10: Second Life Sucks - I'll Keep My Own, Thanks.

Let me start off by saying that I thoroughly dislike Second Life. I thought its graphics were poor and overrated (from what people have been saying I was expecting much more advanced technology). In creating my avatar, I found there were not many appearances to choose from, which I thought was restrictive. I also thought that there was no purpose to the game and I was bored out of my mind.

Okay – now that I’ve got that off my chest…

The only games I play online are simple ones, like Bejeweled, the Helicopter Game, and Text Twist. They are easy to learn, don’t require you to go through training, and relatively short. Second Life was not anything like that. After downloading all the software onto my computer, I created an avatar account. Most of the first few names I tried out were already taken (which shows the popularity of this program, especially because my names were atypical). Eventually I created a character dubbed “Lexie McDonnell. Yes, I know, it sounds kind of like a porn star’s name, but oh well. Next, I picked out an outfit for her that was called “the girl next door”.

After I finished creating my avatar, I was transported to Orientation Island. There were a few people there where I was first teleported, but not too many. One person called out my name in greeting, but I hadn’t yet figured out how to respond to them, so I displayed some fantastic online etiquette and just walked away from them.

After spending way too much time at the hub of Orientation Island, I went to the transportation section of the island to learn some basic Second Life skills: how to drive a car and (gasp!) fly. There was only one other avatar there, a tough looking girl, and when I got too close to her, she told me to get out of the way, and she pushed me. Since I didn’t know what to do, I decided to talk to her (somehow I figured it out after half an hour – yay for me). I asked her if she knew where the flying institute was, and immediately her tone changed. She told me that she was looking for the same place, and together, we ventured out into the lackluster world of Second Life, and eventually found the flying institute.

Once I learned how to fly and I had left my new avatar lady friend, I decided to quit the game. I just wasn’t having fun, and thought I better get on writing my blog.

According to the Proteus theory (Lee and Bailenson), “users in online environments may conform to the expectations and stereotypes of the identity of their avatars…in line with self-perception theory, they conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect them to have.”

I can’t honestly say I experienced the Proteus Effect. I think the only way that the Proteus Effect would be relevant to Second Life is to people who spend a copious amount of time on the program. These people probably spend a lot of time trying to establish a reputation on the net that they don’t have in real life. They probably try to typify people they would like to be in real life, and shape their avatar around those ideal qualities. For example, according to the Proteus theory, players with attractive avatars were hypothesized to walk closer to other players and have a higher frequency of self disclosure. When I walked too close to the avatar I ended up talking to, I did that because I didn’t know what else to do to communicate. Lexie McDonnell was an attractive avatar, but her physical attributes had nothing to do with me choosing to walk so close to another avatar.

10 | Looks always matter

I wanted to see if Proteus Effect actually played a role in my online interaction, so I had to test the two extremes. I decided to play Runescape: “RuneScape is a massively multiplayer on-line role-playing game (MMORPG), it is also the name of a virtual world with monsters to kill, quests to complete and…” The reason I chose this game is because I wanted to gain access to items that would make me appear more attractive. There are certain clothing and accessories that you can only achieve through years of playing, and my brother has dedicated several hours a day for the past 8 years to obtain these items.

First, I started by making the most unattractive avatar possible. The avatar I created was bald and overweight. He wore pants that were torn and a shirt that did not match. After completing the tutorial, I started interacting with people in various ways: by doing the same activities with them, asking questions on controls, and talking about topics that were unrelated to the game. Initially, I knew that my character was unattractive and a low level, so I tried to act more confident. I tried to reduce the interpersonal distance between my avatar and the people I was interacting with and increase self-disclosure by talking to more about out-of-game topics in order to self-disclose more. It was a difficult task to carry out this act of confidence because I knew that my character was unattractive and a low level. In addition to my awareness of my unattractiveness, behavioral confirmation played a large role in the way I online interaction. For the most part, I found that people with higher levels (around 30-60) and thus more attractive were not willing to interact with me; they declined all my trades requests, used profanity and name calling when I tried to get closer to them by using the follow option, ignored me when I was asking about out-of-game questions. I had slightly better luck with other lower level players, but I did not have an interaction that was particularly interesting or in-depth, so I did not have a chance to self-disclose more. I also learned that it was unacceptable to follow random people, so I tried to leave a fair amount of distance between my avatar and other player’s when interacting with them.

At this point, the Proteus Effect was very apparent in my study. The Proteus Effect refers to how an individual’s interactions and behavior conforms to his/her avatar’s presentation. I thought it was possible to bypass this effect and tried to play this game confidently; however, I knew that I was unskilled and unattractive. This ultimately resulted in a negative self representation, which caused interactions to be less successful than expected.

After an unsuccessful first trial, I logged into my brother’s account. The first thing I did was go to the “Make-Over Mage.” I wasted 3000 coins, so that I could change my physical appearance permanently. (This time, my avatar actually had hair.) I also went into his bank, which consists of over 300 items, and withdrew the most attractive looking clothes and accessories. There was a wide selection of very appealing items to wear, but I decided to choose ones that were made specifically for appearance, not necessarily the same items that showed skill. (I also chose a hat that made me look taller). In addition to this, I was one of the highest level players (124). I decided to go back to the same place and hopefully interact with the same people to see if there was a noticeable difference. As I was walking back to this area, people started to follow me, ask questions, tell me about themselves, and trade with me. I knew that there would be a difference because I was much more confident playing my brother’s account, but I still did not expect the difference to this obvious. People approached me and interacted with me without me trying to act confident. I found that it was much easier to play my brother’s account; conversations were much more in-depth and people did not mind when I was closer to them. All the rules that I learned about interactivity in this gaming environment were not applicable to my brother’s account. When I followed random player’s, instead of being yelled it and called a “noob,” I was greeting much more pleasantly.

After playing this game in the two extremes, I found that all of the “effects” of the Proteus Effect to take place. The interpersonal distance of my avatar and others was significantly reduced, since people were following me and others did not mind when I followed them. Self-disclosure also increased because other people’s willingness to interact with me led me to deeper conversations. I also felt more confident because I had a hat, which made me look taller…

Although, I was much more confident playing a more attractive avatar, I do not believe the Proteus Effect contributed to this as much as other factors such as behavioral confirmation. For example, people started to approach me without me having to say a word—I felt even more confident after this happened. The reason that I experienced all the effects was not due to the Proteus Effect, it was because I was more attractive. In other words, my confidence was not caused by me having a more positive self-representation; it was caused by other’s willingness to interact with me.


Edit:
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-undead-warlock-in-world-of-warcraft.html
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-one-life-is-enough-for-me.html
Thanks for questions/comments.

10: Fly-man.... Up up and AWAY!!!!

So, truthfully speaking, if it weren’t for the assignment, I probably would never play an online multiplayer game (I always thought that I would be required to buy an account or have a credit card, and that it may become too addicting). But as it turned out, this isn’t always the case (not the $ part anyways)
Second Life is the world of my choice. I chose the user name “NightmareHorseman Silvansky” – it would be nice if I could conquer my nightmares and ride upon them (kind of give out a Batman feel). I was going for a Dark Magician look (cool, not-so-conventional and powerful), so I chose the CyberGoth as my temporary avatar. The CyberGoth avatar looked cool at first glance but unexpectedly went overboard as it gave out a “scary guy look” according to some guy (but that may be just his opinion since my new friends Auree and Lily didn’t mind). It looked much better after I customized it a bit: tall-dark-and-handsome, elfin ears, MIC, Celtic sword, black-blue suit, waterfall-texture jacket, and angel wings – in other words, Dark Angel.

