May 21, 2008...11:30 am
Does playing second life affect your real life?
Second Life, the popular online virtual world, supposedly affects your real life interactions with humans based upon some new research. The research that Jeremy Balinson and his colleagues did at Stanford University’s Virtual Human Instruction Lab “suggests that the qualities you acquire online — whether it’s confidence or insecurity — can spill over and change your conduct in the real world, often without your awareness.”
In one experiment, published in Human Communication Research last year…thirty-two volunteers were randomly assigned an attractive or unattractive avatar (attractiveness was rated by undergrads in a survey beforehand) and instructed to look at them in a virtual mirror for 90 seconds. Then they were asked to interact with other avatars, controlled by the experimenters, in a classroom-like setting. Overall, subjects using good-looking avatars tended to display more confidence, friendliness and extroversion, just as in the real world: they approached avatar strangers within three feet, and in conversations tended to disclose more personal details. Ugly-duckling avatars, meanwhile, stayed five and a half feet away from strangers and were more tight-lipped.
In a different study, the height of an avatar affected how aggressive the real people were. People who had taller avatars were less willing to split a pot of money evenly than those who were using short avatars. When the “splitting the pot of money” research was moved from avatars to real life, those that had the taller avatars (regardless of their real hight) were still more aggressive with a real person than those who had the short avatars (regardless of their real hight).
Finally, researchers found that watching an avatar that looks similar to you workout may cause you to do more exercise yourself (in real life). 75 Stanford U. students were randomly broken up into 3 groups:
one group watched their look-alike avatars run on treadmills for about five and a half minutes; another group saw their virtual counterparts lounge around; and a third watched avatars who did not look like them, but were of the same age and sex, run on treadmills. A day later, Fox [the person doing the research] found that participants who watched avatars of their own likeness exercising had themselves exercised an hour more in the intervening 24-hour period than people in the other two groups.
I was kind of surprised by these results because when I did a bit of research on Second Life a year and a half ago, I don’t think it affected me in how I interacted with people. Of course, I was going there for reasons other than to exercise or be more social, I was actually doing research on SL’s use for libraries and librarians. The results sound pretty convincing to someone who hasn’t had any scholarly training in psychology.
What do you think? Do you think that you can get people to feel better about themselves by having them walk around as a supermodel in second life? Is this just the power of positive thinking at work? Sort of a self-hypnosis in the virtual world?
2 Comments
May 22, 2008 at 7:51 am
Just 2 points.
First .. again an unneeded high cost study. You don t have to be a rocketscientist to know that even we are in a virtual world like Second Life that the avatar is steered by a human being. And concerning money (in this case Linden$) do you split with others how tall they may look in RL? Maybe you are than the biblical Good Samaritan.
Second .. Am already a year in SL, and made me some very good Virtual Friends. We can talk about everything or nothing. And when it goes rough in RL we try to comfort each other. Why? Well RL is so much egocentric now a days that nobody is caring for nobody except for his/her holy own.
And that being an Avatar in SL does influence your beheaviour in RL that s possible. BUT don t we all use terms like “LOL” in spoken language now a days? And that s from the beginning of the chatboxes. And that some People are competing with eachother (even as avatar) Thats the RL who kicks in into SL.
And yes i think a lot of people are happy when walking around as a as yu called “supermodel” in SL. At least there they can wear whatever kind of clothes they like without being judged … and if someone starts judging avatars on their appearence, then it s time for that person to close his/her account and consult some good psy.
May 22, 2008 at 10:20 am
Interesting. I don’t know much about second life really but i would think it is like anything on the internet or in the virtual world. It can make you feel somehow diffferent then you really are. That’s how so many “cyber” affairs happen etc. People feel more confident, more sexy, if you will, and freer to do and say things to a ‘virtual” stranger then they would in real life. They get caught up in it, and it becomes “real life”. I think the internet and virtual world can be very dangerous for a lot of people. Once you leave the internet or the virtual world you are still who you really are. the real world, reality, your LIFE is still here! It doesn’t change because of an avatar that someone has made to look sexier then you really are etc. I think that’s why kids get so caught up in my space. They feel more confident, more assertive, more able to be people they aren’t in real life and it can get them into trouble. Just my humble opinion.
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