry way saying “HEY! I thought you were going to help me!” I was no longer as polite and friendly as I was to other characters at the beginning. I thought it was pretty funny that I ran after him and spoke so aggressively to him, which is something I would not usually expect myself to do. I began to wonder if it was because I associated my outfit as something a tough knight would wear. Could it be that this “warrior” avatar of mine had encouraged me to act tougher and force someone to stick to their word of agreeing to help me? I hadn’t foreseen myself being unfriendly toward any of the other characters or feeling the need to stand up for myself; after all, once the other player had walked away I could have walked around and found someone else to talk too. As it turns out, the other player then told me he didn’t speak English, so I ended up just walking away and talking to someone else.
I am certain the Proteus Effect can be used to explain my behavior. With other avatars I spoke with I was also very commanding and spoke in a demanding way. I wanted people to answer me and respect me. I originally entered the game thinking I was going to be friendly, polite, and make new friends, but once I changed my clothes and talked to more people I was a lot more aggressive. Yee and Bailenson described how “avatars have a significant impact on how we behave online. Users…may adhere to a new identity that is inferred from their avatars.” Since my clothes made me feel like I was a rough, forceful person, it impacted how I interacted with other characters. I stopped using polite words such as “thank you and please” and even stopped using hedges, which are common for females to use. Just as the article describes someone may become friendlier in an attractive avatar, I became more insistent in my questions and requests of other players. I demanded that they tell me what they had been doing in the game so far and what I was supposed to be doing. I stopped saying hi and asking how people were and instead just started to forcefully speak with them. According to Yee and Bailenson, how players who were taller were more confident when speaking with others. I think this same fact held true for me because my clothes gave me the confidence to act a certain way. Had I been dressed as a princess I may have felt the need to be polite, friendly and subservient to other players. It would be interesting to do this assignment a second time with the rule that everyone has to be the opposite gender. It would be interesting to see how this appearance change affects our behavior too.
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Sunday, November 11, 2007
A Plastic Surgeon's Dream--Second Life and the Modification of Avatar Appearance (10)
It took me awhile to learn the ropes of Second Life (a whole half hour was wasted trying to figure out how to move). Once I did, I was able to explore the default location to which I was placed which was a welcome center for newbies like myself. The graphics were beautiful, and I liked the background music. I had a few terse conversations with a few of the new members but no significant interaction. I think this is partly because of the avatar choice. Since we were all new to the game, most of us had avatars we didn't customize yet and thus could not reflect our personalities. It wasn't until I learned how to modify my avatars appearance that the real fun began.
There were so many settings to choose from to alter the avatar's appearance. For instance, to modify the nose itself you could choose from a spectrum of narrowing or widening the bridge, nostrils, bulb, tip and vitually every possible part of the nose to create any shape desired. The shape of an avatar's body also had modifications that one could spend hours on fine tuning the body shape they've always wanted. Muscle content, fat content and virtually the entire bone structure of virtually every area of the human body could be altered. For fun I altered my avatar by setting its body weight to one of the highest settings possible and its height to one of the lowest setting possible. After that I proceeded to go to a different location with a Japanese theme. The setting was beautiful with waterfalls and a calming Japanese sounding melody in the background. Under this avatar, I didn't interact with too many people. Instead, I observed other people's behaviors and chat activity outside of the default location.
According to Yee and Bailenson (2007), a person with a more attractive avatar will self disclose and move closer to others than a person with a less attractive avatar. This is an example of the Proteus Effect in which an individual's behavior conforms more to their digital representation than to the forces of behavioral confirmation. I found this to be very consistent with what I experienced when I changed the appearance of my avatar. I significantly lowered the body weight of my avatar and added long brown hair and increased the appearance of make-up. In addition, I reduced the size of my avatar's nose. This had a profound effect on how I began to interact with others.
Immediately, I began to participate in chat conversations when I moved to a room with an Israeli theme. Perhaps it was because I was more comfortable in this room area since I am Israeli, but I approached more people in the room and began to ask about their reasons for their presence in the room. Many people began to talk to me, and I felt as if I was the leader of the conversation, talking about our hometowns, army service and our favorite Israeli food. I self-disclosed a lot of information about my upbringing in Israel and my family that lives there. I also noticed that my distance to others was a lot smaller once I changed my appearance for the better. In the Japan room, I was a free-floater, not getting close to anyone. However when I was in the Israeli room I interacted with 2 or 3 people the entire time, staying in close proximity with them for a period of time.
Although I wouldn't completely say my altered behavior was due to the Proteus Effect (the type of room and my increasing Second Life experience also played a role), I definitely think the Effect played a role on why I was friendlier, disclosed more information about myself, and stayed closer in distance to other people.
Perfect 10: How the avatar affects ability
What I did was I used the character that I had created for playing in the game itself, the person resembled me for the most part, male guy about 20 years old with jeans and no-shirt but a hat. That's what I look like when I skateboard.
I signed online and it was an interesting interface, a list of rooms and then a list of games currently being run. I joined a couple here and there. When you join, you sit and wait, watching other people's screens until the next game starts. The games can last between 1-10 minutes depending on how long it was supposed to be.
The very first thing I noticed, I was waaaaaay out of the norm. There were people who were devils and midgets and clowns and all sorts of characters, but not a whole lot of normal looking people. but, at the same time, the more outlandish the person looked, the better they were, many to a point that was quite disturbing.
I decided I liked my avatar and stuck with it. I do realize now however, I did not talk as much or as kindly to the people who were not normal human looking. It may have been because they were beating me in the game, or that they were more rude to me, but it is what I noticed.
Yee & Bailenson (2007) studied the effects the avatar a person uses on their own behavior, not necessarily like confirmation bias, but looking specifically at how it affects the person themselves. They found that people who were bigger or more attractive followed stereotypical behaviors like being aggressive or nicer. I think that in the skateboarding game, most of the entertainment came from playing the skateboarding game itself, so some of the importance of what the person displayed was lost. I did try to act a little more normal, but I don't think it was that effective. I think that in order for the Proteus Effect to be effective, there needs to be a stronger emphasis on social interaction than some ulterior motive. I think that the findings from people when they do their blog entries are going to confirm this. Those who played Second Life or another social game will have a stronger effect than those who played Jedi-Knights or World of Warcraft.