The role of stereotypical beliefs in gender-based activation of the Proteus effect

Informed by the Proteus effect, the current study examined the moderating effect of belief in stereotypes on the relationship between avatar appearance and user behavior, via an interactive fiction. The results of a one-factor (avatar gender: male vs. female), between-subjects experiment revealed that female avatars elicited more frequent masculine behaviors (particularly among individuals high in feminine gender stereotypes) and that male avatars elicited more frequent feminine behaviors. Conversely, self-reported gender led to stereotypic behaviors as expected. A moderating effect of awareness of the avatar's influence on stereotypically gender-based decisions on frequency of gender-typed behavior was not found, suggesting individuals are not aware of the influence of avatars on their subsequent decisions.

[1]  F. Eyssel,et al.  (S)he's Got the Look: Gender Stereotyping of Robots1 , 2012 .

[2]  M. Eastin.  Video Game Violence and the Female Game Player: Self‐ and Opponent Gender Effects on Presence and Aggressive Thoughts , 2006 .

[3]  J. Bailenson,et al.  The Difference Between Being and Seeing: The Relative Contribution of Self-Perception and Priming to Behavioral Changes via Digital Self-Representation , 2009 .

[4]  J. Bailenson,et al.  The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior , 2007 .

[5]  M. Brewer.  The Social Self: On Being the Same and Different at the Same Time , 1991 .

[6]  Zaheer Hussain,et al.  Gender Swapping and Socializing in Cyberspace: An Exploratory Study , 2008, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[7]  Ming-Hui Wen,et al.  Body and mind: a study of avatar personalization in three virtual worlds , 2009, CHI.

[8]  Dmitri Williams,et al.  Dude Looks like a Lady: Gender Swapping in an Online Game , 2010, Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual.

[9]  William Sims Bainbridge,et al.  Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual , 2009, Human-Computer Interaction Series.

[10]  Sriram Subramanian,et al.  Talking about tactile experiences , 2013, CHI.

[11]  Nicholas A. Palomares,et al.  Virtual Gender Identity: The Linguistic Assimilation to Gendered Avatars in Computer-Mediated Communication , 2010 .

[12]  Jorge Peña,et al.  Integrating the Influence of Perceiving and Operating Avatars Under the Automaticity Model of Priming Effects , 2011 .

[13]  Jeremy N. Bailenson,et al.  The Proteus Effect , 2009, Commun. Res..

[14]  W. Davison.  The Third-Person Effect in Communication , 1983 .

[15]  D. Broverman,et al.  Sex‐Role Stereotypes: A Current Appraisal , 1972 .

[16]  Brandon Van Der Heide,et al.  The Proteus Effect in Dyadic Communication , 2013, Commun. Res..

[17]  L. Skitka,et al.  Status quo framing increases support for torture , 2009 .

[18]  V. Groom,et al.  The influence of racial embodiment on racial bias in immersive virtual environments , 2009 .

[19]  Junghyun Kim,et al.  "I want to be different from others in cyberspace" The role of visual similarity in virtual group identity , 2009, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[20]  Junghyun Kim,et al.  The effect of uniform virtual appearance on conformity intention: Social identity model of deindividuation effects and optimal distinctiveness theory , 2011, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[21]  Richard M. Perloff,et al.  MASS MEDIA, SOCIAL PERCEPTION, AND THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT , 2009 .

[22]  Kelly A. Lyons,et al.  On the Relationship between My Avatar and Myself , 2008 .

[23]  Jorge Peña,et al.  The Priming Effects of Avatars in Virtual Settings , 2009, Commun. Res..

[24]  S. Bem,et al.  Sex typing and the avoidance of cross-sex behavior. , 1976, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[25]  Jeremy N. Bailenson,et al.  The Unbearable Likeness of Being Digital: The Persistence of Nonverbal Social Norms in Online Virtual Environments , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[26]  Les Nelson,et al.  Do men heal more when in drag?: conflicting identity cues between user and avatar , 2011, CHI.