And who needs a car if you can fly? That’s the beauty of Second Life. It’s great to be able to fly even without wings (though I tried out a pair anyways to get the Dark Angel look since I couldn’t find a staff, a cape or a robe to complete the magician appearance).
According to Yee & J. Bailenson, “users who are deindividuated in online environments may adhere to a new identity that is inferred from their avatars…. Or more precisely, in line with self-perception theory, they conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect them to have.” In other words, we get into character when we use our avatars. For example, a person with a tall avatar would be more confident (since it’s said that a person’s height is “more often associated with self-esteem and competence”), and a more attractive avatar would act more friendly, “[walking] closer to the confederate” and self-disclosing more pieces of information about themselves. This phenomenon is coined the Proteus Effect, named after the Greek god Proteus for his shape-changing abilities, which online users now possess to shape their images.
Personally, I don’t feel much different about how I act online and how I behave in the real world (though chatting with friends while we were all hovering several yards above ground was totally cool). Well, I suppose I do talk and self-disclose more, but that’s due to the removal of gating features in an online environment (no weird accent, no low volume issue, no way they can reach me offline). Then again, I may have modeled my avatar after my real physical appearance and some aspects of my personality—I am somewhat tall, not-so-bad-looking, funny and friendly in real life. But a customized good-looking avatar does make me feel confident.Back to the subject at hand, I suppose all my behaviors online do follow Yee & J. Bailenson’s results: tall and attractive avatar does make me act more confident and friendly. My new friends and I told each other where we are from, what we do, and chatted about the countries we have been to, about their people and about our views on life (a friend actually told me that he wants to move to Japan because he thinks Japanese girls are pretty). You don’t have this kind of conversation with almost complete strangers everyday in real life.

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10: Surprise! Another Second Life post!

Uhg, I really didn’t want to do this, but I also ended up using Second Life for this assignment. It is the best game/environment I could think of where the user can modify their avatar and interact with others (the only other multiplayer game I have is Counter Strike, and I’m pretty sure that my interaction with other players would always be pretty much limited to running around and shooting them in the face, regardless of character looks). So, I downloaded the game, did all the fun set up and made my avatar. He was basically a normal looking guy, but huge. I made a big fat giant. I figured as long as I am entering this new online world, I might as well make as many people see me as possible.

Once I started playing, I basically just wandered around, trying to see what I could and could not do in this game. My interactions with other players were often me explaining that I just started playing this game and asking them how they liked it, what kind of things they like to do on Second Life, etc. According to the Proteus Effect theory of Lee and Bailenson, my avatar would affect the way I interacted with other players. In their paper, they explain it very simply by saying “Users who are deindividuated in online environments may adhere to a new identity that is inferred from their avatars” (Lee and Bailenson, 2007). This is similar to the SIDE theory, but instead of conforming to a group standard when deindividuation occurs, the Proteus Effect says that people with “conform” to their avatar’s looks. Players with attractive avatars were hypothesized to walk closer to other players and have a higher frequency to self disclose. Tall avatars would be more confident and aggressive negotiators. Ugly avatars would also act more aggressively or antisocially.

Because my avatar was basically a giant, the Proteus Effect would say that I would have been fairly aggressive, slow to self disclose, and generally more antisocial than if I had an attractive avatar. I, however, did not feel that to be the case when I was running around the Second Life world. I felt just as comfortable self disclosing with people with my giant as I would if I were in an online environment with no avatar at all. I even met another guy who said he was also in college and I explained to him how I just downloaded Second Life for this class. Overall, I did not feel that the Proteus Effect was prevalent in my first foray into Second Life. But I think that the effect may be influenced by why it is people choose to go into a certain online environment. If I was using Second Life as an escape tool, as I am sure many people do (and even its name implies), maybe I would have felt the Proteus Effect even more. In that situation I would have had more invested in the game. I doubt people who are in environments like Second Life as part of an assignment, or as a short entertaining diversion will be as attached to their character/avatar as those who are on the game all the time, reeling in those Linden bucks.

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10: Frustrations of Second Life

This post was the most frustrating for me thus far. Although I spend a large amount of time online every day, I have never ventured into a MUD/MOO or any kind of interactive-fantasy world. I first checked out Everquest, but having no interest in magic and dragons, I decided to explore Second Life

When I first logged in I had to pick a username, consisting of a first name (which could be anything I wanted), and last name (from a list which they provided). The first name I chose was already taken, and I ended up with Water Frog. I then chose my Avatar: City Chic.

Most of my time on Second Life was spent figuring out what to do. I stayed on Orientation Island for the entirety of my time. I saw many others there too but no one really talked to me, which I'm assuming is because we were all somewhat new to this world. I kept wondering if the people I was passing were students in Comm 245.

Finally, as I was nearing the end of my time in Second Life (due to my frustration and clueless-ness) I decided to chat with someone. I asked Herbert Doobie for help, who also admitted to be very new to the game. We talked for a few minutes and then Herbert asked if I knew how to add someone as a friend. I didn't, but was able to figure it out fairly quickly and then added him. As silly as it sounds, this made me feel good since I had originally asked him for help, and then ended up helping each other.

In their article, Yee and Bailenson refer to the Proteus Effect, which they describe as the way an "individual’s behavior conforms to their digital self-representation independent of how others perceive them." I did not find this to be true as I wandered through Second Life. The reason I didn't feel this was because I was so concerned with adapting to my surroundings, and learning how to drive a car and sit and fly, that I didn't have time to worry about what others were thinking of me. I was unattached to my avatar.

I definitely don't discredit Yee's findings, however. Second Life has (literally) opened up a new world of possibilities and I may go back and explore it some more.

10. The Proteus Effect in World of Warcraft

The gamespace in World of Warcraft consists of thousands of varied characters populating the world at any one time. A player can choose between 8 different races and can modify his or her appearance by selecting from various choices of hairstyle, skin color, face, beard, etc. My avatar in World of Warcraft was a human male priest. He was tall with long, blonde hair and looked somewhat like a pro wrestler or an American Gladiator with his bulky frame. I decided to go on a group quest with 4 other players to see how we would interact with each other during our mission.

Off we went into a large dungeon of some sort. We had to work together in order to fight off multiple high level enemies and split up or share the loot in a fair manner. There was no specific leader in our group, although, we all sort of seemed to follow this night elf player, who was wearing a thick layer of metal armor, and masking his appearance with a mysterious helmet. We probably followed his lead because he was usually the first to select the next enemy to fight and because he was in the warrior class, which meant that he had a higher health capacity than the rest of us, so he could take more damage. Perhaps we decided to follow him because of his dominant appearance, as he was the tallest in the group and looked like a tank with all his protective armor on. I suppose that psychologically we felt he was best fit to protect our group so we sort of naturally acknowledged that he should be the leader. In accordance with Yee and Bailenson’s Proteus Effect argument, he acted very confidently and friendly to the rest of the group, embodying his noble facade. He seemed to give in to behavioral confirmation in that he looked like an experienced leader and others treated him as such, so his actions often mirrored his appearance.

