Assignment 10- I think I still like my first life better.

Upon being given this assignment, I was excited to finally have the opportunity to explore one of the virtual worlds that I had heard so much about in class. I decided to make an account on Second Life, partly because it’s free and partly because I used to love playing The Sims so I thought I would like Second Life as well. I didn’t have as great a Second Life experience as I thought I would. For one thing, my computer didn’t seem to be able to handle rendering the 3D virtual environment. It froze several times and ran really slowly in general. I attempted to fix this by changing the graphics options, but my system still crashed several times. Most of the time I did get to play in Second Life was spent attempting to figure out how to use my avatar and how to navigate through the virtual world.

The avatar I picked looked like she was ready to go out to a club. Like almost all females in Second Life, she was thin and wearing a skin tight outfit. I didn’t really feel like looking “sexy” made me stand out at all. I don’t think the Proteus effect applied to the interactions I had with others. I wasn’t outgoing and friendly because my avatar was attractive, I behaved in this manner because I was trying to get a feel for the Second Life world and the people that inhabited it. Rather than conforming to individual identity cues, as is dictated by the Proteus effect, I found that group identity was much more salient to my interactions with people. I was very aware of the fact that I was a “newbie.” Contrary to what I had heard about entering Second Life as a newbie, it was my experience that most people just ignored me. In various articles I have read on the subject, it was made to seem that people were often nice to new players and went out of their way to show them around. While I did manage to find some resources for new players, I had to seek these out on the Internet because I was too inept at navigating through Second Life’s GUI to figure out where I should go.

Overall, I think my Second Life experience was unduly affected by technological problems and I didn’t get the opportunity to make an informed judgment about self-perception and its effect on one’s interactions with others. My interactions in Second Life were primarily based on two group identities – that of a newbie and that of a member of COMM 245 attempting to gather information for a blog. The fact that I looked like I should be dancing on top of a bar at a dance club had little impact on my behavior.

Assignment 10: Creating myself, unknowingly

I, like many others in class, are not gamers whatsoever. I was, at first, completely intimidated of this assignment. In fact, I didn’t even know where to go about playing one such game. I figured these environments are expensive games that must be bought. Little did I know it only took a Google search for the phrase, “Second Life” before I was on my way. Being a newbie I took the easy route and began creating and playing around in Linden Labs. To my amazement, I was very surprised at the relative ease of use, great graphics, and HUGE amount of control we had over our own experience.

My first action was to create a name. Not fully sure of what this meant or how it would effect my interactions for the next hour, I went with probably the most awkward gender neutral name I could think of, Rabbit Gabardini. Next I was prompted to decide my gender. Interestingly, the thought of being anything other than myself didn’t come into mind until I read some of the other blogs, in which males were females, intentionally fat, super tall, or perfectly “hot.” So as a result, I went on creating my avatar as though he was me. Likewise, I had his actions reflect my own actions. I didn’t really try flying until I was asked to, because, we’ll I don’t fly. Instead, I went through the tutorial in an obedient and studious way, much like I would follow the instructions on a test, or not talk out of turn in lecture. Additionally, while creating the appearance of my avatar, I dressed him similar to me, creating his features as though they were an extension of my own. I am not a confrontational person in anyway. I even felt bad when I walked into someone’s avatar and sort of pushed them around (by mistake). To my disappointment, I was unable to find someone to speak with. I could be wrong (As I was not completely sure of what I was doing since the controls and game was new to me), but I believe at some point I even put out a general call to anyone saying “hello, any one else new at this and want to chat?” -- No response. This conversation would have really helped me in determining how Yee & Bailenson’s description of the Proteus Effect effected me. They described this effect as, “the effect of transformed self-representation on behavior.”

Despite any lack of communication, I did get a solid feeling of how my avatar effected my actions. My avatar was an extension of myself. As a result, he, that is Rabbit Gabardini, acted like me since he, in my mind, was representing myself in this online environment. As a result, I did not feel deindividuated. Yee & Bailenson discuss deindividuation theory, and how Zimbardo (1996) used it. I completely agree with Yee and Bailenson that it, “can lead to both prosocial and antisocial behavior.” Unlike the idea that a crowded area would result in a lack of social behavior, I would definitely have been curious to go check out something or someone, had there been a problem, in fact more so in this deindividuated environment. Finally, I also agree with Yee and Bailenson’s discussion of how SIDE is manipulated and used within such environments. Second life and other such games definitely do create a certain degree of anonymity for the actual users. However, despite this deindividuation, there is normative and social behavior found within the virtual community itself. It’s really interesting how these virtual environments and avatars, yet an attempt at a “second life” (pun intended), do not seem to follow directly along the lines of some of the key theories we’ve been discussing in class.

The Dreamboat of World of Warcraft (Assignment 10)

Earlier in the semester, we were assigned to enter an online space that we had never been on before and interact with others. I decided to play World of Warcraft, and an entire new world was revealed to me. I have not played since that day, so I decided to make a glorious return to the game for Assignment 10.

Like the first time I played, I used one of my friend’s avatars since I did not have one. He is a towering figure, a Barbarian of sorts, but with warlock capabilities. You probably you do know what this means, but that is fine because I don’t either. Basically my friend explained that his character is a rare yet powerful one with a very high skill level. This sounded good to me.

My experience playing the game did in fact support the Proteus effect and the hypotheses presented by Yee and Bailensen. The Proteus effect says that users may become deindividuated online and begin to act like their new, online identity, otherwise known as an avatar. People may begin to abandon their real self and begin to act in accordance with stereotypes associated with their avatar appearance. My character was a tall, shirtless barbarian, similar to a modern day Hercules of sorts. I felt empowered and in control, like no one could stand up and stop me. Yee and Bailensen hypothesized hat taller and more attractive figures may act more dominant in these situations.

One of the first things I did was go into a shop and try to sell bags of gold to other characters. I approached a group of three characters that consisted of a woman warlock, a small, red-haired barbarian, and a small, monster like creature. In other words, their avatars could not compare with the physical specimen that was my avatar. I suavely asked if any of them needed what I was selling, and the woman warlock said sure and bought some. My friend told me that by looking at the woman’s possessions and characteristics, he could tell that she was in no real dire need of acquiring gold. Therefore, this shows me that she gave in to the power of my avatar. The appearance of a big, strong, handsome, imposing figure affected the way she acted. My tall stature, attractive appearance, and high skill level in a sense made me fearless and unafraid to interact with any player.

One other interaction that conformed to the Proteus effect was when I decided to engage on a group mission with five other characters. We had to select a group leader for the mission, and I boldly volunteered despite the act that I had no idea what I was doing. This idea was accepted wholeheartedly by the group with no objections whatsoever. This is in line with the thoughts and ideas of Yee and Bailensen because I felt empowered by my stature and appearance, essentially eliminating most if not all fear. I wanted to lead, and felt an obligation of responsibility of sorts as such an imposing figure to lead. And at the same time, the smaller, less imposing characters agreed to let me do so because they were almost subservient to a massive, more attractive character. They did not offer alternatives or stand up to volunteer. I believe my character’s appearance swayed them from doing this.

10: Bringing Thomas Jefferson Back to (Second) Life

For my assignment, I chose to create a character in Second Life. Dressed in “nightclub” attire and sporting the “shaved head “ look, the contemporary, and politically aware, MrThomas Jefferson dawned n the Second Life online space ready for political input, Founding Fatherly advice, and innovation participation (I saw ‘Jefferson’ as an available last name for my avatar and took advantage). He was relatively tall and had a symmetrical face with several attractive body and facial features. Before I describe what I encountered in this space, however, I’ll first discuss some of Second Life’s attributes.

This space begins with a short tutorial to help a user learn the basics including walking, chatting, and utilizing the toolbar. After the tutorial, you are left to discover this enormous virtual space. The amount of possible locations to visit with your avatar seems endless. There are political forums, fashion islands, specific interest areas, and even a Cornell class is on Second Life. One can transport from island to island, experiencing different people and interests. I found in some cases that since I only had the basic membership, I was unable to explore certain “premium account” exclusive areas. The look of each island or place varies as well. Sometimes there are elaborate building complexes that mimic malls or business districts; others are vast grassy areas with trees and the occasional car and small building. Essentially, anyone who joins can find any topic of interest and meet people by traveling from island to island.

