A new study by UAlberta researchers examines how we select our avatars in online virtual spaces. Photo credit: CC
If you could make your online avatar as attractive as you wanted, would you? It turns out that for most, some minor tweaks will do, according to a new study by University of Alberta researchers.
The paper, which examines the relationship between online avatars and the people that they represent, suggests that people tend to balance their motives for self-verification-to be themselves-and for self-enhancement.
"People participate in many different online environments where they are asked to choose their own self-representation," said Eleni Stroulia, professor in the Department of Computing Science and collaborator on the study. "We wanted to examine which aspects of their identity people choose to embellish and how much, and what these choices imply for their online behaviors."
While study participants were found to largely retain identity characteristics, such as ethnicity and gender, they tend to change elements such as body type, hair, and clothing. And part of this phenomenon also appears to translate to behaviour.
The study found that most users select online avatars that reflect minor tweaks to their real life appearance. Image credit: Eleni Stroulia
"Part of our research says that people with more attractive representations of themselves online report that their behavior online is more extroverted, loud, and risk-taking," added Paul Messinger, associate professor in the Alberta School of Business and co-author. "We expect that they keep their core behavioral traits, but some of their behavioral traits become amplified or enhanced just like they enhance some of their appearance traits."
The researchers examined the virtual world called Second Life, where they looked at avatars and photos of the people they represent. The study also involved a self-assessment survey of Second Life users.
"Understanding these processes might enable us to motivate desirable behaviors in online platforms by giving users choices of the types of avatars that inspire these behaviors," added Stroulia.
This research is the result of a collaboration between the Faculty of Science and the Alberta School of Business. The paper, "Reflections of the extended self: Visual self-representation in avatar-mediated environments," was published in the Journal of Business Research (doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.12.020).