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.