Because I created MrThomas Jefferson, I thought it might be interesting to go to a political forum first. I searched for politics and got hits like “Hillary Clinton for President,” and “Barack Obama ’08.” Interestingly, I didn’t really find many avatars in these forums, so I chose a more popular place to visit (I’m assuming not too many people go on to discuss politics despite the existence of these islands). One of the more popular places I found was a fashion space. Here, I interacted with many avatars. Every avatar in this place seemed to be sporting some extravagant, trendy clothing. It felt upscale and almost intimidating, but MrThomas Jefferson’s “nightclub” outfit helped to ease some of this dissonance. I was first approached by a couple avatar that made compliments about my name claiming that it was creative or “not very original.” For the most part, however, I approached avatars and asked about their experience on this island. One avatar in particular was ‘Dian Ciass’. I found it somewhat difficult to get into the “avatar mentality” and I was, at first, interacting the way I do in face-to-face communication—no more or less confident or self-disclosing. However, as time progressed, my conversations and my mentality were noticeably shifting into this “avatar mentality.” My discussions with some people progressed to higher levels of self-disclosure, where I was disclosing information like where I live and what I’m interested in. And reciprocity also increased, allowing me to learn and inquire about information from ‘Dian Ciass’.

Here is where we can begin to compare my Second Life experience to Yee & Bailenson’s (2007) Proteus Effect. In their study, they test three hypotheses assessing “interpersonal distance,” “self-disclosure,” and height and its influence on confidence in an online virtual world.

For me, it was hard to assess whether the likelihood of “ interpersonal distance” was actually increased because of the attractiveness of my avatar because in most places that I visited, the avatars were all relatively attractive. However, I did find that as I was looking for possible people to approach, I avoided avatars that had awkward features like large pink hair, or weird shiny shirts. I think that this is a lot harder to assess in Second Life because of the ability to selectively self-present. This could lead to the possible overpopulation of attractive avatars (only some may accurately depict themselves). Yee & Bailenson (2007) discuss this in their study:


Another limitation was that we were unable to explore the role of choice in the Proteus Effect. In our studies, participants were given avatars rather than being able to choose their own avatar---the typical situation in online environments. (p. 285)


Despite the ambiguity of “interpersonal distance” in my own experience with Second Life, I did find that I was more inclined to “self-disclose” to other attractive avatars. Yee & Bailenson (2007) found that “participants who had more attractive avatars exhibited increased self-disclosure and were more willing to approach opposite-gendered strangers after less than 1 minute of exposure to their avatar.” (p.285) I was approached frequently and my amount of self-disclosure was high, which agreed with Yee & Bailenson’s findings.

Next, height was considered to reflect more confidence in decision-making and leadership capabilities (qtd. In Yee & Bailenson, p. 276) In my case, I found it hard to discern whether my height had any affect on who I spoke to and what kind of interaction I engaged in. However, if one considers the amount of interactivity with other avatars in such a short amount of time, they could argue that the height of my character influenced this interactivity, supporting Yee & Bailenson’s (2007) third hypothesis. Overall, I found it difficult to analyze the second Life atmosphere using Yee & Bailenson’s study because I found it difficult to find significant connections that don’t incorporate the limitations mentioned in their study, like behavioral confirmation and choosing an avatar.

a10 - Where is Dwight?

Given an assignment to play Second Life, I needed to find Dwight Schrute from The Office. So, I decided to follow things step by step and start with the game, with no knowledge of the research and jump straight into Second Life (SL). SL was quite interesting and different from the other multiplayer videogames spaces that I had been in before. It didn’t seem to have a main purpose, mission or goal of any sort. Each player seemed to basically live in this virtual space just “living” in way that their real-life selves might fantasize.

Upon entering the world, I was lost. Not only was the control unfamiliar, but my avatar was quite generic and uninteresting which I obviously needed to change. One of the tutorials showed me the surprisingly large number of configurations for my avatar. I tried to give my avatar the best looking features meanwhile trying my best to maintain a resemblance to me. For example, physically in real life, I’m short so, my avatar was short, but when it came to facial details, he was the most symmetric and handsome avatar anyone could imagine.

As soon as I was done configuring my avatar on the tutorial island (almost an hour), I took a walk, learned some things in the other tutorials, flew around a bit (because you know, how often do we get to do that?) and realized that I didn’t know what I was doing. So, I came back to the island’s center and as soon as I landed, a taller female avatar approached me with a greeting along the line of “Hi, are you new?” In retrospect, the question had caught me by surprise and oddly, because my avatar was noticeably shorter than her, I found chatting rather awkward. I simply replied that I was indeed new and needed assistance in getting my real Second Life started.

After about twenty more minutes of exploring the world and asking around looking for Dwight Schrute, I decided it was time to read the article.

It was pretty amazing how The Proteus Effect from Yee, N. & Bailenson, J. N. (2007) was so prevalent in my own behavior. The article discussed and proved all three of its hypotheses. In the experiments, the participant who controlled the more attractive avatar approached the other participant within a minute of exposure; the taller participant took advantage of the “height leads to confidence” aspect to talk the shorter participant into unfair agreements. The experiments went to show that participants who controlled the more attractive or the taller avatars would exhibit more confidence than their less attractive or shorter counterparts.

As mentioned in the study by Yee, N. & Bailenson, J. N, the proteus effect that I had encountered in my experience was different from the effect that I would have encountered under SIDE theory in that, the anonymity and the physical social distance were present but I had not become deindividualized and “joined” the crowd. In fact, it was the opposite to a certain degree, I had been deindividualized but had only gone as far as to take on the confidence of my avatar, where my confidence depended highly on my avatar's physical appearance. For example, in the first place I visited, everyone in the room was dancing, I was offered drinks and to join in on the dancing. But with confidence, I declined and began my search for Dwight Schrute instead. Given SIDE's theory, I would have given in to the crowd since I would have seen myself as part of the group, but I had my own agenda to run.

The researchers also raised a question of whether the participants of games such as SL were happier and more helpful due to the social distance that was present. In my experience with SL, talking to random strangers and trying weird things were easier given that I knew that I was physically away from these people, the anonymity existed and there weren’t any cues that would prompt judgment from the other avatars. The participants seemed happier and friendlier given that they had more confidence in the appearance of their avatars and that they had the freedom to change anything in their surroundings at a whim.

In the end, I wasn’t able to find Dwight Schrute, but I guess it was worth it since I was able to explore a Second Life and experience the Proteus Effect.

http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/11/assignment-10-i-think-i-still-like-my.html
http://comm245green.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-friendless-in-second-life.html

10: Second Life: can you truly change who you are online?

I was introduced to the online multi-player virtual reality known as Second Life through the television show CSI: NY. On the show, the different dimensions of Second Life are explored and I was excited to start on my own.

The first thing I had to do was choose the community I would start off at. Since I am new to the online gaming community, I decided to go easy on myself and start off on a community called "Linden Lab's Orientation Island".

The first choice you get on choosing how you shall be represented in your name. You are allowed to type in anything for your first name (2-31 characters with numbers or letters only) and can choose from a variety of last names. My first few choices were taken so I decided to go with one of the options the computer offered: Amore Checchinato.

I knew that the name I chose would have as much of an impact as the physical appearance of avatar I choose. The name I choose would be the first step in attracting other players. I was then brought to the avatar screen. I decided to go away from what I look like in real life and chose the avatar "Harajuku-Female".

After registering, I was eager to start exploring my world as well as changing my avatar to make it as appealing as possible. I knew that I wanted to spend a lot of time making sure my avatar was extremely attractive since as Yee & Bailenson (2007) mention "And in online environments,
the avatar is not simply a uniform that is worn, the avatar is our entire selfrepresentation.
Although the uniform is one of many identity cues in the studies mentioned earlier, the avatar is the primary identity cue in online environments" (274) .

In order to make my avatar more appealing, I decided to change not only her clothes but add other physical characteristics as well. In the end my avatar had black hair in pigtails, two tattoos, brown eyes, short skirt and a tank top. She was in perfect shape (36-24-36). She wasn't tall, but rather a little bit shorter than average (5"3').

According to Yee & Bailenson, the way an online user acts in such an environment is named the Proteus effect. The Proteus effect basically states that "users who are deindividuated in online environments may adhere to a new identitythat is inferred from their avatars. And in the same way that subjects in black uniforms conform to a more aggressive identity, users in online environments may conform to the expectations and stereotypes of the identity of their avatars. Or more precisely, in line with self-perception theory, they conform to the behavior that
they believe others would expect them to have" (245). So in other words, since my avatar is someone who is attractive, I will act in the way a stereotypical attractive person acts (i.e. outgoing, flirtatious, and social). I may not be this way in real life, but in this online environment, I am one with my avatar, so therefore the "real-world" me does not exist.

