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Know Thy Avatar: The Unintended Effect of Virtual-Self Representation on Behavior

Gunwoo Yoon and Patrick T. Vargas
Psychological Science published online 5 February 2014
DOI: 10.1177/0956797613519271

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research-article2014
PSSXXX10.1177/0956797613519271Yoon, VargasKnow Thy Avatar

Psychological Science OnlineFirst, published on February 5, 2014 as doi:10.1177/0956797613519271

Short Report

Psychological Science

Know Thy Avatar: The Unintended Effect of 1–3

© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0956797613519271
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Gunwoo Yoon1 and Patrick T. Vargas2

1
Institute of Communications Research, College of Media, and 2Charles H. Sandage Department
of Advertising, College of Media, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Received 10/26/13; Revision accepted 12/11/13

Virtual environments enable people to experience extra- to 7, very much. Then they were told that the first study
ordinary identities or circumstances. People can take on was over.
superhero or super-villain roles using digital avatars in Participants were then informed that a blind taste test
virtual space. By acting as these avatars, individuals may of food additives would take place and were asked to sign
learn new behaviors and model their own, real-life another consent form.1 We manipulated good and bad
behaviors after them (Bandura, 1977; Bem, 1972). The action by asking participants to first taste and then give
virtual environment is, thus, a vehicle for observation, either chocolate or chili sauce, respectively (Fischer,
imitation, and modeling; players’ avatars may fuel these Kastenmüller, & Greitemeyer, 2010), to a (fictional) future
processes. participant. Participants were instructed to pour an
Recent empirical research confirms that the behavior unspecified amount of food into a plastic dish (“to allow
of players’ avatars can affect players’ self-concepts, cogni- the experimenter to be blind to experimental conditions”)
tions, and feelings (Gentile et al., 2009; Greitemeyer & and were told that the future participant would consume
Osswald, 2010). Thus, concepts related to avatar behav- all of the food provided. The total amount poured was
iors in general (e.g., fighting against evil) or to particular measured in grams. As a manipulation check, we asked
avatars (e.g., Superman) may affect subsequent behavior participants to rate the valence of giving chili sauce or
(e.g., good deeds). Identification with an avatar is corre- chocolate to a subsequent participant on scales ranging
lated with avatar-consistent behavior in the real world from 1, bad, to 7, good; 1, unpleasant, to 7, pleasant; and
(Rosenberg, Baughman, & Bailenson, 2013). In the exper- 1, unfavorable, to 7, favorable (Cronbach’s = .97).
iments reported here, we investigated whether certain Participants’ identification with their avatars did not
types of avatars and avatars’ behaviors could promote differ significantly among conditions, F(2, 191) = 1.83,
pro- or antisocial actions in everyday behavior. p = .16, p2 = .02 (hero: M = 3.90, SD = 1.30; villain: M =
3.54, SD = 1.19; circle: M = 3.88, SD = 1.38). The bad
action (giving chili sauce; M = 1.82, SD = 0.70) was rated
Experiment 1 more negatively than the good action (giving chocolate;
One hundred ninety-four undergraduates participated in M = 5.33, SD = 0.89), t(192) = 30.42, p < .001, d = 4.40.
the experiment (95 males, 99 females; mean age = 20.34 More important, a 3 (avatar: heroic vs. villainous vs.
years, SD = 2.10). Participants were told that they were neutral) × 2 (behavior: good vs. bad) analysis of variance
involved in two separate studies: a test of game usability (ANOVA) revealed the predicted interaction effect, F(2,
and a blind tasting test. After signing a consent form, par- 188) = 35.91, p < .001, p2 = .28, but no main effects, Fs <
ticipants were randomly assigned to heroic (Superman), .37, ps > .16. Participants who played the heroic avatar
villainous (Voldemort), and neutral geometric-shaped (cir- gave more chocolate than those who played the villain-
cle) avatars. They then played a game for 5 min in which ous or neutral avatars (see Fig. 1a). Conversely, partici-
they battled enemies as their avatar (see the Supplemental pants who played villains poured more chili sauce than
Material available online for further descriptions of the
stimuli and the game). Participants’ identification with their
Corresponding Author:
avatars was measured using four items (e.g., “While you
Gunwoo Yoon, Institute of Communications Research, College of
were playing the game, how much did you identify with Media, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 810 South Wright
your avatar?”; Cronbach’s = .75), each of which they St., Urbana, IL 61801
responded to on a 7-point scale ranging from 1, not at all, E-mail: gyoon3@illinois.edu

