In my first online gaming experience I went to Second Life to explore the environment. I began by creating an Avatar that looked similar to me. She was tall, blonde hair, some freckles and wore jeans and a t-shirt and I felt she looked attractive. When I began on
I walked around a bit and tried to find people that were doing something that I could start a conversation about. First time around, I had a hard time positioning my avatar to face the other person I was trying to talk to so that conversation was fairly short. However, when I was talking to different people I did not notice a distinct difference between those who I spoke to and those who I did not. I think I approached a variety of males and females and did not discriminate on who I chose to talk to based on their looks.
Yee & Bailenson said in their hypothesis number one that those avatars that are more attractive will have more confidence and this is evident in their positioning. Attractive avatars got closer to other avatars then unattractive avatars did. I did not experience this and perhaps it was because I felt that I was an attractive avatar. I feel as thought just as it is true in real life people who feel attractive and have more confidence do not notice the insecurity issues and different behavioral patterns that go along with that insecurity because they do not experience it themselves. Thus it is difficult to accurately say if Yee & Bailenson's hypothesis is correct.
Monday, November 12, 2007
A Bad Advantage - Second Life
10 World of ... MakeoutCraft???
Interesting assignment. When I found out I had to put an hour into an online game, I decided I'd enlist the help of one of my friends who is an avid World of Warcraft player. I jogged to his room and kicked his door in - sure enough, he's sitting there, headphones and all, slaying some big red beastie in the Molten Core. I tell him I need to borrow an hour on his throne of glory, to do an assignment, but I had to wait about 45 minutes so he could "finish a boss". When it was my turn, I began creating a character on an RPG (role-playing) server, figuring there'd be more immersion in an environment where people were taking their characters seriously.
My avatar was "Pogger" - a little, bumpy Gnome from Dun Morogh, whose special class was that of a Mage. He was short, bald, and had a beard down to his navel. He looked like an old Buddhist monk, but had a special fire in his eyes - this gnome was pure insanity.
First thing Pogger does, when arriving in the snowy white landscape of the Newbie zone, was strip naked and march toward the city of Iron Forge. Once there, I began to take advantage of my freakish appearance and start to harass other players, asking them totally obnoxious questions like "Where's the strip club?" and "Will you be my online lover?"
My friend informed me that I was blatantly breaking the rules of the RPG server, which is to assume a character and not to disrupt the role-playing atmosphere by talking "out-of-character." In retort, I told him that my character was a total maniac gnome who runs around in a loincloth and who enjoys jumping into big fire braziers to take naps. What's more, Pogger is entirely aware that he exists in a virtual world and tries to awaken the other people in Iron Forge ... by repeatedly telling them that they are in the Matrix. I was even able to use Pogger's personality to convince over 20 other players to strip naked and begin a mass dance orgy on some big hot fire pit.
At one point, a lovely Night Elf named Mirkala offered me some clothing, but I quickly refused and suggested she allow me to try her clothes on, instead. She suddenly assumed the appearance of a panther and disappeared. Girls.
Pogger also wandered into a train station area, where he found two other characters in the midst of romance. They were having the equivalent of a WoW cyber makeout. Pogger became intrigued and sped toward the action, casting an Ice Shield spell, and told them a joke. He then danced between the two lovers and sang the words of his favorite Nine Inch Nails song, "Closer."
Obviously, this was a fun assignment, and after reading the Yee and Bailenson article, I must say that my experience confirms some of their predictions. Yee and Bailenson state that people "who have more attractive avatars [exhibit] increased self-disclosure" - while my character was certainly not very pretty looking or tall, and therefore initially attractive, he was still able to create attraction with his eccentric look and charismatic behavior. His appearance had virtually no effect on me: I simply decided I wanted to have fun with the character and goof off. One obvious symbol within the gaming world, which seemed to factor into player interactions more than avatar attractiveness, was avatar "level" and "equipment" - symbols of status and skill within the World of Warcraft. My character had none of that, and for that reason, was not taken seriously to begin with - even on a role-playing server.