This was shown to be true soon enough when I encountered other beings. I was the first to approach a random stranger (Maxy Delight) and strike up a conversation. Soon enough, we were chatting amicably and about everything under the sun. After approximately 20 minutes of chatting, another person (Venus Ember) entered the conversation. Both avatars were extremely attractive, and we all were exhibiting characteristics of attractive people (confirming each others "attractive" behavior in a cyclic manner). The longer we talked, the more intense our characteristics were shown. The conversation that had started off light and friendly soon grew sexual and extremely flirty.

I soon left the conversation and decided to just wander around. At first I was still exhibiting the characteristics that were in line with my avatar, so people still approached me. I was smiling and waving hi to random people. However, after a while, I grew tired of being so social and retreated into myself, becoming short tempered and quite rude. This made many people wary of approaching me and the Proteus effect disappeared.

Since I was new to the whole gaming community, it was hard for me to want to stay in character all the time. I feel that the Proteus effect is more constant when people want to stay in character and escape their outside lives rather then with someone like me who grew tired of playing after a short time. My experience was also different than those mentioned in the reading for the main reason that I was allowed to change my avatars looks and those who participated in the experiments were not.

10 what a cute girl does

I've played a online multiuser videogame "Link" for maybe 2 years. 6 people played together. Sometimes there are people leaving or coming after a game, and you have to wait until all the 6 people are ready to start the game, so there are short communications during this waiting time.

There are only two avatars I can choose when I first registered. A girl with a white tank and a white skirts, or a boy with a white shirt and a white pants. You can change the appearance of your avatar, only if you pay. I was a girl in the game. At first, I didn't change my costume, but maybe a year later, I got a free costume from a friend, and made "myself" a cute cute girl. I found after I changed my costume, more people tended to talk to me in the waiting time. They tended to send short sentences to me more often (There are a list of popular short sentences, so one can click and send, without typing every word). I found when my avatar is the common girl, I usually left the sentence alone without a reply. But when my avatar was made up as a cute little girl, I would like to send back a short sentence of an expression picture back although I received much more than before. I also found not only did I reply more, the words or the face pictures I sent back were what I thought a cute little would say or show.

According to Yee and Bailenson, the Proteus Effect is "an individual's behavior confirms to their self-representation independent of how others perceive them". They found participants in the virtual environment walked closer and exhibited more self-disclosure if they though themselves to be attractive.

I think I show changes comparing the two periods. At first, when I was a common girl, my focus was all on the game and the competition itself, and I was always quiet. Then I was a cute little girl, I tended to be more communicable because I thought I transferred some attention from the game to the character playing it, and did what a cute girl "should" do. I didn't pay much attention about the changes before, but after I had the class and the Yee and Bailenson point. I think the Proteus Effect works on me.

A.10, Wookiee's do not appreciate the view

After a long week of normalcy, I was happy to embrace any type of paranormal activity. Thus, for Assignment 10, I sought the Force.

My friend is a fiendish MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) user, and, in line with his filmic interests, his favorite game in this genre is Star Wars Galaxies, or SWG, to fans. The game has a somewhat outdated feel—thanks to Moore’s Law, et cetera—despite being released merely 4 years ago. For me, however, this is the peak of multiplayer video game technology: despite a fairly recent game of Mario Party 8 on the Wii, I haven’t picked up a controller or fought against Dark Jedi forces since my Freshman year of high school. But, from what I can tell, things have progressed nicely from the release date of Star Wars Galaxies (see Portal or Call of Duty 4 as examples of novel gameplay and updated graphics since SWG release).

I entered SWG on one of several worlds; I had assigned myself to the profession of a “brawler,” and was assigned categories with rating levels of “0.” I chose to be of the Wookiee race, with the pseudonym “Randolf_the_Smaller.” It was immediately perceptible that the limited choice of beginner professions allowed for both over-attribution (i.e., my perception of other players vis-à-vis their avatar and profession selections) and selective self-presentation by the participant (e.g., me as a Wookiee). Dyadic interaction is between two or more avatars in SWG, which introduced the behavioral conformation element that J. Bailenson’s Proteus Effect study excluded intentionally. In confirmation with the research team’s experienced, I found it was difficult to distinguish my actions as behavioral confirmation or Proteus Effect, upon later reflection.

As a novice, I was a mere lone wolf in the galaxy with little talent and little armor. Though I was probably indistinguishable in my first few encounters (all benign “welcome to the Galaxy”-types), I grew progressively hostile towards other creatures, especially non-humans, as the game continued. (I could dynamically track my kill stats and aggression as I progressed in the game, as well as the booty I nabbed from the other players and creatures, some of which were artificially intelligent.) I consider my aggressiveness to be a preconscious perception of my role as a Wookiee—a beastly yet homely creature—and, with more conviction, I believe that my targeting of non-human characters was affected by my own beastly visage and inhumanity. Chewbacca was, after all, was like a vicious pet in the original Star Wars. Thus, as I played longer, my playing resembled someone “deindividuated in online environments” that was inferring an identity “from their avatar” (Bailenson 273-274).

Conservations with other SWG players tended to be a bit cold, or oddly friendly (e.g., [CaptaineSymbol] “I wish we could cuddle”). Despite one attempt, I was not invited to travel with the one large clique I sought to join on the planet. I suspect my resultant loner wandering was more of a behavioral confirmation than Proteus Effect, as the Wookiee is a social species (re: the film); I don’t think I was driven to be a more anti-social creature killer by my Wookieeness, but by the other players’ passive aggressive or exclusive behavior. The sum total of my actions were both unconsciously/preconsciously implied by my character (I didn’t flirt with anyone), and performed in confirmation of others cool reaction to my wooly presence (the loner behavior).

10. I look ridiculous

For better or worse, I became very familiar with Second Life last semester. Three other people and I conducted a study on the effects in-group/out-group dynamics had on communication. Because of this I still had access to four different avatars that we used during the study. Two of the avatars are humans, and two of them are anthropomorphic fox-like creatures, also referred to as furries. I chose to use one furries. The avatar I chose was very similar to the default furry you can chose when you first enter Second Life pictured below:



Trying to determine where a furry would fit into Yee & Bailenson's theory is sort of a difficult task. While furries are generally pretty tall, it's hard to consider them intimidating because they look tremendously cartoonish. From the Proteus Effect perspective, it's hard to imagine a person acting both dominant and childish at the same time.

With that in mind, I had serious doubts about observing the Proteus Effect at all. Mainly because this "mini-experiment" involved no blinds. The premise seemed flawed in a lot of ways: I am observing myself to see if I exhibit an effect that I am already aware of. The level of self-awareness would appear to undermine the task. But because my grade was involved, I pressed onwards.

Even though I had used Second Life a fair amount and was familiar with the controls, I decided to go to Orientation Island, the area of Second Life that acts like a tutorial for beginners. I was taught how to fly, use vehicles, and even got to adjust my appearance in that little castle all over again. My interactions with others were relatively brief as most of the other beginners were either struggling with the controls or exhibiting low attention spans. One person (another furry) I was talking to actually flew off mid-conversation. Whether this was by accident or boredom, I will never know. My only other interesting interaction was when I showed someone else how to teleport (if you're friends with someone you can instantly go from wherever you are to wherever they are). Overall my experience was pretty unexciting. Staying on Orientation Island generally ensures a tame experience.

Trying to apply Yee & Bailenson's lens to my experience was a little difficult because of the reasons I'd mentioned before. I didn't really find much of my behavior to be the result of the avatar I chose. I don't think I acted more playful or outgoing than if I had been a human avatar, but maybe it was because I knew, in advance, the effect I was looking for. After a lot of thought, the one element of my behavior that I DO attribute to the Proteus Effect is my decision to go to Orientation Island. Despite the fact that I'm familiar with Second Life, I chose to take my default avatar back to the tutorial. As the avatar had no personalization at all it was clearly the avatar of newbie, I think this fact pushed me to act like more of a newbie, specifically going back to Orientation Island. Had I been a more personalized avatar I probably would have explored other portions of the map.

As I was actually one of the participants in the Merola, Penas, & Hancock (2006) study which was cited by Yee & Bailenson and helped to establish the Proteus effect, I definitely think a person's avatar has an effect on their behavior. However, I thought this method of self-observation was a difficult way to detect it.

Assignment#10 - I played WOW.