As for my character, I found that my appearance may have affected my behavior. I was a human priest, and I wore a long, white robe and carried a staff. My job was mainly to heal the other players when they were in trouble and cast some deadly spells on the enemies from time to time. Because I was the only human in the group (besides a dwarf and two gnomes), I sort of felt like I was supposed to be the voice of reason in the group. Maybe it was because this was my first time playing in a long while, but I had a more practical take on the quest and helped keep our group focused on the goal of clearing the dungeon and finishing our mission, whereas, the other players seemed to take their time and tell jokes and animate themselves by typing things like “/sleep” or “/dance” or “/sneeze,” which caused their characters to perform that action. Perhaps they acted silly like this because their appearance was very similar to a cartoon character – abnormally short and pudgy, with a cartoonish face and bright colors – so they embodied their appearance by acting the way they expect their avatar to act if he were a real person, adhering to the Proteus Effect.

Yee and Bailenson wrote about the black robe / white robe effect, in which players wearing a black robe tended to have more aggressive, antisocial behaviors than those wearing white robes, which had the opposite effect. As for my character, who was wearing a white robe, I felt a sense that I was supposed to be a friendly, helpful part of the group (whether or not this was because of the color of the robe), and I acted accordingly. As a priest, I spent more time healing the other players and casting strength/agility spells than I did attacking the enemies. Perhaps this was attributed to the fact that I looked so noble and confident that I had to live up to my appearance. I think the Proteus Effect is a powerful presence in online gaming MUDs like World of Warcraft, especially in how we feel almost guilty or awkward if we don’t live up to the expectations that our avatar’s appearance gives off.

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Assignment 10: Me or Igby

I am Igby, proud Mage and defender of the Alliance. My experience sets me at the pinnacle of magus ranks, my second tier armor provides magical bonuses of untold power, and I stand proudly with the Defenders of Order. I am also Mark Maloney-- a student in COMM 245, a class that analyzes behavior on the Internet. I played World of Warcraft (WoW) on the Archimond server for a couple hours using my roommate's account and level 60 Gnomish Mage character as an experiment to determine if I observed any hints of the Proteus Effect during my gameplay. The Proteus Effect relates that users of Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games like WoW will begin to behave in a manner they believe others would expect of them given the self-representation they create (Yee & Bailenson 2007). Thus, if the Proteus Effect was in play during my gameplay, I might be expected to act in an altruistic manner given my perception of the character as a mighty and noble wizard dedicated to serving the Alliance. Further, given the Gnome's short stature and cartoonish features (aviator goggles, tufts of bright green hair and a handlebar mustache to match donning brightly-colored, oversized robes), I might act cartoonish and overly animated myself.

In reality, I did indeed act in a manner expected of me. Since my goal was to determine how I interacted with other players, I didn't bother with any of the adventure portions of the game, instead I traveled between a couple cities and towns to try and gain audience with some of the other players. Throughout my travels about Azeroth, I found myself continuely fingering the spacebar key causing my character to hop about in circles and act in a manner one could describe as no less than bouncy. This would represent a means to gain some attention to my character by making a show of movement to accomadate my short stature, but also the jovial approach I took towards exploring and interacting in WoW as Igby. My conversational style with other players for the most part was friendly, goofy, and sarcastic. Since my knowledge of the game itself is very limited (in comparison with the real owner of the account), I was unfortunately unable to provide any good answers to questions lower leveled characters asked me when I visited some low level towns. However, that didn't keep me from giving advice anyways, as I felt it was proper for a little gnome to act a bit mischievously. Still, as a Defender of Order, I felt it was my duty to serve the newer players by giving them some gold and token items that I thought might be of use to them. In the end, I did find myself acting according to the individual identity cues that I understood to be presented by the character Igby I was playing.

However, some further exploration for the cause of my behavior in WoW could be helpful for our understanding, because it may well be that the Proteus Effect was not the sole nor even a strong contributor to my actions. The social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) (Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 1998, Spears & Lea, 1994) relates that in anonymous environments (such as being online) where group norms are salient, a deindividuating effect will occur that results in a user performing in a manner consistent with the norms of the world. While I hedged earlier that I was not a knowledgable WoW player, I do have some knowledge of the norms of both the MMO gaming community and that particular to WoW from prior gaming experience and garnered during my exploration of the game. WoW is a decidedly cartoonish game, in fact every title in the Warcraft series has been cartoonish and jovial. So, was my manner of interaction as a goofy and overly animated Gnome a behavior resolved from my self representation or was it resolved from my understanding of group norms in the WoW community? I would have to assume it was a combination of both. While I assumed the accepted norm for the gaming environment was to be light-hearted and fun, I also felt that the particular character I chose to play was most befitting to this behavior. My friend had other characters on the account that were starkly less cartoonish and had I played them, I might have acted a bit more reserved because bouncing around as a female, human priest in noble clerical robes would not have been fitting. But, if we recall my altruistic giving of gold and items to low level players, I would find that to be much more of a result of the deindividuation effect I felt from playing a character in a guild known to be giving and to "look out for the little guy" as my roommate had explained it to me. Therefore, both SIDE and the Proteus Effect were affecting my behavior in the game.

Further, much of my behavior is very similar to the way I have acted in other games. While I behaved in a manner to depict Igby as a charitable but sarcastic and mischievous alliance member, I have done so with many of my characters in games such as Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC, a graphical MMO) and Dark Grimoire (a text based MMO). Perhaps, this WoW experience was only a continuation of an on-going online identity and representation I have assumed. However, if that is the case, we would have to examine if this representation was in any way altered playing in the WoW world as Igby, because if the Proteus Effect was truly changing my behavior then some difference in Igby's avatar from others I played in other games would have caused a direct effect on my behavior. Unfortunately, as many of my peers have noted in their own posts, the time constraints and experimental conditions were far from ideal for doing such a detailed exploration of the Proteus Effect. In fact, I am unable to recall nor did I observe any stark difference between my play as Igby and any other character I had played in DAOC. So then, perhaps it was not the Proteus effect that was determining my mannerisms in WoW at all, merely I was reflecting a pre-prepared self representation that has been built over years of gameplay that I assume when I'm online.

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10: Happy (Second Life) Birthday

For this assignment I attempted to learn the ways of Second Life. Having never played it, or any other MUD before, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how it worked. I completed several tutorials, went through demos, and spent an exorbitant amount of time messing around with my appearance. I was surprised at how extravagant the gamespace was. I’m not really sure what I expected, but it wasn’t what I saw.

The first thing I had to do in registering for Second Life was pick my username. I was prepared to choose some sort of screenname like “chicagogirl” or “cubsfan” but then I realized that we actually chose a first and last name. The first name could be anything I wanted, but the last name had to be chosen from a list. I found this rather restrictive. I had to follow the pre-set form, and I couldn’t even choose the name I wanted within it. I already felt as if I was being forced into a social construct and having my own identity taken from me. Once I had done that, I launched into the world of Second Life. At first, I was only allowed to pick between a few general sample avatars. This definitely had an effect on how I interacted with people at the beginning because it was obvious that I was new and I felt like this would deter people from wanting to talk to me. I saw my character as having an image of being naïve and inexperienced. I felt stupid talking to people because I didn’t think they would want to talk to someone had no idea what was going on. So instead of trying to be smart about it and positively interact with people, I wandered around aimlessly and did things that showed how inexperienced I was. This was very much in line with the Proteus Effect.