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My avatar was "Pogger" - a little, bumpy Gnome from Dun Morogh, whose special class was that of a Mage. He was short, bald, and had a beard down to his navel. He looked like an old Buddhist monk, but had a special fire in his eyes - this gnome was pure insanity.
First thing Pogger does, when arriving in the snowy white landscape of the Newbie zone, was strip naked and march toward the city of Iron Forge. Once there, I began to take advantage of my freakish appearance and start to harass other players, asking them totally obnoxious questions like "Where's the strip club?" and "Will you be my online lover?"
My friend informed me that I was blatantly breaking the rules of the RPG server, which is to assume a character and not to disrupt the role-playing atmosphere by talking "out-of-character." In retort, I told him that my character was a total maniac gnome who runs around in a loincloth and who enjoys jumping into big fire braziers to take naps. What's more, Pogger is entirely aware that he exists in a virtual world and tries to awaken the other people in Iron Forge ... by repeatedly telling them that they are in the Matrix. I was even able to use Pogger's personality to convince over 20 other players to strip naked and begin a mass dance orgy on some big hot fire pit.
At one point, a lovely Night Elf named Mirkala offered me some clothing, but I quickly refused and suggested she allow me to try her clothes on, instead. She suddenly assumed the appearance of a panther and disappeared. Girls.
Pogger also wandered into a train station area, where he found two other characters in the midst of romance. They were having the equivalent of a WoW cyber makeout. Pogger became intrigued and sped toward the action, casting an Ice Shield spell, and told them a joke. He then danced between the two lovers and sang the words of his favorite Nine Inch Nails song, "Closer."
Obviously, this was a fun assignment, and after reading the Yee and Bailenson article, I must say that my experience confirms some of their predictions. Yee and Bailenson state that people "who have more attractive avatars [exhibit] increased self-disclosure" - while my character was certainly not very pretty looking or tall, and therefore initially attractive, he was still able to create attraction with his eccentric look and charismatic behavior. His appearance had virtually no effect on me: I simply decided I wanted to have fun with the character and goof off. One obvious symbol within the gaming world, which seemed to factor into player interactions more than avatar attractiveness, was avatar "level" and "equipment" - symbols of status and skill within the World of Warcraft. My character had none of that, and for that reason, was not taken seriously to begin with - even on a role-playing server.
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10: Absolutely everything was the same... except I could fly
"I signed up for Second Life about a year ago. Back then, my life was so great I literally wanted a second one.
Absolutely everything was the same... except I could fly."
-Dwight Schrute
Throughout the course of this semester I have becoming increasingly interested in joining the magical world of Second Life. Besides the occasional references to the site in class, Second Life has been a central theme in a number of television crime dramas that depict this virtual world as incredibly creepy; in turn making me incredibly interested. To my delight, as soon as my avatar Marli Morrisey was born, I quickly realized that the world of Second Life had just as much creepster-potential as I had assumed. After choosing my “city-chic girl” appearance, I embarked on getting off of Orientation Island which required me to complete a number of tasks such as moving as well as locating a torch in my “inventory” and then putting it in my hand. This is all easier said than done; throughout my Second Life adventures I was forced to restart my unbreakable Mac about 4 times because it froze, a situation I had never before encountered on this perfect machine. Additionally, it took some time to get a feel for how things worked in Second Life in terms of communicating with other users. While in a chat room you can allow conversations to fade on their own, in Second Life you have to deliberately move your avatar away from who you are communicating with in order to truly signal the end of a conversation. Also, although I was conscientiously aware of the fact that the avatar was just a medium through which to maneuver the site, when communicating with other users I made sure to be “facing” their avatar as if we were actually looking at one another.