I have had plenty of resources and experiences to write a blog assignment regarding online interaction so far. However, this week the assignment was about the one thing I have absolutely no experience or knowledge: computer games. The only games I played in my entire life even including video games are Minesweeper and Super Mario. When I was looking for a Role Playing Game (RPG), thinking it would be safer to try something mentioned in the reading, I went to There.com. However, after I logged in, my avatar made with not many given choices, did not know where to go, what to do, etc. Although I spent quite amount of time to install this game, I decided to play with someone who can give me some advices. Since last summer, it has not been hard to see some of my friends playing World Of Warcraft (WOW). I borrowed one of my friends’ account and had him sitting next to me to give me suggestions on what to do and how to play the game. Because of this particular environment, my online self-representation had a similar limitation with the one of Yee & Bailenson’s experiment that the avatar was assigned rather than chosen by the participant. His avatar was called Draenei. Draenei was a tall human-looking figure with elf-ears and horns. Her feet looked like the one of a horse and her level was 50. As the first task, I, Draenei in a virtual space, was told to defeat Polberg clan and to take the bracelet of Polberg’s chief. During the request, I was attacked from the back by a Horde, another clan that is against mine. Since I also needed to manage the fight against Polberg, I was not able to survive through this unfair attack. On a public posting, I asked for a help from other players. Draenei at level 70 nearby me came over and killed the Horde in revenge.

WOW was certainly a virtual space because it is an online video game where more than one player plays in the same video game space at the same time. WOW was a quest-oriented game where a group of clans was antagonistic to another group of clans. In order to survive, the higher level one’s avatar was considered to be more attractive or more envied by others. As Yee & Bailenson proved with experiment results, avatars at a higher level acted with more confidence and were more active in interactions among other avatars. My friend also told me people usually choose which gender to play based on the feature of the gender of a particular type of race, not based on the gender of the participant. Therefore, there was less attraction towards the opposite gender. I was a tall female figure with relatively high level. This condition did influence me to act more confident and sometimes more aggressive when I was interacting other people in my clan. Since there was less attraction between the opposite genders, I did not find myself revealing more personal information to the other male avatars.

10: Bringing Fugly to Another Level

Since I was put on this earth with flawless bone structure and a chiseled body, I decided that my little stint in Second Life should be different, refreshing, and new…and HIDEOUS. With the fitting name Ogre, I created an avatar with scary hair, poor fashion sense, and a diminutive stature that screamed creepy! Now that I had an avatar with less than desirable features, I was ready to make the world my oyster; the second life world that is.

Right off the bat, my second life interactions could be described as somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy with a side order of behavioral confirmation—a intensification of loop of sorts. I took my avatar appearance to heart and my initial encounters were filled with me just being creepy. I let the clashing clothing and midget stature get to my head and acted the part a little too much. This was encouraged with behavioral confirmation as other second lifers treated me…well, fugly! (And I acted in kind and followed suit). Like Yee and Bailenson said, “[an] avatar is not simply a uniform that is worn, the avatar is our entire self representation” (p. 274).

Initially, the results found in the Yee and Bailenson study were consistent with my experience in the Collaborative Virtual Environment. In general, other avatars in second life tended to not be that friendly to me, creating greater interpersonal distances—they kept their distance from the hideous Ogre. Additionally, the conversations I took part in were kept very brief and formal, leaving little to no self disclosure. This is in agreement with the study’s fining that more attractive avatars enjoyed more self disclosure and closer avatar-avatar distances, all which were statistically significant results. The behavior evident in both my experience in the study is known as the Proteus Effect. Although in some ways, the Proteus Effect is similar to SIDE theory, there are various points of difference including the self-perception theory. According to this theory, irregardless of how other individuals—or avatars—would act toward me, I would still act out in the same way. This is because I would be perceive and evaluate myself from a third party perspective and would not necessarily require the presence of others or a group—like in SIDE.

However, as I spent a little more time in the strange, strange land of second life, evidence of the Proteus Effect decreased dramatically. Perhaps I was growing bored of acting like the pariah I wanted my avatar to be and began acting more normal. This would, in turn, lead to others treating me less like how the Yee and Bailenson study predicted and more normal. Other second lifers might even have the CMC literacy, maturity, and savvy to look past the appearance of an avatar, knowing full well that this virtual representation may have very little credibility and accuracy. Nonetheless, I am sure that if chose to take the less obnoxious route, making my avatar at least average looking and not heinous and repulsive, I would have had more robust conversations and interactions in my initial experience in Second Life. If only all the other second lifers knew that Mr. Ogre loved Kenny G, pottery, and Jodi Picoult books…if only.

#10: I'm a Barbie Girl in a Barbie World

What is it like to be blonde 6'5" 34-18-34? Unless you are a living My Size Barbie, Second Life is probably the easiest way to try it out. Starting out with the "Girl Next Door" template I eventually transformed her into the "Girl Next Door if you are Hugh Hefner's neighbor". Let me introduce you to Princess Supermarine. Armed with my supermodel physique, playmate of the year face, and pornstar name, I strutted onto the Second Life catwalk.

I quickly realized that my avatar was tall (almost absurdly so). The first person I talked to asked me what happened to my legs; I guess leggy blonde can be overdone. After spending so much time on my physical appearance, I had a strange urge to be constantly reminded of my self-perceived good looks. "Do you think I'm hot?" was a question posed a surprising number of times looking back. If I was insecure of my online avatar, I don't want to even think about what it is like to be a girl.
I found that though I was very willing to approach opposite-gendered strangers, I was not friendlier with a more attractive avatar; in fact it turned out that I was more arrogant due to confidence. I also was not afraid of walking up close to strangers as long as they were male avatars. One interesting thing was that I was complimented on my shirt which could be linked to my physical appearance and probably led to behavioral confirmation. This strongly supports the first and third hypothesis of the Yee and Bailenson study which stated that taller avatars would behave in a more confident manner and negotiate more aggressively. Whether this was due to the Proteus effect or behavioral confirmation was unclear because it was hard to get results in an individual setting. Another strange phenomenon was that I did not want to interact with female avatars for fear of being judged. I did not feel that I was willing to self disclose more based on my avatar. Others also did not seem to self-disclose more than expected. I think a reason for this may be because people automatically assume that I was nothing like my avatar and that I was a fraud. My experiment may have been less accurate because it was taken to the extreme.

The Yee and Bailenson paper states that in many of the online spaces, graphical avatars are attractive, youthful and generally idealized appearances. If virtual online worlds become a large time consuming portion of our life, will this lead to a higher standard of physical appearances offline and negatively affect our society? Maybe life isn’t so fantastic when it is plastic.

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10 I Found My Dream Man(Men) on Second Life

People are constantly trying to modify their appearance; whether they change their hair color, buy new clothing, change their makeup, or add accessories (glasses, jewelry etc), it is all for the same reason: to alter their appearance to make themselves more attractive to others. To do all of these things requires quite a bit of time and money, however, the Internet has provided people with an outlet that enables them to alter their appearance with just a few clicks of the mouse. In Second Life, a virtual space, players are given the opportunity to modify their avatar, their digital self-representation, in any way they choose. Members of Second Life can alter their avatar’s appearance in so many different ways, I wouldn’t have even imagined half of the options. Players can change obvious things like clothing, hair color, height, gender but there are so many obscure characteristics that I didn’t even consider like chin width, eye spacing, teeth spacing and foot size. Nick Yee & Jeremy Bailenson studied how our digital self-representations could alter a person’s behavior in the virtual environment.

When I first started Second Life, I was prompted to select a name for my avatar; unfortunately, many of the names I would have liked to have, were already taken so I was forced to settle upon the name of Brooke Gourdou. After the name selection, I had to choose what my avatar would look like from a list of about 10 generic avatars; I chose the avatar “City Chic”, which appeared rather attractive. Once this was selected, I was placed on Orientation Island where I quickly altered the appearance of my avatar. Being on this Island made me feel a little bit more comfortable when I realized that there were other people like me who were a bit confused regarding what to do. I spent a significant amount of time modifying my avatar’s appearance knowing, that it would have a significant impact on how I would interact with others. As Yee and Bailenson state, “ the avatar is the primary identity cue in online environments… our avatars have a significant impact how we behave online” (274). I changed her hair, clothes, facial features and height to make her more attractive, confident and appealing towards other players; I shortened her skirt, put on more make-up, made her taller and lengthened and highlighted her hair to give off a model’s appearance. I figured the more confident my avatar appeared, the more social she would be and the greater the likelihood that others would interact with me.

As stated in the Yee & Bailenson article, the Proteus Effect is very prominent in the online environment, “users in online environments may conform to the expectations and stereotypes of the identity of their avatars…they conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect them to have” (274). In a sense, the Proteus Effect describes how it is expected that people will behave in a certain way depending on how they appear and are presented to others. For example, I specifically made my avatar especially attractive and alluring, and I believed that people expected her to be extremely sociable, outgoing, and talkative. This was because of the way I made my avatar appear: she had very revealing clothing, was very tall and wore a great deal of make-up.