In their paper, Yee and Bailenson discuss how “users in online environments may conform to the expectations and stereotypes of the identity of their avatars. Or more precisely, in line with self-perception theory, they conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect them to have.” The first time I walked over to a group of people, multiple people messaged me and wished me a “happy birthday.” However, instead of moving forward with the conversation, I felt even more awkward because I felt this further accentuated my newness to Second Life, and would make people want to talk to me even less. Soon after this, I figured out how to change my appearance. I changed my body type and the clothes I was wearing to try to make my avatar look more attractive. I thought this would make people see me in a more positive light, and in turn give me more confidence. This is in line with Yee and Bailenson hypothesis that people with attractive avatars would exhibit more intimate behavior and higher levels of self-disclosure. Furthermore, they discuss how in order for the Proteus Effect to operate there does not have to be “actual presence of other people but simply that a person evaluates him or herself from a third-person perspective.” Even when I was wandering aimlessly through the world of Second Life, I felt awkward in my sample avatar, and more confident once I had “improved” it’s attractiveness. It was not necessary that I be by a group of people.

Overall, I think my experience in Second Life supported the findings of Yee and Bailenson. Personally though, I think I will stick to my first life.

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10: I can fly!

Flying isn’t the only thing that makes the metaworld Second Life different from the physical world. In the immersive virtual world of Second Life, one can change their appearance drastically with a few clicks of the mouse (see inventory and characteristic modification images). The ease of self-re-representation begs the question: Do the characteristics of a person’s online appearance (an avatar) affect that person’s behavior?

Yee and Bailenson refine the concept of behavioral confirmation in immersive 3D metaworlds. The Proteus Effect involves the consequence of self-perception on one’s own behavior, whereas behavioral confirmation also includes how another person’s expectations of a target can shape the way the target behaves.

For the most part, the Proteus effect describes my experiences on Second Life. I had no problem going up to random people to talk. This exhibits the deindividuation effect that Yee and Bailenson mention. Analogous to the dyads placed in a dark room for an hour that gravitated and interacted physically with each other, I felt that my anonymity made me an assertive, outgoing character. I initially landed on “Orientation Island” and I found myself in a group of newbies, whose avatars looked bland and generic, much like my own avatar. (Not knowing how one should look on Second Life, I judged my own attractiveness relative to the other characters around me. I would judge that my character was quite unattractive and short.) One bystander, “Lnders Rice,” was taller and seemed different than the newbies because of her well-coordinated attire, tall stature, and detailed avatar characteristics. I began to converse with Rice, and I experienced a momentary loss of identity where I found myself speaking for the “newbie group,” even though I knew the answers to most of my questions.

[23:44] NngFe Kanto: I don`t know how to play T_T

[23:44] You: where is the actual world...

[23:44] You: like, where am i now

[23:44] Lnders Rice: we all have something special boot camp

[23:45] You: how can i finsh bootcamp

[23:45] You: im lazy

[23:45] NngFe Kanto: >_<~

[23:45] Lnders Rice: that is up to you

[23:46] Lnders Rice: and what you want to learn

Lnders seemed to take on a maternal role in giving advice to me. From a role playing perspective, the visuals seemed to affirm that she was the more dominant and wise character. Being the shorter character, I accepted her indirect answer which was delivered in a superior tone, instead of challenging her. I also noticed that I was more comfortable being closer to the newbies than to Lnders. This experience affirms Yee and Bailenson’s confidence and interpersonal distance results. Taller avatars were more confident and unattractive people were more uncomfortable at close distances.

My experience did not completely jive with Yee and Bailenson’s self-disclosure results. They found that attractive avatars were more willing to self disclose; however, I found myself (unattractive) very willing to disclose my newbie identity, thoughts, and concerns, while Lnders’ (attractive) indirect and vague response to my question indicated a resistance to self-disclosure. This discrepancy may have occurred because of her perception of my unattractive character. (In Yee and Bailenson’s study, incongruent avatars were used in order to mitigate this uncertainty.)

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Assignment 10 - Godzilla1111

For this assignment I decided to go with a classic. I fired up my xbox and played an hour of Halo. I actually ended up playing partially in the online space and part local, I had one of my friends playing with me and we were playing against other people online. As for the avatar, unfortunately Halo is kind of limited in selection. I decided to be human for no reason in particular. Then I decided to be green, because I like the color green. For my name, I went with something strong and powerful, ‘Godzilla1111,’ because nobody messes with Godzilla, and someone else already had the name ‘Godzilla’ without all the numbers after it, and I was green.

My play experience was fun. I lost, a lot, mostly because I don’t play very much and my friend who I was playing against does. Unfortunately we did not have headphones but we could still hear other members of our team talking. They seemed to get very into the game and at one point, it surprised me when I heard the voice of some kid (he sounded like he was probably under 10 years old) who was outplaying everyone.

Because everyone’s avatars looked fairly similar, I often forgot that all different types of players were playing this game. And when I was playing with people that did not have headphones, I had no way of knowing who was controlling the character I was watching on the screen. Because there is not a wide selection in avatars, behavioral confirmation is limited to the character’s name before game play starts. Then as soon as it becomes apparent how good someone is, patterns can emerge where the newer players might start to follow the lead of the more experienced player. The Proteus Effect allows for all different types of players to come and play without anyone knowing who they are. They can take over the identity of being an alien or a soldier and start killing immediately. Although the Proteus effect is shown to a certain extent, I feel that the much more significant effect is caused just by the avatar making the user anonymous even if they looked similar to others. In Halo, really the only part of the avatar that is quite distinguishing is the name. And although a specific name can inspire fear or self-confidence, it is not enough to significantly alter the way people act. In my case, I feel that the name ‘Godzilla1111’ may have inspired confidence in me, but I highly doubt it caused much fear in my opponents.

10| "Hey Good Lookin', Come Stand By Me"

Yee & Bailenson describe the Proteus Effect as the “effect of transformed self-representation on behavior” that “conforms to digital self-representation independent of how others perceive them.” This effect predicted that those employing attractive avatars would be more intimate in self disclosure and decreased interpersonal distance than those with unattractive avatars. It also predicts that taller avatars cause their users to feel more confident.

To test these hypothesis, I signed up for Second Life, an internet based virtual world in which I could control my appearance through 150 sliders so that I could capture the slightest nuance of appearance. My “base” avatar appeared non-intimidating, approachable, and laid back, mostly as indicated by my virtual blue jeans and purple sweater. She was also relatively attractive in a downplayed way (she wasn’t wearing a miniskirt nor bore any likeness to a playboy model, which I must say seemed a rare occurance in this game). Since an avatar is one of the only cues given off in a computer-mediated environment, my selection was highly important to the way Second Life players perceived and judged me, or, should I say, “Chrisel Nitely”.

I found it odd that Second Life had a list of preconceived surnames form which users can choose. It seems that would separate the user from their individual identity, which is in line with the SIDE Model, however, in another way, it enhances the uniqueness of your Second Life life. Perhaps having such a name primes you towards identifying as a Second Life member over your own identity (Social Identification). It’s almost as if you are required to check your first life at the door when you adopt your second persona.

Since my avatar looked somewhat laid-back and approachable, I am not sure whether my avatar had an influence on my behavior because I try (in my first life) to come off that way, and my control of my avatar may have had more to do with my personality than with her appearance. At first I tried walking in close proximity to others to initiate interaction in the game, however I was influenced by reading Yee and Bailenson’s hypothesis, and may not have done so if I hadn’t been thinking about it. As I navigated throughout an island, others seemed to be preoccupied, which was discouraging at first. Even an attractive avatar was not enough to grab their attention. However, all it took was one person to reciprocate my outgoing and friendly front by paying attention to me to reestablish my confidence in my virtual appearance and assumed personality. With the one person with whom I mostly communicated, I stood virtually closer to him/her/it- his perception of me as friendly and worth talking to affected my behavior (behavioral confirmation). This is not necessarily in line with the Proteus Effect hypothesis in that although an attractive avatar resulted in less interpersonal distance, my behavior was not independent of the perceiver’s opinion of me.

