Know Thy Avatar

Virtual environments enable people to experience extra­ ordinary identities or circumstances. People can take on superhero or super­villain roles using digital avatars in virtual space. By acting as these avatars, individuals may learn new behaviors and model their own, real­life behaviors after them (Bandura, 1977; Bem, 1972). The virtual environment is, thus, a vehicle for observation, imitation, and modeling; players’ avatars may fuel these processes. Recent empirical research confirms that the behavior of players’ avatars can affect players’ self­concepts, cogni­ tions, and feelings (Gentile et al., 2009; Greitemeyer & Osswald, 2010). Thus, concepts related to avatar behav­ iors in general (e.g., fighting against evil) or to particular avatars (e.g., Superman) may affect subsequent behavior (e.g., good deeds). Identification with an avatar is corre­ lated with avatar­consistent behavior in the real world (Rosenberg, Baughman, & Bailenson, 2013). In the exper­ iments reported here, we investigated whether certain types of avatars and avatars’ behaviors could promote pro­ or antisocial actions in everyday behavior.