After I stumbled upon the ‘flying’ feature, I was transported to a more remote part of the island where there were a number of people congregated. I quickly initiated a conversation with one of my fellow players, who exuded that tall, dark & handsome look. I started our interaction by saying, “Hey, this is my first time here, what are you up to?” He was very friendly and engaging and began to converse with me and developed into a rather in-depth conversation. I decided to explore the game a bit more by using the search button to find people who seemed attractive and who shared similar interests to me and decided to go to a clothing store.

According to Lee and Bailenson’s study, an individual’s likelihood to be intimate with an utter stranger depended on their attractiveness. They found evidence that participants who were more attractive were more willing to move closer to strangers and disclosed more information to strangers than participants who were unattractive. After having my fair share of interactions on Second Life, my findings were concurrent with Lee and Bailenson’s findings on attractiveness. However, it is important to note that in Lee & Bailenson’s study, the participants were unable to choose their attractiveness, while for my experience on Second life, I had the option to control everything about my appearance. When I was on the Orientation Island, before I altered my appearance, I did not stand close to any of the other players and did not engage any of them in conversations. I pretty much kept to my self and did not really venture towards any of the other members. However, once I changed my appearance for Brooke Gourdou, I felt a lot more comfortable and secure with my appearance and began to seek out people to interact with. When I met the ‘man of my dreams’ when I flew to the other side of the island, I immediately struck up a conversation with him and began to reveal quite a bit about myself. Knowing that other players would find my avatar extremely attractive and sociable, I began to play off of her appearance and acted the way people expected Brooke to be; to have high self – disclosure, to walk closer to people who I she was having a conversation with, and to have a more confident manner.

It’s very hard to disregard the presence of behavioral confirmation in my interactions on Second Life. It was clear that my ‘tall, dark and handsome’ friend found me attractive (he even said so) and for that reason decided to have as long of a conversation as he did with me. Behavioral confirmation (the notion that the expectations of one person cause another person to behave in ways that confirm the perceiver’s expectations) compounded with my own perceptions of my avatar’s attractiveness played an even bigger role in how I interacted with this player. As a result of this, we were able to have a more intimate conversation and learned quite a bit about each other. For Yee and Bailenson’s study, they purposely did not include the effect of behavioral confirmation in the experiment so that they could simply focus on “whether our changes in self-representations – independent of how others perceive us – cause the people behind the avatars to behave differently” (275). It was quite evident that our self-representations online can significantly effect our behavior both on Second Life and on any other collaborative virtual environment (CVE), but I think it is critical to also factor in the effects of behavioral confirmation in order to completely understand online interactions.

10.0: My life as a Sim, part deux

In past posts I have talked about the Sims, a great role-playing game that I love playing. But for this assignment, I decided to venture into The Sims Online. I created my Sim so that it was nothing like me. First, it was a male. Second, he was tall. I’d say that in real life, my Sim would be one good looking dude. He was muscular and clean cut, and wore great clothes. I named him “Jonas”, mostly because I love that name. But I also named him Jonas because it’s not common, like “Mike” or “Dave”.

After creating my Sim, I had to pick a city to send him to. I decided to send him to the first city on the list: “Blazing Falls” or something like that. Blazing Falls was an interesting place, and I found a house where 3 other people were located, so I decided to see what was up.

When I dropped into the house, I found that there were three girls there. Now, I know for every guy that this is a dream come true. Disguised as a hunky guy, I was very excited to interact with the girls as a member of the opposite sex. At first we did introductions, and I told them I was new to the Online experience. The girls were very nice, and welcomed me to the game. They taught me the lingo (RL=real life, SL=sim life, AFK=away from keyboard, etc.), this was very helpful. As I got to know the owner of the house (Anna) very well, she asked me to dance with her. And as the manly-man that I was, of course I accepted, and then after I asked her to dance with me. Unfortunately, following our dances, I had to go (to write this blog post), so I said my goodbyes to the three girls and left.

According to Yee and Bailenson, The Sims Online is a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE), because “multiple interactants share the same three-dimensional digital space despite occupying remote physical locations”. It turns out that two of the three girls that I met were actually from the UK, so I was chatting with an ocean between us in real life, but only a few feet between us on The Sims. Also, the reason I was so confident with the three girls is because my character (in my eyes) was very attractive and tall. These two things lead to a more outgoing and social player, according to Yee and Bailenson.

#10- I like your other half

Since for this blog we had to create a whole new avatar to represent ourselves, I decided to play an online video game that I would normally never play. I went on to Yahoo! and played Chess. Yes believe it or not, I despise Chess and have avoided playing it ever since I was a little kid. The avatar I created was a complete opposite of myself. My avatar was tall with dark black hair and hazel eyes. The skin complexion was a nice caramel, any girls tropical vacation dream guy. I named my avatar a nice "rico suave" name, Ricardo. Right away as soon as I signed on to Yahoo! I fell right into the Ricardo mood. I felt because I had a very attractive image, I was super confident in myself and my social skills. I signed into the Chess site and began to play. My opponent messages me with a "hey" and from there we just kept talking back and forth. The game went really well and I didn’t win but I didn’t lose by much. I didn’t know how to play and the entire time kept asking this particular opponent for help and the rules of the game. I believe Yale and Bailenson’s findings and my own experience were very similar. My avatar was a very tall attractive individual and so was favored by my opponent. She gave me many desirable traits such as being really funny, smart and an open minded individual. I also felt as though she was very open with me sharing details about her life and experiences that I would normally not share with an individual. Yale and Bailenson also felt the same about self disclosure and attractiveness between two individuals.

"H2: Participants in the attractive condition would exhibit higher self-disclosure and present more pieces of information about themselves than participants in the unattractive condition."

My opponent seemed very indulged in my "avatars" looks as she continued investigating about my background, where I was from, my workout habits and my relationship status. All these comments, questions, and attractive vibes from my opponent only fed into my "Ricardo" persona. I felt very domineering in the game, as if I had control over it and could easily conquer. This remained even as it showed I clearly wasn’t with no clue in how to play chess. As soon as our game ended I signed onto another screen name with another avatar. My new avatar was named "Merlin" and he was short with scruffy hair, a small t-shirt that stretched over his potbelly and raggedy shorts that made him look a little taller than he actually was. I signed back into the same Monopoly section and searched to see if the same player I had went against previously was still on. Surprisingly she was and I rejoined her in a game. Right off the bat, the vibes were not consistent with our previous game. I thought since I knew the game I would have the same dominance, but I didn’t. She wouldn’t keep up much of a conversation and decided to end the game early. Hence, my avatar image affected our online interaction on Yahoo! Chess.

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#10...Second Life is much harder than it looks

I've never been one for video games or, as Yee and Bailenson (2007) call them, Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE), which they define as "communication systems in which multiple interactants share the same three-dimensional digital space despite occupying remote physical locations" (275). I played the Sims religiously for about three months of my life when it first came out, but since then I haven't played a game with an avatar. So when Professor Hancock suggested Second Life for this assignment, I asked my friends about it, they mentioned the beloved Office episode, and so I decided I'd try it out. How hard could it be, right? Wrong.

I spent about an hour and a half trying to navigate and figure out this new virtual space, and I really didn't feel like I got anywhere in the process. I chose a female avatar, Claudette Mumfuzz, and chose for her to look rather hardcore and punk-ish. I was hoping to alter her appearance more so that I could really test out Yee and Bailenson's Proteus Effect hypothesis, but found this to be harder than I anticipated. I spent most of my time trying to figure out how to exist in this world, and had little time to really experiment with it after figuring out the basics. My first reaction to this exercise was that I would really need a lot more time to interact in this environment and get used to functioning in it before I could really evaluate how I was acting in relation to my chosen avatar. For example, Yee and Bailenson hypothesize that the more attractive one's avatar, the more intimate with self-disclosure one will be, and the taller one's avatar, the more confident one will act in this space. While completing this exercise in Second Life, I didn't really understand how to control for these variables, because when choosing an avatar, one is really given a limited range of possibilities to choose from; all body types seem to be the same (same general slender body shape and same height) and you could really only choose what type of avatar you would be (i.e. "girl next door," "goth chick," etc.) This seemed like a very limited range of options and to be perfectly honest I never could understand how to alter my avatar's physical appearance once I entered the Second Life world. However, based on the avatar that I did choose, my avatar was a fairly attractive female with a slender body and average height, with short red hair. However, the wardrobe that I chose was rather hardcore looking, which I think made my avatar seem slightly standoffish. When approaching other avatars, I had no problem with approaching male characters, but found that I wasn't really approached at all, that I had to start off every conversation I had. However, I was pretty confident in approaching other characters and asking for help, and I had no problem admitting that I was confused and needed assistance.