I actually work with one of Second Life’s comepetitor programs called ActiveWorlds, although it is in more of an educational context where I deal with junior high school students. In that context, how I am influenced by my avatar depends on what view I have in my window. If my view is first person, I am unaware and uninfluenced by my avatar. However, if I am in the third person view and can see myself in relation to the students’ avatars, it makes me aware of my position of authority and makes me communicate more professionally and more aware of my instructions. How the kids respond to me sometimes varies based on my avatar and how distinctive it is from theirs. For example, when they are all relatively indistinct humanoid avatars and I choose the Mutant Pumpkin, or Dr. Volderheide, a mad scientist on a robo-scooter, both of which are significantly taller than theirs, they are more likely to look at me and pay attention to what I say. Their increased attention deals with others’ perceptions of me and is inconsistent with the Proteus Model’s prediction that taller avatars are more confident and aggressive. However, my reinforced efforts to do a good job with instructions upon seeing myself as an avatar distinctive from theirs, completely separated from their perception of me and the effects of behavioral confirmation, is consistent with the Proteus Model’s prediction that these taller models make me more confident.

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http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-frustrations-of-second-life.html

http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-clueless-and-naked.html

10 Down with YEE

For this week’s assignment I’m afraid I was terribly unoriginal in choosing to experience Second Life. The whole online gaming world was new to me and the fact that my computer has had a mind of its own lately made this experience very interesting. Second Life is not your typical game in the sense that you win or lose, but moreover Second Life is a sort of simulation of real life interactions where you can socialize and participate in group activities, and you get to create your own person (personality, looks, the works). When you subscribe you get to choose your own first name, which can include letters and numbers; however, the strange thing was you had to pick your last name from a list (e.g. Destiny, Darwin, Schmooze, etc.); this was probably the first time I found myself starting to formulated the personality I was going to portray online because some of the names had strong connotations associated with them. I ended up choosing Schmooze, because well it was similar to the spelling of my last name. For my avatar I decided to go with the basic “Girl Next Door” – a similar body type to my own. When presented with the options all the avatars were seemingly young, attractive, thin, and tall. This may be a way to sway users into using more aesthetically pleasing avatars, a subtle hint at social acceptance. I ended up thinking about what other users would think if I chose the scantily clad nightlife avatar or decided to be a cat. This leads to Yee & Bailenson’s (2007) Proteus Effect (P.E.) where an individual evaluates themselves in a third-person perspective. It is similar to behavioral confirmation (acting in a way to confirm conceived perceptions); however, instead of relying on another individual to make notions about you you are instead gauging yourself. Then, once you begin interacting with others you experience behavioral confirmation (B.C.) of other individuals making judgments on you.

In person I’m not much of a schmoozer (…realizing I probably should’ve chosen a different last name, oh well); I’m known to be very shy and reserved when I meet new people. So I wasn’t sure how I was going to fair in this situation. I think I felt the effects similar to “stranger on the train”, where even though I wasn’t visually anonymous, I was still unbeknownst to the other users so I ended up disclosing more than I would in real life. Once I got the hang of it I would talk to more people and I felt more comfortable and ended up “connecting” to the other users more (maybe I am a Schmoozer after all). This is consistent with Yee and Bailenson’s (2007) findings that attractiveness leads to more self-disclosure and closer contact with other avatars. In real life, I am tall for a girl and not necessarily more confident than others around me, so the height issue online didn’t really make any difference to me.

In all I definitely believe that the hyperpersonal model is evident in avatar choice and maintenance, because of the P.E. and B.C. cycle (you originally selectively self-present and others expect you to present a certain way). Once others establish a stereotype or expectation of your identity you adhere to it. I ended up combining my actual and ideal selves through the use of an avatar and CMC. I feel like choosing an avatar can go back to the Self-Presentation Goals as seen in the online dating profiles because some people turn to Second Life to have relationships. And deceptions about attractiveness, height, weight, and age (conventional signals) are easily manipulated through the use of avatars; for example, an overweight male might choose a more built avatar.

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http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-world-of-makeoutcraft.html

10: Second Life: How Present is the Proteus Effect?

Over the past hour, I have explored the world of Linden Dollars, flying avatars, and programmable dance moves, all of which are prominent features of Second Life. I have read a lot about Second Life in the media, but over the past few months, I have not actually involved myself too much in this online world. During the initial setup of my avatar, I was given the option to do some minor customization of the avatar, such as the gender, size, and some facial features of my avatar. To appeal to some aspects of my ideal online self, I chose the “Nightclub Male” as the basis for my avatar: he appeared fun-loving and social.

Yee and Bailenson (2007) note that there may be a “Proteus Effect” in online multiuser worlds, where people may act how they perceive others may wish them to act, or “in line with self-perception theory, they conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect them to have.” At first, with the default clothing and stationed on Orientation Island, I was reticent to contact others, and no one walked up to me to start a conversation with me. Soon, I learned to customize my clothing to make myself taller and with more handsome facial features; now, with my “best face forward,” I felt that I could make a more favorable impression on others and I became more outgoing. My own limited experience with Second Life confirms this aspect of Yee and Bailenson’s research.

They also argued that self-disclosure would increase if the character in Second Life looked more attractive, because we would possibly perceive the person behind the avatar to be more attractive. Unfortunately, one hour in Second Life was not enough time to test this aspect, since I was more focused on meeting different people and exploring the world instead of having conversations with increasing levels of self-disclosure. However, I did notice that people conversed for seemingly longer amounts of time with more attractive and more customized avatars, since such avatars usually appeared to have spent more time in Second Life. The avatars with the most customization and detail in their facial features, clothing, and accessories most likely purchased such items with Linden dollars (bought with real dollars). This may show to the other, more experienced members that the avatar is dedicated and has put his or her own (real!) money into improvements for their avatar.

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10: An Undead Warlock in World of Warcraft

In their study on the “Proteus Effect” Yee and Bailenson (2007) discuss past research on virtual environments and the capacity of users to easily manipulate their “digital self-representations.” The main question Yee and Bailenson propose is whether the avatars we create (which they define as the “primary identity cue in online environments” (p. 274)) can influence our behavior in the virtual, and perhaps real, world. The define the ‘Proteus Effect’ as how “…an individuals behavior conforms to their digital self-presentation independent of how others perceive them..” (p. 271). They also point to past research on how people match their behavior to uniforms they are assigned (i.e. more aggressive if assigned black uniform). The authors emphasized how important it was for their study to prevent Behavioral Conformation (we act more like how others perceive us) from interfering in their results, and I think they did a good job excluding it by keeping confederates blind to the attractiveness/tallness of participants. Yee and Bailenson found a significant correlation between the physical features of participants avatars and their behavior. However, I question how well their findings apply in real online interactions, where behavioral conformation and other factors complicate identity and behavior.

Since I encountered problems with Second Life, and don’t subscribe to any online video games, I decided to question my boyfriend Dave (who has much more experience donning an avatar in online spaces) about his experience playing World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft is perhaps the most well known Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. The environment is similar to the ‘real world’ in that it has trees, water, cities, roads etc. However, WoW is clearly based in a fantasy world in which the “Alliance” and “Hoard” are opposing forces, and all characters compete for loot, held by apparently neutral monsters. There are endless possibilities for quests and leveling up, with no real endpoint to the game, which has been know to lead to problematic internet use for some players.

