What do avatars say about who you are? This video really got me thinking…
So do our avatars actually give us a small glimpse into our soul? Apparently it does work as an indicator of some character treats, and even offers space for the personal development of the socially shy. Yet, there is much that still needs more research.
Let’s start at the fount of wisdom on the issue of avatar and identity: The Daedalus Project. Daedalus features in Greek mythology and was the father of Icarus, the first hang gliding casualty in human history. I’m still trying to find out how this relates to the projects goal of researching the “psychology of mmorpgs”.
Either way, the “The Daedalus Project” is run by Nick Yee, the top scientist in the field of MMO psychology research, and he has devoted a reasonable chunk of his resources to finding out what our avatars say about us. One of his most interesting findings was that extraverts (outgoing people) are much more likely to behave in an online game like they would in real life, while introverts (non-outgoing people) on the whole behave rather differently in online games than they do in real life. At the same time he found that introverts feel they behave more like their ‘real selves’ online than they do in real life. This raises some interesting questions about if an online environment gives introverts a place to explore their true identity in a safe way. Here is one miracle story taken from Yee’s research. Note that EQ stands for EverQuest.
Last year, I was elected as the leader of the guild I’m part of. At first, I was a bit concerned about my ability to organize 100 some people from all over the world, but the experience made me feel very empowered, and I’ve recently made the decision to pursue a career in design, something I’ve always wanted to do, but was afraid to. It’s hard to describe very eloquently why EQ helped me feel like I could do it … but it has. It’s given me confidence in myself and that gave me the push I needed to make a “scary” real life decision. [f, 34, EQ]
Great anecdote, but does it generalize? Can online multiplayer games help give people more confidence outside of the game world? And if so, how can we harvest this? More research please.
You probably already know before starting a game if you are an introvert or extravert, so this finding probably doesn’t tell you much. Yee also found that certain character classes correlate with certain playing motivations (socializing, competition, etc.). As these findings cannot be generalized to other games I’ll leave it to the WoW players among you to click on through here for the details.
More interestingly, Yee suggests that MMO behavior (including avatar styling) might be used as a sort of personality test in the future. Especially introverts would benefit from this as they show their true potential online. I’m not sure how you could stop people from faking it through such a test, but that’s a concern with regular personality tests as well. It’s an interesting idea and could use … more research?
At least there is one thing you can tell from an avatar that doesn’t need any more research: Gender. Most people assume a female avatar represents a real life female gamer in the living room. The female avatar will be treated more courteously and considered less able than male avatars. Women often pick male avatars to avoid this gender stereotyping. Men on the other hand strongly prefer to spend most of their days looking at a female avatar instead of a male one. Such gender bending ensures that many female avatars you meet online are actually played by men. Is there a link here with emancipation? More research please.
All in all, it’s clear there might be some interesting discoveries ahead of us if we could only take a closer look at what our avatars truly say about us.
If you like this subject you should watch “Ben X”. Great Belgian Movie
Good tip! Trailer looked interesting.
As one of said “introverts” myself, I can say that playing MMOs does encourage social interaction within a safe environment. It allows the socially-shy people to open up without fear of being reprimanded upon many factors (in my case, my physical appearance). It would be easy to say that just the game itself changed you, but it doesn’t. It’s a mixture of both real life and online interaction, in which the confidence gained in the online environment spurs you to push your boundaries in real life.
As for me, I made many friends, and a few certain enemies, online. The gamut of MMOs allow the socially-inept to experience every single facet of what a person could be; from the courteous, the foreigner, the newcomer, and even down to the infuriatingly ignorant people, and more beyond that. This helps in social interaction because you *learn* from it, how people talk, react, and things like that.
Onto the subjects of avatars, for the socially inept, they will almost always design and mold their avatars not as a “who I am” facet, but more of a “who I want to be” mindset. It’s just my word for it, though, so I may be wrong.
Thanks for sharing your story. I can definitely see that the online social arena can be a safe environment to experiment and grow in. For my own two cents: I gender-bend most of the time. I often play with male avatars, and even outside of gaming I often use male user names on forums and such. In gaming, the male models often look better (but maybe that is because I’m a women …) and in any online environment I’d rather pose as one of the crowd (of males), then stand out simply for being a girl. Times are changing though, so I might stop doing that in a few years.
I’d say that I design my avatar’s based more off my personality than my look, I’ve never chosen a female av, and to be honest, unless choosing a female character has benefits or skills that the male character doesn’t, it actually does seem a little strange.
I’m proud of who and what I am, and I’m not afraid to display that to an extent, I won’t go out of my way to create the closest possible clone of my real life face etc. I’ll generally just choose something that looks cool to fit the character build I’m working towards.
SL is rampant with genderbending from what I hear, I wonder if there isn’t a sexual element involved.
@Lee: Are you an introvert (non-outgoing person) by any chance? It would fit Nick Yee’s findings
introvert? kind of, one thing I found though is people notice that I talk exactly the same on the internet as in real life.
I’m actually a musician, so I spend hours and hours alone (working on music, sometimes for months on end without really interacting with the outside world) but then want to go and share it with the world in a big way when I think it’s ready (extraverted I think?)
@Lee: Here are some dictionary definitions to help you out.
Extraversion is “the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self”.
Introversion is “the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one’s own mental life”
So-called “ambiversion” is a mix of the two. Either way, our society puts a bit of negative interpretation on introversion, but it’s really only a neutral personality description. I’d say from your words that you tend to introversion and that that is exactly what allows you to be creative! According to Nick Yee’s theory about online avatars, introverts often feel that they can be more themselves online. The fact that you don’t gender-bend and stay yourself (or an idealized form of yourself) online, fits the theory perfectly
Myself, I’d say I’m an ambivert. Not so much because I am balanced between introversion and extraversion, but more because I switch between the two depending on mood and situation. I can see that reflected in my gaming avatars too. Sometimes I create idealized versions of myself, other times I gender-bend away from that
that’s kind of cool to know, I think I’ll read up on Yee’s findings some more