Despite the fact, however, that I didn't alter my character's body type or height, I can still see how Yee and Bailenson's hypothesis applied to my avatar's behaviors in the game. Because I knew that I had chosen an avatar that was overall attractive but gave an impression of being unapproachable due to my wardrobe, I knew that I would have to put in effort into starting conversations, and I had no trouble doing so or disclosing information about myself, especially with male avatars, perhaps because I knew that my avatar was an attractive female. So in this sense, because I knew that my avatar was attractive and felt very comfortable disclosing information and approaching male avatars, I think my experience was consistent with Yee and Bailenson's hypothesis.

It is harder for me, however, to speak of the height aspect of their hypothesis, because my avatar's height is not something that I chose to manipulate, simply because I, sadly, could not figure out how. However, I think Yee and Bailenson's hypothesis can still be considered in this situation, because even though I didn't directly change my height, I was still able to compare my avatar's height in relation to the other avatars, and act accordingly. For example, I did notice that I did not feel short in comparison to any of the other avatars, and while I also didn't notice that I towered over any other avatars, I definitely did not feel short in comparison to any. So while I maybe was not more controlling than any other avatars because I did not feel taller, I definitely noticed that I was not at all submissive in comparison to other avatars, but acted on the same playing field as the others, which would make sense if I perceived us all to be the same height.

So overall, my experiences playing Second Life aligned quite well with Yee and Bailenson's hypothesis, considering the fact that I had so much trouble adjusting to existing in this world. I chose to read their paper after I played the game, so that I would not feel influenced by it while playing, and I think this worked out well as an exercise of reflecting on my actions while playing the game. I can see how perceiving oneself to be more attractive would make one more intimate with self-disclosure, and how perceiving oneself to be taller would make one more confident when negotiating with other players. This hypothesis makes sense to me, because even though we are living through our avatars in a very manipulated and virtual environment that is far from reality, we are still aware of the importance of looks. If we think that taller people are more dominant in real life and attractive people are more intimate, then in choosing one or both of these qualities in an avatar, one will in a sense perform that role, in the best and most convincing way that they know how, even regardless of how others perceive them. This sense of performing my avatar is what I experienced throughout the exercise, and in this sense I felt that the Proteus Effect held up in my admittedly pathetic experience in the Second Life world.

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10. The Birth of Drew

I recently ventured into the virtual reality world for the first time this weekend. I created an account on Second Life and created my avatar Drew and began to explore the various worlds around Second Life.

The first half an hour that I spent in Second Life after my avatar had been created was mainly dedicated to trying to figure out the program and how and where to go with my new identity. Once I had figure out Second Life I started to explore what I could do with my new identity and went around some of the worlds and talked with the other people there and took the chance to get to know their virtual selves.

My experience in Second Life was consistent with the results of Yee and Bailenson’s study (2007). Because I had an attractive avatar I found myself standing very closely to the people that I was talking with, and they in turn stood closely to me. Additionally, when I was talking with the other avatars throughout the worlds in second life I also disclosed a decent amount of information about “Drew”; again this can be attributed to the attractiveness of the avatar I created. Previous research has shown that attractive individuals tend to be evaluated better in interactions and this effect was expected to carry over into virtual reality environments and was supported by Yee and Bailenson.

Both Yee and Bailenson’s study and my experience in Second Life are consistent with the Proteus Effect which claims that the anonymity and reduced social cues of online spaces can lead to deindividuation. It is important to note that neither of these examples are consistent with SIDE theory because there is no group identity salient. The nature of the virtual reality game is that you are an individual; this causes you to focus on your individual avatar. There aren’t any cues within the virtual reality game that would cause a group identity (at least not initially until after you have developed your avatar and have the opportunity to join groups within Second Life). This is where the Proteus Effect steps in because you are focused on the individuality of your avatar. The physical attractiveness of the avatar causes you to act like an attractive individual would; in this case by standing closer to others and disclosing more information. You have a set of expectations about how an attractive individual should act and you then act in accord with those expectations.

However, the Proteus Effect is not simply behavioral confirmation because the Proteus Effect focuses on how the individual controlling the avatar perceives their avatar and then acts. Behavioral confirmation occurs when another individual makes an assessment about an individual and then that individual acts in a way to confirm the other person’s belief. With the Proteus Effect you are behaving in a way that confirms your assessment and belief of your avatar.

Comments:
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#10: 2nd Life.... (sorry for the long post)

Since I have written about 2nd Life in previous blogs, I decided to actually enter and explore 2nd Life for this assignment. First I had to choose a world to join. Some choices were “CSI:NY, Ben & Jerry, Frankfurt and Anshe Chung’s Dreamland”. I decided to enter Anshe Chung’s Dreamland because it pretty and serene. Within the Dreamland there were many different regions you could explore. After teleporting from region to region and not finding many people to interact with, I finally arrived to a region that had a lot of people. The name of this region was “Money Tree Island”. Before I tell you about Money Tree Island, let me describe my avatar.

My avatar’s name was Veronica Saunders. She was a young brunette female who wore jeans and a long sleeved purple shirt. This was the default character that is given to you when you sign up for the first time. Never having played any type of online game before, I couldn’t figure out how to change my avatar from the default avatar, so I just decided to go with it. My avatar looked like an innocent, girl-next door type. Her newbie cloths also gave her away that she was a recent member of 2nd Life. Not all of the avatars were people, some were cats and other animals.

When I first got to Money Tree Island, I did not know what it was, nor what to do. I began saying “hi” to a few people but they weren’t too responsive. Then I met a guy who seemed friendly but he ended up not being able to speak much English, so I moved on. He spoke Portuguese. As I was speaking to this Portuguese man, a women sitting at a nearby bench began chatting with me. She was very friendly and nice. Her name was Dotro Beattie. Dotro was young and she had short brown and was not wearing much clothing. Nevertheless she seemed nice and was the only who seemed to be in a helping mood. She explained to me that in Money Tree Island, you simply sit on a bench and wait for money to fall off a tree and onto your lap.

From my clothing, Dotro immediately recognized that I was a newbie and took it upon herself to teach me a few tricks about playing 2nd Life. At first it was obvious that my lack of skills frustrated her but she never gave up and continued to help me. I found this extremely generous.

[16:12] Dotro Beattie: omg ... you ARE a newbie ...
[16:15] Dotro Beattie: somebody kill me ...
[16:15] Dotro Beattie: great
[16:15] Dotro Beattie: stay here ...
[16:15] Dotro Beattie: Let me explain

She helped me sit on the bench next to her so that I could also receive money from the tree. She also explained various other useful tricks to, like how to move the camera angles and such. She even gave me $10 in the beginning. At the end of our conversation she gave me more money. $100!! I told her I couldn’t accept but she insisted and told me not to worry about it. I tried to give the money back to her but I couldn’t figure out how. Then she told me of a place I could go to buy new cloths. Further, Dotro showed concern for me. She warned me that 2nd Life could get addictive and that I should not spend too much time playing.

[16:30] Dotro Beattie: SL (second life) is really weird.
[16:30] 1Veronica1 Saunders: why is that
[16:30] Dotro Beattie: You might get into it...and waste a lot of RL(real life) time
[16:31] Dotro Beattie: I must warn you.

[16:39] Dotro Beattie: are you ok w your rl?
[16:39] Dotro Beattie: most of the people here are a bit ... wrong.
[16:39] 1Veronica1 Saunders: yes it is fine i was just curious to see what this was
[16:39] Dotro Beattie: Imagine that they spend hours in sl ... every day
[16:40] Dotro Beattie: I was too ...
[16:40] 1Veronica1 Saunders: now u are addicted?
[16:40] Dotro Beattie: not anymore ...
[16:40] Dotro Beattie: or ... who knows.