When creating a character for WoW, you have the option of first choosing a ‘side’ (Hoard vs. Alliance) and then choosing among the different races within each category. You can then modify your character’s features, including skin color, hair, clothing (that you find later) etc. Dave’s avatar was of the “Undead Warlock” class, part of “the hoard” which is considered the ‘evil’ side in the war. He described his character as about average human height but on shorter side, of all the classes. He was not particularly attractive—skinny with wrinkly dark skin, slouching posture, and dark purple hair. The main influence of Dave’s behavior that he noticed was that being of a race designated as ‘spell caster’ meant and during group raids his character is supposed to stand back and cast spells while others like warriors/rogues are in the front physically damaging enemies. It seems to be a rule of the game that you should conform your behavior to the role defined by your race. This was one type of effect on Dave’s behavior due to his avatar that seems to support the findings of this study, since he was conforming to other players expectations of his avatar, as Yee and Bailenson argue, “…in the same way that subjects in black uniforms conform to a more aggressive identity, users in online environments may conform to the expectations and stereotypes of the identity of their avatars.” (p. 274).

While he tried out a character on the Alliance side, Dave claimed he was partial to the hoard for several reasons, due primarily to his social interactions in the game. He claimed that those on the Alliance side tended to be “more shallow.” He clarified this by pointing out that all the Alliance races are more attractive to the average person (ie. Human vs. undead creature). He also characterized players on the Alliance side as more sensitive to the way other players act towards them by showing more emotion, and taking others’ actions personally. He also pointed out that he doesn’t share very much personal information, if any, with fellow players, remaining fairly task oriented.

Dave’s characterization of the behavior of people with each type of avatar seems to reveal that those playing as more attractive characters disclosed more about their feelings and personal reactions to events in the game, while those who were less attractive, seemed to stay in role as a sort of ‘monster’ who probably wouldn’t be as social as a human. This could provide some support for Yee and Bailenson’s conception that, “in line with self-perception theory, [players] conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect them to have. We term this the Proteus Effect.” (p. 274). Another interpretation I considered is that those who take themselves more seriously, and want to produce the best self-presentation will probably be more likely to choose one of the attractive avatars on the Alliance side, rather than one of the physically unattractive Hoard races.

Dave was highly resistant to the idea of his behavior being influence by the physical characteristics of his avatar. However, he did say that he does not choose characters he can’t identify with—implying that he does identify with his avatar on some level. For example, he didn’t choose to be a gnome since felt he couldn’t identify with this race, which typically has a “whiny voice” and a cutesy, perhaps wimpy appearance. This may also play into his desire to have an avatar that presents himself as ‘tough’ or a worthy addition to a team in the game.

As far as explaining why Dave’s behavior wasn’t ( or he feels it wasn’t) affected by his choice of avatar, maybe a RPG can’t be compared to a Second Life type scenario where people are simply interacting as generic humans. Since in World of Warcraft and other MMORPG’s, players are taking the role of a specific character type (that comes with alliances, specific skills and goals) they tend to aim for those goals, but don’t feel like they are the character as much as those interacting as an avatar more similar to themselves, such as in Second Life.

Near the conclusion of their paper, Yee and Bailenson argue, “The set of studies presented in this paper makes clear that our self representations have a significant and instantaneous impact on our behavior.” While they have made some interesting arguments I think it would be taking their findings too far if we assume we can extend them to more realistic virtual spaces where behavioral confirmation as well as reduced identification with an avatar can interfere. Yee and Bailenson did point out that it would be interesting to “…pit the Proteus Effect against behavioral confirmation. In other words, future work should examine an experimental paradigm in which participants believe that they are attractive, whereas other interactants perceive them as unattractive.” (Pg 286)

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WOW revisited

I've played World of Warcraft before back in high school, so I know about most of the basic social rules, how the Leviathan would be enforced, and so on. For this experiment, I thought I would try something that my previous experience wouldn't affect.

I chose a character completely based on appearance as opposed to other benefits. I made my character a male human, which I thought others would consider more attractive than the other classes which resembled monsters. When I entered the game, I was put in a beginner area with other players who had just started. I went around and talked to a few people, asking them if they'd played this game before or if they wanted to go on quests with me. The first person said he had to leave for a little while, but he was polite about it. The next person was also friendly and agreed to go on a quest with me. We did missions together for about an hour and then I said I had to go. Throughout the hour, we had fairly normal conversation.

If I was forced to analyze this situation in terms of the Proteus affect, I would say it agreed with it. My tall, attractive avatar certainly didn't discourage me from going right up to people and being forward. However, I do know how social situations in this game operate. In WoW, the beginning areas aren't seen as too important. Everyone has to go through them, and no real social biases are set up. It's not until much later in the game that players become crazy about who they do quests/interact with.

I know it's not part of this assignment, but I feel that later parts of the game in WoW can give a more interesting analysis of the Proteus theory. In my experiences as a higher level player, I felt that it didn't matter how attractive you looked, but much more how you played, and what kind of equipment you had. In fact, some of the most bold and outgoing people I'd ever met chose their avatars to be as ugly or ridiculous looking as they could.

In the case of World of Warcraft, I would say that the physical appearance of the avatar does not affect a player's actions as Proteus predicts. This is most likely because of the cult obsession with the game and its fighting, as opposed to socializing. I just never saw the attractiveness of the avatar to have significant effects on how I treated other players, or how they treated and interacted with me.

10: Becoming a Werewolf

The Proteus Effect refers to the concept that people conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect them to have. Because the avatar is our entire self-representation in many online environments (and therefore primarily identify cue), it has a significant impact on how we behave online. Drawing on SIDE Theory, the Proteus Effect speaks to the fact that users who are deindividuated in online environments adhere to the new identify that is inferred from their avatars.

In order to examine the implications of the Proteus Effect, I turned to the online game Second Life. As this was my first time playing the game, I naturally was excited to begin. I quickly decided to take on the identity of “Pepper Bernard,” whose body resembled a female werewolf. After completing the tutorial and learning how to navigate around the Second Life community, I entered one of the islands and began to interact with other Second Life players.

I chose my werewolf avatar because I saw it as cute, friendly, and whimsical. Although the avatar clearly did not exude sex-appeal, I thought it was an attractive and endearing. According to Yee and Bailenson’s prediction, my attractive avatar would (a) lead me to walker closer to other participants in the community, and (b) behave more confidently when interacting with other players. As it was difficult for me to judge the avatar’s height, I cannot comment on the researcher’s third hypothesis.

At the beginning of the game, my experience conformed to both hypotheses. I was confident in my appearance and therefore readily approached players and interacted with them in close proximity. My desire to get close to other avatars was so strong that I actually bumped into several while trying to speak with them. Furthermore, I was confident in my language and told other avatars that I found them attractive in order to get their attention.

As the game progressed, however, behavioral confirmation theory took hold. Apparently, other players in the game did not find me as attractive as I found myself and reacted coldly when I approached them. Furthermore, I found that not one avatar approached me voluntarily. Behavioral confirmation theory predicts that in this situation I would begin to interact with others in a colder, less confident manner. This is exactly what happened. I began to lose confidence in my attractiveness and tried to change my appearance in order to gain acceptance.

