Identity formation, learning styles and trust in virtual worlds

Avatars in virtual worlds exhibit many of the social behaviors found in real life. As such, we can learn much about our own behaviors from them based on prior theories. But social psychological theories that help researchers understand real life behaviors may not necessarily apply to virtual worlds. In fact, we know little about how human behaviors, as depicted by the actions of avatars, will be different than they are in real life. For insight into this, we look at how virtual worlds impact three behaviors: forming an identity, learning, and trusting. Each of these provides some insight into behavior in virtual worlds and suggests what we must work to understand in order to modify or adapt existing social psychological theories to apply to virtual worlds.