According to Yee & Bailenson (2007), how our avatars look (their self-representation) changes how we behave online. This is the Proteus Effect. I believe that my avatar looking like an innocent newbie did impact the way I behaved online. Since I new that people could recognize me as a newbie, I played that to my advantage. If I bumped into another avatar, sometimes I would apologize and other times I wouldn’t. The other avatars didn’t get angry with me because they could clearly tell from my clothing that I was a newbie and couldn’t work the controls yet. I talked to more people without fear, since my avatar was a newbie. I asked for more help than I would have if I had not looked like a newbie or if I was a less attractive avatar. Further, since I was a newbie, Dotro did not get extremely angry with me when I would ask her questions about her real life (RL). I know that in most games you are supposed to keep your RL and your virtual worlds somewhat separate, but playing up my newbie card let me get away with a few inappropriate questions. Some questions she wouldn’t answer but other’s she did. She said she wouldn’t answer questions about her RL. But eventually she did tell me that she lived in Eastern Europe. Since my avatar looked like a newbie, I did not behave aggressively. I was timid with Dotro, and I apologized and thanked her a lot. If I was a large male with non-newbie clothing I would have acted more aggressive and would not have played up my newbie status. Rather, I would have downplayed it as a male avatar.

In addition to The Proteus Effect, behavioral conformation took place. Behavioral confirmation is when the expectations of the perceiver (Dotro) causes the target (me) to behave in ways that confirms the perceiver’s expectations. Dotro treated me like a newbie and even stated that she like helping out newbie’s. As a result I acted even more ignorant and even more appreciative towards her.

[16:24] 1Veronica1 Saunders: ur very helpful
[16:24] Dotro Beattie: you're smart ...
[16:28] Dotro Beattie: I shall offer you a newbie guide.
[16:38] Dotro Beattie: I like helping a newbie :)

In the words of Dortro “have fun on SL…but control yourself.”

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#10: Friendless in Second Life

For this assignment I chose to explore Second Life. I heard about it through Comm245, then saw it on The Office and wanted to see what it was all about. After entering the Second Life world, I found that it was relatively confusing. There was no real guideline for what you were supposed to do and I was among others on the Orientation Island that were unsure of what to do as well. When I first came into Second Life it took me to a place where I had to complete a few tasks like learning how to move and to communicate. After this they set me free to explore the rest of the world where I learned to fly and teleport to a different location. I found the most people on the public Orientation Island, where people were basically standing in a circle either keeping to themselves or talking to one another.

For my avatar, I chose to be a tall, harsh-looking, and unapproachable female. I wore all black and had black hair. While walking through the island, I had to approach others in order to talk to them. All around me other people were engaged in conversation but there was not one instance where someone came and talked to me. When I approached people, I realized that I only approached males and even then we only had short conversations where I told them I was new and asked what to do before they walked away. I found myself scared to approach people because I had no idea how they would react to me or think of me but I thought they would be turned off by my appearance. I think in order to really engage in this world I would have to spend a significantly greater amount of time there. The hour I spent there was definitely not enough to allow me to grasp even a small portion of what it has to offer.

My experience in Second Life is in line with Yee’s idea of the Proteus Effect, where I behaved in a manner that I thought others expected me to behave. I was not overly friendly and although I tried to strike up some conversations, I wasn’t charming or attractive enough to hold their attention for long. I also made no effort to be attractive in what I was saying because I knew no one would think of me that way. This shows that I had less self-disclosure and also felt more uncomfortable being close to people, which supports Yee’s findings.

However, although my experience supports these aspects, I did not feel more confidence due to my height, which hypothesis 3 says I should. Instead, I felt more awkward and uncomfortable with my body and jealous of the attractive avatars. I towered over the other members by a large margin, which made me feel like an outsider in this world.

Overall, I am glad that I was able to experience a little bit of Second Life. I am also interested in maybe going back on and really exploring what it has to offer. But first I would change my avatar to make myself more attractive and socially acceptable.

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The day I understood..

Given the assignment I decided that if I was going to enter a online multi-player gaming environment, I thought I might as well take this assignment as an opportunity to play a role that I would never take on in "real life." I entered the environment of an online game titled: " The Mafia Boss." http://www.themafiaboss.com. Here I was asked to create a "mafia name" for myself; I became known to the Mafia Boss world as Tre. Not only was I using a fake name but I took part in active gender swapping.


After I gave myself a name, I was directed the "black market," where you were suppose to buy drugs and alcohol to keep you "guys" ( i.e. your team/gang) happy. Additionally you were suppose to develop a supply of defensive weapons whose purpose was also to keep the men happy ( the weapons were useless, but the attitude of the "guys" was of utmost importance). If you failed to keep your gang happy you would start to lose them fast and without this backup become very weak.
Next I began my money making activities by collecting money from casinos, brothels, loan sharks and gambling dens. All of these terms were quite new to me but I played the part as if these terms were of second nature. After you gain enough turns collecting money you were suppose to use these to purchase more operatives and defensives and repeat from the beginning. When you felt that you had collected enough weapons and built a strong base you could go and attack other "mafiosos." The game warns that this is " the real mafia" and anyone you attack will not suffer without revenge. You were warned also to not use up all your money and to put a good amount aside so it was not up for swindling by other players. In order to survive you had to also join a family or create your own.
Each round consisted of 10days in which you were to increase your reserves and thus your net-worth. Everything you owned ( bootleggers, whores, hustlers, carddealers...etc had value). The goal of the game, was to have the highest net worth.

In connecting my experience with the ideas of Yee & Bailenson (2007) discussed in COMM245 Lecture, I find many areas of The Mafia Boss that are representative of their ideas. First of all when I was trying to enter my name for the game it became apparent that all my initial tries were taken. This supports the idea that when we are online we do produce/try to emulate what we consider stereotypical aspects of the being we are transforming ourselves into.

Second, when I was interacting with various other avatars on the site I found myself acting more and more "mafia-like" (i.e. intimidating, short, confident and mysterious). The more other avatars seemed weary of me, the more intense my actions became. This directly represents Yee & Bailenson's idea of Behavioral Confirmation. The fact of the matter is that because I was perceived by some as more mysterious and scary, the more mysterious and intimidaitng I acted. Similarly this also supports the findings that "behavioral measures and different representational manipulations self-representation are altered on behavior" ( Yee & J.Bailson, 285). The more mysterious and "mafi-like" I made my avatar appear the more scary and mysterious I acted. Additionally the scarier I acted and more confident I became, I interacted with more participants on the site and became extremely comfortable taking their money and family. It was as if the more people believed I was "Tre" the more I acted and became this avatar. My avatar and behavior also supported the third hypothesis in the paper " The Proteus Effect," H3: Particpants in taller avatars would behave in a more confident manner and negotiate more aggressively than participants in short avatars. Not only was Tre intimidating because of his name and his attire ( brown leather coat, dark glassed and hat) but he was tall and muscular. ( See picture above)

My actions on the Mafia Boss site are also representative of the idea of self-perception theory and deindividuation theory which posit that when people are made to believe their actions are a result of the characteristics of those with which they interact, there fore we believe what those we interact with believe and the more interactions we have the more extreme our perceptions of our own interactions.

In sum all these aspects of the "Mafia Boss" support Yee & Bailson's proposed "Proteus Effect." With Emphasis on conformity to individual identity cues, the proteus effect is ever present on the site as avatars rely on the names, gender, and behavioral actions that result from confirmation of others behavior expectations.

Without this assignment I would probably never have entered any of these environments and honestly probably never will again. However, the experience proves to support many of the ideas which we have discussed in COMM245 and provide proof for many of the interactions that provide the ingredients for problematic internet use. The more we become a part of these environments, the more we become the people that we create, and the less we associate with our true selves. I question whether the ability to interact in these ways causes us to not only become further disconnected from our real-life environments but also become more unsure of who we really are as well as less comfortable with ourselves.

#10- Second Life? Oh, I thought you said suck at life...

I had really never heard of second life until a recent episode of The Office, where Dwight creates a second life account which is essentially Dwight in real life, only he can fly.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=EFC0926746844D0E

Personally, I thought this concept was hilarious but I wasn't intrigued enough to go on to second life and create an account (I didn't even know it really existed). Instead, when Professor Hancock told us to create an avatar on second life, I misunderstood him. I asked the person next to me, "Did he say he wants us to suck at life?" This may or may not have been a Freudian slip- just kidding! Thus starts my encounter with Second Life.

After creating an account on Second Life, I began my journey as an avatar. First, I chose my generic appearance and opted to go with the female who looked most similar to me: dark long hair with a smaller, thinner frame. After transforming from my initial period of nakedness (how embarrassing), I made my way to the "appearance tutorial" where I attempted to dress and mold my avatar. This process reminded me of when I was younger and picking clothes for my Barbies. I really spent far too much time switching outfits, textures and hair color. Basically, the majority of my time was spent altering my avatar's appearance, I'm not going to lie. My avatar remained very similar to my physical features in real life: petite frame, heart shaped face, brown hair, brown eyes, etc. However, I did decide to make my avatar taller than I am. I'm 5'2, and I made my avatar 70 inches. After fine-tuning Avah's look (which I decided to call her), I went out to meet different avatar's. I decided it would be hilarious to just follow one guy around and see if he talked to me. When he walked, I followed, when he flew, I flew behind him. Eventually, he stopped and began a conversation. Unfortunately he was from Italy, so the language barrier restricted us from reaching our true avatar chemistry potential.