Yee and Bailenson comment that while they were able to isolate the Proteus Effect in the laboratory it often interacts with behavioral confirmation in reality. This is exactly what happened in my experience. It would be interesting to see if my confident, friendly demeanor would have persisted had I not received negative feedback from my Second Life peers.

http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-second-life-sucks-ill-keep-my-own.html

http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-frustrations-of-second-life.html

10. An Hour With Sasha (The Proteus Effect in FPS)

I haven’t played online videogames in a long time, but apparently I’m being forced out of my peaceful retirement to return to the virtual realm that I came to despise a long time ago. I chose a game that my suitemates have played a lot lately, as it was recently released along with the Half-Life 2 “Orange Box,” that game is Team Fortress 2. I chose this game, a “First Person Shooter”, because I absolutely refuse to play Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Games (MMORPGs). In this game there are 9 different classes of players, each with their own distinct characteristics. I chose to play as the “Heavy” class for the full hour. It is important to note that the characters in this game are meant to be cartoonish, and are often disproportionate; nevertheless, this character’s avatar is a very large man, with a huge upper body and arms thicker than his legs. He carries a huge mini-gun, like what you might see attached to an attack helicopter, as his primary weapon (he calls it Sasha, hence the title). He also wears a Kevlar vest and a string of his high caliber ammunition across his chest. Here is a video featuring the character himself.



During game play I found myself very much influenced by the character’s unique abilities, for instance while firing his mini-gun, he can only walk slowly, which causes him to basically stay put while firing, because of this I tended to stay put and mow down everything in my path without discrimination, as is the character’s basic strategy. However what was more relevant to the Proteus effect, was that my personality actually did change during the game. I began to laugh when a poor unknowing opponent wandered through the hail of bullets and met his demise, and I would get unreasonably aggravated when a faster, sneakier character would escape from my barrage and/or come around and kill me before I could react. Beyond that, in an attempt to help strategize and win the match, I tended to give commands to other teammates over the in-game chat. My character was one of the largest in the game, which, according to the Proteus effect, would lend itself to my acting in a more dominant fashion. Therefore, my tendency to try to act as a leader is consistent with the Proteus effect. However, I am not personally convinced that my actions were necessarily influenced by my character’s avatar, because my own tendency in real life is to try to take control of a situation and be a leader. Overall I believe that the Proteus effect is especially relevant to role playing games, but not necessarily as relevant to first person shooters like Team Fortress 2.

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Assignment 10: Me or Igby
10: An Undead Warlock in World of Warcraft

10: One Life is Enough For Me

For this assignment, I decided to venture for the first time into Second Life. After waiting for about four hours (okay, maybe ten minutes) for it to download, I was pretty curious to see what all the hype was about. I chose an avatar and a name, although I'm stuck with a pretty strange name, and my first name is in all caps because I somehow didn't realize I had caps lock on. My avatar is appropriately dubbed "girl next door" by Second Life. In that way, I chose an avatar that seemed to be more or less like myself -- both female and, well, normal.

I would say that my avatar was attractive, so I was interested to see if my experience would correspond with Yee and Bailenson's three hypotheses. More specifically, I was interested to see if the Proteus Effect took place. After spending some time getting used to Second Life, I came to a few conclusions of my own. Firstly, I think that how an individual represents him or herself in the first place is the most important factor in whether or not they experience behavioral confirmation of any kind. For instance, I chose an avatar that I thought most closely represented myself in real life. For someone who was wanting to change his or herself in real life, a more attractive avatar would probably be appealing. However, I didn't see any real draw to becoming someone else solely for the purpose of interacting online. Yee and Bailenson would say that as a result of the Proteus Effect, I would act differently online because people would have different expectations of me (or, my avatar) online than in a face-to-face setting. However I don't believe that this concept was proved because I acted more or less the same way, despite people asking questions or treating me differently than in real life. This might have been partly because I wasn't so engaged in the game as I might have been were I not there with an ulterior motive. Despite my personal lack of connection to the Proteus Effect and Yee and Bailenson's three hypotheses, I can definitely see how people would feel inclined to conform to a more idealized view of themselves.

What I mean by the latter statement is that it has been my experience that the people who are most insecure about themselves in real life are those who are most likely to change on the internet. Thus, people might be more likely to self-disclose on the internet, but that information being disclosed may or may not be the truth. In this way, I feel that Second Life proved how Yee and Bailenson's second and third hypotheses could potentially be true, but in a way that is most likely different than the intended meaning. As for the idea that more attractive people walk closer to others than those who are deemed unattractive, I think that this first hypothesis is really just an extension on the idea that more attractive people (avatars) feel more confident and less self-inhibited than they might feel in real life.

In light of my observations and experiences in the online world, I'm pretty sure I won't be returning to Second Life. My First Life is crazy enough, thank you very much :)

10 - Second Life

For this assignment I decided to explore Second Life. I had never used Second Life before or any other game requiring me to make an avatar of myself and interact with others. The only online games I had played previous to this were Starcraft and Quake. In Quake you do get to choose a character, but you can't customize it much and there isn't any interaction with others.

When I first started Second Life and I had to choose my avatar, I decided I would try and make myself look like a tall, muscular guy. The basic reason for this choice was that I am an average height, skinny male and choosing this avatar would help me to test Yee & Bailenson's hypothesis. It took me a while to configure my avatar, but in the end, I came up with a person I was happy with.

When I first entered the world, I wasn't really sure what to do. I didn't know how open other people would be to talk to me since I've never been in a situation like this. Luckily after wandering around for some time, observing other conversations, I was approached by a female avatar. This person was very open and when I told her it was my first time in second life, she started telling me about the different things I could do. I thanked her for the help and then went in search of someone else to talk to. I was still a bit shy about it, but I was able to find a few other people to talk to during the rest of my experience in the Second Life world.

The Proteus effect is the effect that in an online space, our personality will conform to our digital appearance. This effect was hypothesized by Yee and Bailenson. My time in Second Life was not really long enough to make and definite conclusions, but it seemed to me that this theory was mostly true. I don't know if it's because people are different online, but I was able to find people to talk to online easier than in real life. Because of this, I was more friendly than usual and had a lot of interesting conversations. I would attribute this mostly to the fact that my character was fairly good looking. Any hesitancy or shyness on my part was more based on the fact that I was new to Second Life and didn't really know what I was doing. In general, however, I did find myself opening up much more quickly online and I found I had more confidence because of my avatar's looks. If I had more time to explore, I should have played longer to gain more experience to take out the inexperience factor, and also try different looking avatars.

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10 | Kingdom of Loathing: An Adventurer is You!

Like many others, I planned to carry out this assignment in Second Life, which has innumerable customization options in a 3D world. Unfortunately my main computer, which is capable of running the 3D games, is malfunctioning. With access to only my other laptop, which is a 5 year old Apple iBook that I bought from eBay for $200, I set out to find a game that requires the absolute minimum of computer processing power. After a while, I found Kingdom of Loathing, a browser based game very similar to MUD/MOO games but with some minimal, mostly non-animated, graphics.

