For this week’s assignment, I decided to enter the world of Second Life. Second Life is a multi-player virtual game dedicated to interacting with other players’ avatars. When asked to create an avatar, I decided to “express” myself by designing a character that looked like me. My avatar’s name is Sharon Gibson. She is 5’1 and has green eyes and brown hair.
As I entered the gamespace, I noticed a few details. First, the graphics of the game were much lower quality than I expect them to be. Being such a popular game, I was anticipating much more detailed environments and landscapes. Further, I also noticed that some players were very willing to converse, while others were not. I also found it a bit hard to navigate as I was only allowed to use the four arrows and my actions were delayed. In addition, I spent most of my time in the introductory stage of the game and didn’t get a chance to experience the space more in depth. As I gained all the necessary basic experience, I was finally able to leave “Orientation Island” and enter the game. Here people were much more willing to interact and communicate with others. I could chat with characters, overhear conversations and had much more freedom in my movements, gestures and options.
Overall I had a good experience playing the game. I had the opportunity to converse with several avatars. In the process I became “friends” with Kimberly McDonnell. She had entered Second Life about two days ago and was still in the process of exploring. She was very willing to show me around and invited me to follow her as she introduced me to other people she had already met. I also noticed that avatars are required to remain in their persona, as acting out of character was strongly discouraged.
Yee and Bailenson’s study focuses on three fundamental hypothesis of online interaction, especially related to the creation of online characters. To test their theories I tried to communicate with either very attractive or very unattractive looking avatars. Their first hypothesis states that participants in the attractive condition walk closer to the confederate than the participant in the unattractive condition. Although I didn’t think my avatar was the most attractive one in the gamespace, she was overall good-looking. During my interactions, I walked close to the people I was speaking with and they didn’t seem to back away. I did notice though, that two types of avatars were being clearly avoided by everyone else. These were the ones who were missing articles of clothing (likely to be a new and inexperienced member) and ones that were not very attractive. I also tried walking closer to some of less attractive individuals but they seemed to back away.
Their second hypothesis stated that participants in the more attractive condition would exhibit higher self-disclosure and present more pieces of information about themselves than participants in the unattractive conditions.. Again, this hypothesis proved to be correct. During my interactions, I regarded myself to be good-looking and entertained long conversations about my interests and my hobbies (self-disclosure). I generally found that as opposed to less attractive characters, the more attractive ones were more likely to disclose more about their personality and have a better sense of humor.
Finally, the third hypothesis states that “participants in taller avatars would behave in more confident manner and negotiate more aggressively than participants in shorter avatars.” This hypothesis was not supported by my findings. My avatar was short (5’1) and I did not have any trouble interacting with others, negotiating or communicating.
In my case, I think my findings support the Proteus Effect. This effect explains that people tend to “…conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect them to have.” In my case, the looks of my avatar changed the way I behaved. During the first twenty minutes of the game, while I didn’t have any hair, I avoided contact with people and others avoided communicating with me. Once I gained my hair back, my avatar looked more like the real me and thus it reflected my more confident personality. During this time, I was open to meeting new people (H1: walking close by, H2: high self-disclosure) and being 5’1 did not put me at any disadvantage (H3). Overall, the appearance of my avatar did change my behavior.
COMMENTS:
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/11/assignment-10-call-of-duty-4.html#links
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/11/if-your-avatar-isnt-hot-you-wont-get.html
1 comment:
I played Second Life for this assignment as well, only I did the opposite and made my character extremely tall. While I didn’t really have trouble engaging in conversation with people, I did find that my conversational tone did not contain any overarching confidence that might have been expected of my online persona. Were you the more firm voice, directing the flow of conversations? If not, perhaps your experience may not have entirely contradicted the third hypothesis.
It was interesting that you discovered how characters were expected to remain in their persona, though. This rule would probably our findings when observing the behavior of other players on SL. For example, you reported ugly characters backing off after walking up close to them; perhaps this might have been an effect of consciously acting in chararacter.
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