Although I did not spend enough time in Second Life to fully and completely understand the ways of the virtual reality culture, as I walked (and flew!) about the various Second Life islands, I was forced to communicate with a number of avatars as I sought guidance from others. Unlike the study by Yee & Bailenson, I did not feel that my actions in Second Life were determined by the way my avatar looked. However, what I did find interesting was the way I perceived others based on the appearance of their avatar. While I did not make my avatar particularly tall or attractive, when I sought guidance I did choose taller and more attractive avatars with which to communicate. In keeping with the findings of Yee & Bailenson, these avatars did in fact communicate in a particularly confident manner. While I did not think that my behavior was affected by my avatar, I did contribute other avatar’s behavior to the way they were physically represented. Additionally, I think that my perceptions of the people behind the avatar were much stronger in Second Life than, for instance, a screen name would be in a chat room. For example, I immediately assumed the avatars with wings were a little strange and really into Second Life. While this does not support the findings of Yee & Bailenson, it does offer further support for the Hyperpersonal Model by which we form exaggerated opinions of people based on limited information in CMC.
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10 The Proteus Effect and Second Life
Online fantasy games such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft have long attracted a subset of the population. Unlike Second Life, these games allow users to indulge orc-slaying fantasies and explore Lord of the Rings-esque landscapes. Though the cyber universe might seem best suited to providing outlets for virtual adventures impossible in the real world, Second Life has reached a large demographic that prefers buying cyber groceries to attending virtual elf weddings.
When users first sign up for Second Life, they construct an avatar. Every aspect of this avatar’s appearance is left up to the user, and the number of potential avatars is virtually limitless due to the large number of changeable variables offered. Once users are satisfied with their creation, they are encouraged to explore the Second Life world. Users can easily find social events and other attractions to attend. For a fee, they can even acquire property, from a small plot to an entire island. Users are also free to create or build anything they like using tools provided in Second Life. They then retain rights to this virtual creation and can sell it to others in the cyber world.
Yee and Bailenson demonstrated evidence for the Proteus Effect, in which a person’s behavior is governed, in part, by the features of the avatar assigned to them. Their experiments showed that more attractive avatars offered more intimate self-disclosures and taller avatars were more confident negotiators. When I signed up for Second Life, I decided to create a tall avatar. The avatar resembled me in almost every way except height. I explored Second Life, attending a nightclub as well as a shopping mall where I talked to various avatars. While Yee and Bailenson predict that I would behave differently while inhabiting a tall avatar, I found no evidence of behaving more dominantly or self-assuredly in Second Life than I normally would. This could have stemmed in part from my “newbie” status, but I think the nature of this self-experiment makes an accurate behavioral assessment difficult. In addition, Yee and Bailenson’s experimental situation was fundamentally different from the one employed in this exercise. While they studied situations in which avatars were assigned to users, I was allowed to create an avatar with features of my own choosing. This difference in freedom could lead to a difference in behavioral results.
When users first sign up for Second Life, they construct an avatar. Every aspect of this avatar’s appearance is left up to the user, and the number of potential avatars is virtually limitless due to the large number of changeable variables offered. Once users are satisfied with their creation, they are encouraged to explore the Second Life world. Users can easily find social events and other attractions to attend. For a fee, they can even acquire property, from a small plot to an entire island. Users are also free to create or build anything they like using tools provided in Second Life. They then retain rights to this virtual creation and can sell it to others in the cyber world.
Yee and Bailenson demonstrated evidence for the Proteus Effect, in which a person’s behavior is governed, in part, by the features of the avatar assigned to them. Their experiments showed that more attractive avatars offered more intimate self-disclosures and taller avatars were more confident negotiators. When I signed up for Second Life, I decided to create a tall avatar. The avatar resembled me in almost every way except height. I explored Second Life, attending a nightclub as well as a shopping mall where I talked to various avatars. While Yee and Bailenson predict that I would behave differently while inhabiting a tall avatar, I found no evidence of behaving more dominantly or self-assuredly in Second Life than I normally would. This could have stemmed in part from my “newbie” status, but I think the nature of this self-experiment makes an accurate behavioral assessment difficult. In addition, Yee and Bailenson’s experimental situation was fundamentally different from the one employed in this exercise. While they studied situations in which avatars were assigned to users, I was allowed to create an avatar with features of my own choosing. This difference in freedom could lead to a difference in behavioral results.
