Effects of Avatar Physique and Online Environment on Avatar
Personality
To be presented at SWPA 2008 by
Scharff, L., Sylvester, R., Dyess, J. and Lowe, O.
Introduction: Multi-player
online interactions allow new approaches for psychological research in
both fantasy environments such as World of Warcraft and more realistic
environments such as Second Life. Such interactions often require
an avatar, which may or may not resemble the human user controlling it.
Does the choice of avatar characteristics influence the personality
characteristics subsequently assumed for the avatar? If so, such
assumptions may influence how the human controller interacts with
others in the environment or how other players interact with the
avatar. Further, different online environments have different
objectives for players. Will the online environment influence the
personality assumptions about the avatar?
Method: The current study
measured how participant gender, avatar physique (muscular or average)
and type of online environment (social or gaming) affected the
extroversion, physique anxiety, and assertiveness scores (subscale of
extroversion score) assigned to a male avatar. For each online
environment, participants (22 males, 26 females) were told the
objectives of interactions within the environment, to assume the avatar
represented them in the environment, and to answer the questions
assuming they were the avatar. They then viewed static images of
different views (front, side or back) of either the muscular or average
build avatar superimposed on backgrounds from the appropriate online
environment (e.g. a street scene for the social environment or a castle
scene for the gaming environment). Interleaved with the static pictures
were the randomly ordered NEO-PI-R extroversion scale and Physique
anxiety scale questions (60 total). After answering all questions
for the first environment, participants repeated the procedure for the
second environment (counterbalanced across participants).
Figure 1 (left): Muscular avatar example shown in a gaming online
environment; (right): Average build avatar example shown in a social
online environment.
Results: Experience with
neither online social nor gaming environments correlated with
responses, so they were not used as covariates. 2 x 2 x 2 mixed
ANOVAs showed no significant effects or interactions for either the
assertiveness or extraversion scores, although there was a tendency for
the muscular avatar to be assigned greater levels of assertiveness. The
ANOVA indicated significantly greater physique anxiety for the avatar
with average build, with tendencies for females to assume greater
physique anxiety, especially in the gaming environment.
Discussion: Avatar physique
does seem to influence the personality characteristics assigned to it,
especially with respect to physique anxiety. Future research
should investigate if such assumptions also influence online behavior
of the human avatar controller, as well as other online players. The
trend for females to assign greater levels of physique anxiety to the
avatar of average build, especially in the gaming environment suggests
that females relied more on stereotypes when evaluating the
avatar.
We would like to acknowledge the rest of the class members who also
helped collect data and join in discussion of the project: Robin Adams,
Matthew Akers, Blair Elder, Janette England, Stephanie Gerber, Laura
Kaufman, Tracy Latham, Kevin Mahoney, Jeannae McCray, Joy McMullen,
Joshua Pace, Lucy Partales, Jessica Runnels, Kari Shird, and Shawn
Spears.
Return to: Experimental Psychology
front page || Dr. Scharff's front page.