Following my experience with Iguisso, a Brazillian gentleman avatar approached me. We started having a conversation in English (phew) and we really hit it off. We talked about where we were from, the weather, how to work my car (in second life, although I could use some advice for my real life too), and eventually whether I had a boyfriend. What?!? This Brazilian had moves. After his question I quickly changed the subject and exited my session.

Throughout my entire second life experience, I found that I was doing things that I would never do in real life. I was stalking another avatar, hitting on a Brazilian avatar who was in essence, a complete stranger. I found that I was very outgoing (more so than in real life) and confident. After my experience on Second Life, I read the study by Yee and Bailenson.

In this study, I found that Second life is considered a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE), which is a communication system in which multiple interactants share the same three-dimensional digital space despite occupying remote physical locations. I found this when I never encountered one person from Italy and one from Brazil, these people were from all over the world. I also found Yee and Bailenson's study to be especially applicable to my own situation. They state that when an avatar is more attractive and taller, they tend to be more outgoing and confident. Behind my avatar, I felt invincible. I was definitely more confident and outgoing. I also found it interesting that I had chosen to alter my height, which, according to the study, leads to a more social, outgoing avatar personality. I was also consistent with Yee and Bailenson's claims in that I exhibited increased self-disclosure with my Brazilian friend.

#10: Ouch...Rejection in Second Life

For this assignment, I decided to explore Second Life, an online graphical game. Second Life fits under the definition of a collaborative virtual environment (CVE), which Yee and Bailenson describe as being a “communication system in which multiple interactants share the same three-dimensional digital space despite occupying remote physical locations” (275). In Second Life, people can personalize their own avatars however they want; at any point in the game, they also can change their appearance. There is no real objective in Second Life. No one “wins” the game. Instead, Second Life is simply a virtual space in which people can chat and interact with other people’s avatars.

In Second Life, I decided to make an avatar that was different from who I am in real life. I kept my real name for my character, but I made my avatar overweight with many freckles and red hair. My avatar was 70 inches tall, a tall height for a woman. In general, I tried to make my avatar look plain and average.

Interacting with people on Second Life was difficult. I was reluctant to start conversations with others, and people generally did not take the initiative to talk to me, especially in crowded spaces. I also tended to skirt around people and tried to avoid bumping into anyone. My avoidance of others may have been related to my avatar’s unattractiveness. Yee and Bailenson found that people who had “more attractive avatars...were more willing to approach opposite-gendered strangers” than people with unattractive avatars (285). Because I found my avatar rather unattractive, I was afraid to approach people because I thought that they would be turned away by my appearance. If I had chosen to make an attractive avatar, I may have been more inclined to approach people and step closer to them.

Yee and Bailenson also found that the heights of people’s avatars impacted “how confident” they were (285); the taller people were, the more confident they were. However, I found that I was unconfident in Second Life, even though my avatar was tall. One possible reason for the difference between Yee and Bailenson’s findings and my experience was the fact that Yee and Bailenson tested attractiveness and height separately, while both factors played a role in my Second Life experience. My avatar’s unattractiveness overshadowed any confidence that my avatar’s height might have otherwise given me. I was so preoccupied with my avatar’s plainness that height had no influence on my confidence.

Furthermore, when I did manage to start conversations with people, they were generally quick and shallow. For example, a man named “Marcuss” started a conversation with me, saying hello and asking me where I was from. However, our conversation ended at that point for a couple of reasons: one was because I gave him a quick response, refraining from elaborating after I said that I was from New York. Another reason our conversation was cut short was because Marcuss decided to start a conversation with a more attractive avatar. I also interacted with “Hazan,” who began the conversation with, “Hey, what’s up?” Not having much to say, I answered, “Nothing much.” Our conversation ended at that point when Hazan ran away.

In their study, Yee and Bailenson found that people “who had more attractive avatars exhibited increased self-disclosure” than people who had unattractive avatars (285). I found Yee and Bailenson’s conclusion to be true for my experience on Second Life. Because my avatar was unattractive, I assumed that people would not be interested in getting to know me in the first place. Thus, I gave short, unelaborated responses. Behavioral confirmation was also a factor in my interactions. Since Marcuss ignored me for my unattractiveness, I confirmed his view of me by acting antisocial. This introversion played a role in my future interactions, as I avoided self-disclosing to others for fear of being rejected again.

For the most part, my experience in Second Life confirmed Yee and Bailenson's Proteus Effect, under which people "conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect them to have" (274). Since my avatar was unattractive, I expected people to be reluctant to get to know me. In turn, this expectation caused me to become antisocial and resistant to starting conversations with others. In conversations that I did have, I was abrupt and curt since I thought people would expect those kinds of responses from me.

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10. My Second and So Not Accurate Identity

I am lucky I started watching The Office a couple of weeks ago because otherwise I would have had absolutely no clue what to expect when I entered the virtual world of Second Life. For those of you who don't know what Second Life is (and believe me, you are not alone!), it is an online virtual community that allows people to represent themselves using a 3D animated figured (also called an avatar). You can use commands to make your avatars do things- such as clap or whistle.
You use your avatar to participate in activities of "real life" such as buying clothes, talking to people, and dancing. But what also attracts users to Second life, in my opinion, are all the things you maybe can't do in real life- such buying your own island and even flying.
Second Life also allows you to design your avatar's appearance in whichever way you choose- whether or not its accurate with how you actually look in the real world.
I for instance am a short, brown hair, blue eyed female. I borrowed my friend's avatar for this assignment, who is dark, tall, and handsome. Not to mention pretty buff.
Exploring the world of Second Life was quite the adventure. I am not at all technologically savvy, so it took me almost the entire hour to figure out how to fly and gesture. I tried interacting with several people, but very few of them were responsive partly because they were also trying to figure out Second Life. I even met someone who was Portuguese but for obvious reasons the conversation went nowhere!
I did run into a girl named Jaz on Orientation Island (the place where you start off when you first join second life) who taught me a lot. My interactions with Jaz were interesting- she said she was 21 and a massage therapist. Let me offer two key moments:
1. I offered to walk/fly her off of orientation island (being the nice dark tall and handsome gentleman I was).
2. Later, she was playing around with her outfit and accidentally took her shirt off completely. I responded with the gesture of a whistle and hand clapping.
What explains my behaviors? The paper entitled "The Proteus Effect" by Yee and Bailenson (2007) hypothesizes that digital self representations change behavior. The purpose of this paper is to test whether people conform to norms based on their identity, independent of the effect of behavioral confirmation. Behavioral confirmation occurs when a person acts a certain way to confirm another person's beliefs about them. The paper successfully shows The Proteus Effect, which is when people behave in a certain way relative to their identity/self representation whether or not other people are there to have certain expectations of how they should behave. The paper specifically explores, and proves, that participants with more attractive avatars stand closer and self disclose more, and taller avatars act more confident.
In my situation in Second Life, I was obviously fulfilling a male role through my character and acted how I thought a male would/should act in the situation without necessarily thinking about it. In this respect, my avatar identity definitely affected my behavior in Second Life. However, it is hard to test The Proteus Act here because I was interacting with another avatar who could obviously see me and had expectations as to how I, a male, would behave (behavioral confirmation). It would be interesting to see how I would act if I chose a less attractive male the next time I logged on. Comparing and contrasting my behaviors as a less attractive male could shed some light on The Proteus effect if I behave differently when talking to the same girl. In the same regard, however, she might act differently towards me because I would be less attractive, and therefore I might act differently in order to confirm her beliefs.
Another interesting component of Second Life is the idea of anonymity. I would compare this to wearing a Halloween costume that completely disguises your identity- if you go out, you can do things that you may never have done if people could see your face. In real life I wouldn't have hit on a guy in the same way I hit on Jaz in Second Life!
I feel that I didn't interact with Jaz long enough to speculate about my behaviors in regards to self disclosure and standing distance because I didn't exactly know what I was doing in Second Life (the game is much more complex than it sounds!). In general, it is difficult to speculate how my avatar's appearance affected how I behaved other than gender differences. While many of the factors that are mentioned in The Proteus Effect paper play a role, it is also difficult to isolate whether or not behavioral confirmation is the culprit behind my Second Life behavior.

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