10: Giant Parrot Attached to My Head and Other Second Life Adventures
The Proteus Effect, as described by Yee & Bailenson (2007), asserts that the way one behaves in a visual online environment is partly dependent on the appearance of one's virtual character. They state that users "may conform to the expectations and stereotypes of the identity of their avatars" (Yee & Bailenson 274). For example, attractiveness is typically associated with confidence and friendliness. Indeed, in their experiments, they found that users with more attractive avatars tended to move closer to their peers and disclose more personal information than those with less attractive avatars. Similarly, height is often associated with self-esteem and competence, and people with tall avatars were found to be more aggressive, confident negotiators than people with short avatars.
I chose to explore the virtual environment Second Life to see if I could detect the Proteus Effect at work. After choosing a standard male avatar, I was dropped onto a tutorial island where I learned how to walk, change my appearance, and fly. I then began to explore the rest of the world. For fun, I gave myself a muscular torso and pink hair. I flew around for a bit, and came across a variety of typical Second Life sights and sounds such as the following:
Even though I was a muscular, tall guy, I didn't feel quite as confident as the Proteus Effect might imply. I think that this was partly due to the fact that it was my first time in Second Life and I was a little scared to just start interacting with other people. But this all changed when I discovered a store with a huge array of free items, including vehicles. One of these vehicles was a giant dead parrot. Now, I'm not sure if there was a way to get on top of the parrot as if I were riding it. I didn't quite get that far in the Second Life tutorial. All I know is that somehow, this huge creature eventually ended up on top of my head, driving its talons into my skull.
Suddenly, I felt a huge boost of confidence. You can't get much taller than if you have a giant dead parrot resting comfortably on top of your head. I began to act more aggressive, running into and around other people. I said things like, "Help! There's a giant parrot on my head!" which were, regrettably, generally ignored by my would-be saviors.
My larger-than-life appearance lifted some of the initial hesitancy that I experienced when first starting up Second Life and definitely made me braver in exploring my environment. Still, when I was parrot-less, my behavior did not vary much regardless of the changes I made to my clothing, physique, and looks. Some possible explanations for this could be that, as a new player, I was usually paying more attention to the world around me than myself. Also, my back was usually facing the camera, leading me to either forget or not care about what I looked like.
Comments:
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-clueless-and-naked.html
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-hour-with-sasha-proteus-effect-in.html
I chose to explore the virtual environment Second Life to see if I could detect the Proteus Effect at work. After choosing a standard male avatar, I was dropped onto a tutorial island where I learned how to walk, change my appearance, and fly. I then began to explore the rest of the world. For fun, I gave myself a muscular torso and pink hair. I flew around for a bit, and came across a variety of typical Second Life sights and sounds such as the following:
Even though I was a muscular, tall guy, I didn't feel quite as confident as the Proteus Effect might imply. I think that this was partly due to the fact that it was my first time in Second Life and I was a little scared to just start interacting with other people. But this all changed when I discovered a store with a huge array of free items, including vehicles. One of these vehicles was a giant dead parrot. Now, I'm not sure if there was a way to get on top of the parrot as if I were riding it. I didn't quite get that far in the Second Life tutorial. All I know is that somehow, this huge creature eventually ended up on top of my head, driving its talons into my skull.
Suddenly, I felt a huge boost of confidence. You can't get much taller than if you have a giant dead parrot resting comfortably on top of your head. I began to act more aggressive, running into and around other people. I said things like, "Help! There's a giant parrot on my head!" which were, regrettably, generally ignored by my would-be saviors.