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2 Yoon, Vargas
a b
Chocolate Chili Sauce
20
16
Amount Allocated (g)
12
8
4
0 0
Heroic Avatar Neutral Avatar Villainous Avatar
Virtual-Self Representation
Fig. 1. Results from Experiment 1 (a) and Experiment 2 (b). The graph in (a) shows the mean amount of chocolate and chili sauce given by
participants as a function of the avatar they used. The graph in (b) shows the mean amount of chili sauce given as a function of participants’
role and the avatar they used. Error bars show standard errors of the mean.
did participants who played heroes and neutral avatars
(see the Supplemental Material for further details).
Experiment 2
The design of Experiment 2 was the same as that of
Experiment 1, except that there was an additional set of
conditions to test whether our role-taking manipulation
(i.e., playing as a superhero or villain) generated stronger
real-world outcomes than common behavioral-priming
(e.g., Dijksterhuis et al., 1998) and perspective-taking
(e.g., Galinsky, Wang, & Ku, 2008) manipulations, both of
which lead people to behave in ways consistent with the
target. In order to simplify the experiment, we dropped
the neutral-avatar condition and focused on how much
chili sauce players allotted. Thus, we tested whether
game players (who “were” the heroic or villainous avatar)
would show stronger behavioral effects than observers
(who “were primed with” or “took the perspective of” the
heroic or villainous avatar). Observers were asked to put
themselves in a heroic or villainous avatar’s “shoes” and
to watch a game demonstration for 5 min. All other pro-
cedures and measures were identical to those used in
Experiment 1.
One hundred twenty-five undergraduates partici-
pated in the experiment (44 males, 81 females; mean
age = 19.42 years, SD = 1.37). A 2 (avatar: heroic vs.
villainous) × 2 (role: player vs. observer) ANOVA on the
amount of chili sauce served yielded a significant main
effect of avatar, F(1, 121) = 48.35, p < .001, p2 = .29, and
no effect of role, F(1, 121) < 1, p = .57. As predicted,
villains administered a greater amount of hot chili sauce
Downloaded from pss.sagepub.com by Anna Mikulak on February 6, 2014
Heroic Avatar Villainous Avatar
16
Chili Sauce Allocated (g)
12
8
4
Player Observer
Role
than heroes (see the Supplemental Material for further
details). There was a significant interaction effect,
F(1, 121) = 24.17, p < .001, p2 = .17. Indeed, partici-
pants who played heroes served significantly less chili
sauce than participants who observed heroes, and par-
ticipants who played villains served more chili sauce
than participants who observed villains (Fig. 1b; see
the Supplemental Material for further details). As in
Experiment 1, “being” an avatar caused participants to
behave in ways that conformed to their avatars, which
caused stronger effects on subsequent behavior than
did priming or perspective taking.
Discussion
This research not only demonstrates that acting as a hero
or villain causes people to perform coincident behaviors,
but also highlights that role taking facilitates behavior
consistent with the actions of a target above and beyond
the behavior facilitated by priming (Nelson & Norton,
2005). A 5-min gaming experience with certain avatars
is enough to reverse a potential pattern of behavior.
One likely explanation is that immersion (Weinstein,
Przybylski, & Ryan, 2009) or arousal (Berger, 2011)
derived from the gaming experience imbues people with
agency. In Experiment 2, the perspective-taking manipu-
lation was almost certainly less arousing than active game
play; perhaps arousal mediates the effect of avatars on
behavior (e.g., arousal facilitates action).2
Human social responses can be altered by how virtual-
self representations are implemented, and those can play
a role in shaping the way people interact with others. In
Know Thy Avatar
everyday gaming, players choose their own avatars, but
creating games with more heroic avatars could encour-
age more prosocial behavior. By exploring the important
outcome of virtual experiences, this study broadens the
potential of unintended influence of self-representation
derived from role taking on human behavior.
Author Contributions
G. Yoon developed the study concept. G. Yoon and P. T.
Vargas equally contributed to the study design. Data collection
and statistical analyses were performed by G. Yoon and P. T.
Vargas. G. Yoon analyzed and interpreted the data under the
supervision of P. T. Vargas. G. Yoon drafted the manuscript,
and P. T. Vargas provided critical revisions. All authors approved
the final version of the manuscript for submission.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Jesse Preston and members of the Psychology
of Religion, Agency, and Morality Laboratory for their useful
comments.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with
respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.
Supplemental Material
Additional supporting information may be found at http://pss
.sagepub.com/content/by/supplemental-data
Notes
1. We handed out different consent forms to make the idea of
“two separate studies” more believable. No participants noticed
a connection between the two consecutive studies.
2. We tested mediation effects linking role taking to behavior
through avatar identification. Results from bootstrap analyses
did not support this avatar-identification account. In addition,
there were no significant correlations between avatar identifica-
tion and behavior.
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3
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