Scenario #1:
As your virtual reality avatar, you’re playing a superhero in a video game, first-person perspective. You swoop in, confront a malicious foe, entrap him, and defeat him.
You feel elated. A happy smile spreads on your lips.
Scenario #2:
As your virtual reality avatar, you’re playing a super villain in a video game, first-person perspective. You cleverly trap, clobber, and defeat the superhero of the game.
You feel powerful. A sly grin spreads on your lips.
In each case, someone asks you to help them pick up a mess in the room when you’re finished with the game. Do you think you would react differently after either experience?
Be careful how you answer that.
Feelings and Actions
It’s not a new concept that what we feel and think affects our behavior and facial expressions. Or that how we behave and express ourselves affects our thinking and feelings. You’re happy, you smile. You’re unhappy, you frown. On the other hand, smiling can also make you feel happy and frowning unhappy.
Recent research actually suggests that this concept can also apply to virtual reality. Study results indicate that the traits of your virtual reality avatar can significantly affect your behavior in real life.
In what ways?
How a Virtual Reality Avatar Can Affect You
More and more, technology is steering us toward virtual reality presentations – be that in video games, on social network sites, or even in the workplace. Immersing panoramic videos, engagingly real video games, and VR staff meetings or training sessions seem to be the path of the future. Sounds like an exciting prospect, right? But you might be surprised, and perhaps even disturbed, how all this virtual realism can affect a person.
One study, for example, examined how the physical attributes and behavior of a virtual reality avatar influences a person’s own behavior. Researchers found that the height of an avatar in a work related negotiation affected the outcome of the deal that was made. Those with tall avatars negotiated a much better deal than those with short avatars. The researchers also noted that people with obese avatars moved less in video games than those with normal weight avatars, and that even the position in which an avatar sat had an influence on how the person themselves felt.
In another study, researchers assigned the participants to play as a superhero, a super villain, or a neutral character. After 5 minutes of playing, they were asked to carry out an action that would either be good or bad for someone. The participants who played as the superhero were twice as likely to bestow a benefit on the person, while the ones that played the super villain were twice as likely to do that which would be detrimental.
Interestingly, researchers observed that it didn’t seem that actually identifying with the virtual reality avatar affected players. Instead how the game engaged a person caused them to be most affected by their character. This feeling of presence, or reality, during a game can leave one blind to the influence an avatar might have on one’s behavior.
What Are the Lessons?
First, caution is warranted. Be careful what type of character you choose to role-play in a video game. There can be powerful imitative effects when you put on a virtual mask, some of which you might not like or mean to occur.
Second, there is a potentially positive side. If you ever get to choose an avatar for a work related virtual reality meeting, opt to project a confident and strong representation of yourself. It can help you avoid having others take advantage of you and can even influence you to behave just as confidently in real life.