My larger-than-life appearance lifted some of the initial hesitancy that I experienced when first starting up Second Life and definitely made me braver in exploring my environment. Still, when I was parrot-less, my behavior did not vary much regardless of the changes I made to my clothing, physique, and looks. Some possible explanations for this could be that, as a new player, I was usually paying more attention to the world around me than myself. Also, my back was usually facing the camera, leading me to either forget or not care about what I looked like.
Comments:
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-clueless-and-naked.html
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-hour-with-sasha-proteus-effect-in.html
Assignment 10: The Proteus Effect on Second Life
There are constantly new opportunities for social interaction on the internet. With each the advent of new cyber space comes new ways to interact with people and patterns of behavior to examine. The phenomenon of behavioral confirmation, behaving in a way that confirms people’s expectations of a person (Snyder, Tanke & Berscheid, 1977) has been applied to many psychological situations. As virtual environments became popular and people were able to create representation of themselves online in the form of avatars, certain new ways of applying behavioral confirmation can be seen. The Proteus Effect attempts to explain how an “individual’s behavior conforms to their digital self-representation independent of how others perceive them” (Yee & Bailenson, 2007).
I chose to explore the virtual environment Second Life, an internet space where one can create an avatar, interact with other people’s avatars online, chat with people, and perform other actions within the virtual space. In Second Life, a person can control nearly every aspect of their avatar’s appearance—from the size of the space between his/her teeth, to height of their socks. I chose to create the avatar named Allegra Compton and dressed her in a very short mini skirt and tight shirt. I gave her long bleach-blonde hair and overall attractive facial features. Once I entered Second Life and began wandering around Orientation Island (where most avatars begin to learn Second Life techniques) I noticed that most of the avatars on the island I considered to be attractive as well.
Within the first few minute of my time on Orientation Island I walked directly up to several of the other people there and said hello. After discovering the “flying” feature on Second Life, I flew to a more removed part of the island and found a male avatar there who appeared to be doing something with a large balloon. I landed from my flight and went over to him and said “hi, I’m new here…what are you doing?” He replied “trying to find monies” and quickly walked away from me, clearly preoccupied.
I also decided to use the search feature to look for places to go where I might find other avatars that looked like my own. Then I teleported myself to a clothing store that had clothes for only the most beautiful avatars.
I do think my behavior as an avatar displayed the Proteus Effect. My willingness to walk right up to avatars and say hello is related to Yee & Bailenson’s first hypothesis in their paper, which says that attractive avatars walked closer to other avatars than did unattractive avatars. It is most apparent in the fact that I felt as if I could walk up to another avatar that was clearly preoccupied and not looking to chat. I was confident enough in my avatar’s appearance not to care what he did.
My action in teleporting to the clothing store also exhibits a facet of the Proteus Effect. Although the Proteus Effect is related to SIDE theory, the Proteus Effect emphasizes the fact that certain behaviors would exist even when my avatar was alone, whereas SIDE theory emphasized the presence of a group’s social norms affecting behavior. When I teleported to the clothing store, I did not know what kind of people would be there, or if I would find any people there. Yet, I still behaved as the attractive avatar I was.
I think it is also worthy to note the implications behind the fact that I chose to be an attractive avatar in the first place. I was excited at the prospect of exploring Second Life and I wanted to interact with several other people in this virtual environment. I figured that the best way to do so was to create an attractive avatar. This focuses in on a major difference between my experience on Second Life and the experience of the participants in Yee and Bailensen’s study. I was able to choose my avatar’s appearance, whereas Yee and Bailensen’s participants were not. This difference aside, I do think that the Proteus Effect was present in my behavior here.
I chose to explore the virtual environment Second Life, an internet space where one can create an avatar, interact with other people’s avatars online, chat with people, and perform other actions within the virtual space. In Second Life, a person can control nearly every aspect of their avatar’s appearance—from the size of the space between his/her teeth, to height of their socks. I chose to create the avatar named Allegra Compton and dressed her in a very short mini skirt and tight shirt. I gave her long bleach-blonde hair and overall attractive facial features. Once I entered Second Life and began wandering around Orientation Island (where most avatars begin to learn Second Life techniques) I noticed that most of the avatars on the island I considered to be attractive as well.