Customization in Kingdom of Loathing (KoL for short) is minimal, with a choice between six different classes and (two) genders. I decided upon the profession of Pastamancer, a specialized class that can conjure up food for defensive or offensive purposes. I named my avatar “Toffles,” and set out to encounter the world and other players. As we can see from the character information section, the game is simple and humorous (no, I do not know what a Moxie is):

However, that is not to say that the characters all look like boring stick figures. As the player advance through the levels, he/she obtains new items and new looks that make the avatar more interesting/attractive. Toffles, for example, started with a ravioli hat and a pasta spoon, but eventually obtained more powerful items such as:

The game itself is easy to pick up on – everyday the player start with certain number of adventure points, which is expended by clicking the dungeon/mountain/castle/etc. to find rewards and experience in order to gain level. It is also possible to join or form a clan with friends, and challenge other players to a duel.

I found my experience of interaction in KoL to be very consistent with Yee and Bailenson’s theory of the Proteus Effect, which argues that our behavior online conforms to our digital self-presentation. As a new player, I do not have any attractive or interesting equipment, so I was fairly timid when it came to talking to strangers, lest that they make fun of me for being a newbie. In addition, I was reluctant to self-disclose, because I thought few people would be interested in conversing with a boring, simple-looking avatar with no experience. However, I was very proactive in seeking help and asking for advice, as expected from my appearance as an unadorned avatar.

Higher level avatars, however, were much more active in the chat channels and in interaction with other players, including new players such as myself. A very powerful player may have an avatar decorated with a variety of symbols and strange equipment to appear unique and impressive:

The more powerful, and thus more prominent the avatars are, the more aggressive and open the players seemed to be. While most low level, new players whom I talked to did not carry on any conversation for long, the few upper level characters that I talked with were much more willing to socialize. This also conforms to Yee and Bailenson’s findings, as the more visually impressive players clearly demonstrated a higher level of confidence in social interactions.

While I did not expect a strong correlation between character appearance and player behavior in a simplistic game such as Kingdom of Loathing, I was nevertheless pleasantly surprised that the relationship is nonetheless present. Perhaps if I were to play longer and earn my “attractiveness,” I might alter my behavior to one suitable of my avatar.

Comment 1 - Second Life: How Present is the Proteus Effect?

Comment 2 - WOW Revisited

10 | My First Time... On Second Life

Playing Second Life for the first time was an interesting experience, seeing what all the hype is about. I felt that the game imposed their own avatars and identities on me right from the registration process. I didn’t feel comfortable picking a preset last name, as I felt it took away my individuality and ability to create my own identity. Further down the registration process, they asked me to chose an initial avatar from a very limited list. None of them looked like me, and most were stereotypical figures such as the goth and night club guy. The only neutral avatars were the boy and girl next door, who were unattractive and dull. I chose the night club guy for two reasons: he looked a little bit like myself and he screamed cool and social, part of what my ideal self tends to be.

As I waited for the software to download, I already felt deindividualized, as I felt my last name “Shmooz” and avatar were simply cookie cutter representations already used by many other players; I like being unique! Once I started playing on tutorial island, I felt separated from my character, thinking to myself how much I really hate the stereotypical night club guy, despite his good looks and extraversion. I distanced myself from the character and avoided interacting with other players, feeling that I would look like an idiot with my LA haircut and designer jeans. I talked to a few people, asking how to do certain things and what was going on. Although I eventually learned that I could alter my avatar, I was turned off from the first 5 minutes of gameplay and not motivated to continue seeking a unique self. I did some more exploring and had a few more trivial conversations. However, by this time in the game I knew I was never going to play again, and thus the social interactions I had wouldn’t matter too much.

According to the Gibbs study, because I didn’t focus on long-term relationships at all, I tended to not self-disclose or be personal; I knew I would never see these virtual people again. Some people approached me and asked how to do a few things like access their inventory. I will admit that I liked being approached, and responded a little more friendlier, but I was still turned off by the game and was most likely perceived as cold and uncaring. Thus, I believe behavioral confirmation played a larger role than did the Proteus Effect. Having other players interact with my attractive character influenced me a lot more than did my character’s appearance: I felt liked when people approached me. This confirmation bias invoked a bit of cognitive dissonance in me as well. Initially I felt distanced from the avatar, but eventually felt happy when people approached me and communicated with them through the character. I felt that behavioral confirmation pulled me closer and closer to my character because I liked when people talked to me, and wanted to act more social than usual. Thus, the character’s looks pulled more people to me, which influenced my behavior, not the character’s appearance.

However, despite my positive feelings from the 3 people that approached me, I still felt overwhelmingly disconnected with night club guy, and never approached too many people, or felt completely conformable with them. My behavior contradicts experiment 1 in the Yee study. My character was attractive and appeared outgoing. However, instead of approaching more people than I usually would and engaging in more conversations, I exhibited more antisocial, apathetic behavior than usual. In most new environments I’m much more willing to approach people and socialize, more confident in my social abilities than I was on Second Life.

My experience conflicts with the Proteus Effect Yee & Bailenson proposed. Aware of the differences in presentation between myself and my character, I refused to conform. I attribute my behavior to SIDE theory, as I felt more anonymous and distanced from my character, rather than trying to converge to his image. However, there was no immediate group identity to conform with. Thus, SIDE concludes my behavior would have less social influence on others, less conformity, and less participation in the online environment. In this sense, SIDE perfectly predicts my behavior compared to the Proteus Effect. I believe that players without such a fear of deindividualism would be more willing to accept their avatar and thus not experience the visual anonymity and distancing from Second Life that I did. Thus, SIDE doesn’t apply to visually identifiable subjects, and may allow the Proteus Effect to take control as observed in the study. Therefore, I believe SIDE and the Proteus Effect both take place, and for most players the SIDE effect is turned off due to visual identifiability, allowing the avatar to control one’s behavior. However, SIDE’s negative influence can override the Proteus Effect as it did for me.

Ultimately, I believe that if the avatar is close enough to one’s persona, the Proteus Effect allows the individual to conform to some aspects through cognitive dissonance, as they don’t feel visually anonymous. However, some people may feel too distanced from their character, and feel anonymous and distanced from the character. Thus, they will not feel the effects of behavioral confirmation or cognitive dissonance because the actions are now attributed to the character, not the user through social distancing from SIDE. This is how I started playing, viewing the character more as a remote control car rather than myself. I was drawn in a bit to embodying his personality from people approaching me, but ultimately I stayed distanced from him and didn’t experience the Proteus Effect.

Comment 1
Comment 2

Sweet (Second) Life

Since I have never really played video games before, it took me quite a bit of time to figure out Second Life and the various aspects of the game. Once I figured out how to alter the appearance of my character, I found it very interesting to see how much I could better understand the Yee & Bailenson article.

First off, Yee and Bailenson (2007) state that the Proteus Effect states is “in line with self-perception theory, [individuals] conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect them to have” (p. 274). In other words, people change their behavior in order to act the way they think they are perceived. I started off with just a regular outfit of jeans and a long sleeved shirt. With this look, I acted conservative and didn’t really speak much. Once I started altering my character to a more “seductive” look, I began acting more outgoing and flirty. This is consistent with Yee and Bailenson’s theory.

Yee and Bailenson also found that the attractiveness of the individual’s avatar had an influence on the individual’s intimacy with complete strangers. The self-disclosure of the individual would increase. Again once I started altering my character to a more “seductive look” and felt confident in my avatar’s appearance, I found I would open up and talk a lot more with other individuals.

I also believe that the fact that I had read the article before I joined Second Life affected the way I acted with others. I unconsciously found that my behavior would be consistent with the article. I then started perceiving the behavior of others based on their appearances and found that for the most part it was all consistent with the article. I enjoyed being a part of the video game world for the first time and particularly enjoyed seeing how well the article related to both me and the other members involved.