Within the first few minute of my time on Orientation Island I walked directly up to several of the other people there and said hello. After discovering the “flying” feature on Second Life, I flew to a more removed part of the island and found a male avatar there who appeared to be doing something with a large balloon. I landed from my flight and went over to him and said “hi, I’m new here…what are you doing?” He replied “trying to find monies” and quickly walked away from me, clearly preoccupied.
I also decided to use the search feature to look for places to go where I might find other avatars that looked like my own. Then I teleported myself to a clothing store that had clothes for only the most beautiful avatars.
I do think my behavior as an avatar displayed the Proteus Effect. My willingness to walk right up to avatars and say hello is related to Yee & Bailenson’s first hypothesis in their paper, which says that attractive avatars walked closer to other avatars than did unattractive avatars. It is most apparent in the fact that I felt as if I could walk up to another avatar that was clearly preoccupied and not looking to chat. I was confident enough in my avatar’s appearance not to care what he did.
My action in teleporting to the clothing store also exhibits a facet of the Proteus Effect. Although the Proteus Effect is related to SIDE theory, the Proteus Effect emphasizes the fact that certain behaviors would exist even when my avatar was alone, whereas SIDE theory emphasized the presence of a group’s social norms affecting behavior. When I teleported to the clothing store, I did not know what kind of people would be there, or if I would find any people there. Yet, I still behaved as the attractive avatar I was.
I think it is also worthy to note the implications behind the fact that I chose to be an attractive avatar in the first place. I was excited at the prospect of exploring Second Life and I wanted to interact with several other people in this virtual environment. I figured that the best way to do so was to create an attractive avatar. This focuses in on a major difference between my experience on Second Life and the experience of the participants in Yee and Bailensen’s study. I was able to choose my avatar’s appearance, whereas Yee and Bailensen’s participants were not. This difference aside, I do think that the Proteus Effect was present in my behavior here.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
10: First Time on Second Life
I participated in the Second Life, and I was my first time using a computer mediated multi-player game. I thought the experience was really interesting but the whole experience left me wondering how people can possibly spend so much time interacting in another “world.” My options for creating an actual avatar on second life were fairly limited. I choose one of the basic Nightclub avatars and then from there was given the options of only choosing from generic taller and fairly attractive avatars; there were not any really unattractive avatars to choose from. Yee and Bailenson discussed this same issue of limitations in creating avatars with certain features. Once I was actually in the game and began playing there was so many options, and places to go it was somewhat overwhelming.
Because I knew that my avatar was attractive I initially felt that is was OK to approach more people and start up conversations. I felt a slight increase in confidence knowing that my avatar was attractive even though I was very unsure of the customs and culture of Second Life. After a while though that confidence wore off because I knew that this avatar I was controlling had nothing to do with me in reality. My reasoning was “why should I act like I am extremely attractive or act like I have more confidence when in reality this game means nothing and to me will have no effect on how I really view myself.” Perhaps that was a very pessimistic view to have, but after reading the article on The Proteus Effect I was already aware of what my tendencies may be if I believed I was attractive.
Even though I may have not been in line with what Yee and Bailenson found because I was pre-exposed to their findings (and knew what to expect) I realized that when other avatars that were attractive approached they seemed to disclose a lot more personal information than those who were less attractive. I found this especially true in group setting on second life. I was once conversing in a group with two avatars and two of the three in the group were noticeably more fashionable and attractive. The other avatar did not converse as much and a few times their ideas and comments were actually put down.
So as found in the Proteus Effect I noticed that there was more confidence, self disclosure, and praise in dealings with attractive avatars than those who were less attractive. One particular concept that Yee and Bailenson found in their study that I thought was interesting was that the increase in confidence and dominance in behavior was almost immediate. I thought it would take time for someone, even if they knew they were attractive, to become comfortable enough to demonstrate those individual qualities.
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