OPINION BETWEEn THE LInES
sive statement communicated
by an aesthetically aggressive
avatar. What about an angry
message communicated by a
sheepish avatar? Or a snide,
biting comment delivered by
a sweet, charming avatar? An
analysis by OKCupid revealed
that dating-profile pictures that
showed people doing something
(e.g., with animals, travel photos) generated substantially
more interesting conversations. Does the visual instance
change the impact of the message on its receiver [ 8]?
In a 1995 study Clifford Nass
and Byron Reeves bestowed
computers with “personalities”
and tested similar questions
in an experiment between
computers and humans. They
started with dominant and
submissive personalities and,
assigning these attributes to
the computers, paired comput-
ers and users together to see
if these personalities evoked
the same results they would
in human-human interactions.
(Personalities were assigned
through a combination of
dialog-box characteristics and
content.) The expectation was
that dominant users would pre-
fer dominant computers, and
submissive users, submissive
computers. Their hypothesis
was, in fact, correct [ 9].
Choice. In a social setting,
there are clear responsibilities:
One has allegiances to a social
circle, family, work, perhaps
social causes, and all of these
contribute to an individual’s
behavior in a social encounter.
What responsibilities, however,
does a person have on these
same levels for maintaining an
avatar? While IBM has devel-
oped an avatar style sheet that
outlines behavioral and aes-
thetic guidelines for use (e.g.,
“be sensitive about appearances
when meeting with clients”),
there is no Emily Post-like
guidance, quite thankfully, on
avatar use for the rest of us [ 6].
So are there social standards
for their use? People tend to
change avatars in four ways:
• Events: seasons, holidays
(e.g., Christmas, New Year)
• Affiliation: sports team,
company
• Social causes: awareness
(e.g., breast cancer awareness),
national causes, elections, blue-
beanie day
• Status: points, color (e.g.,
Color Wars), demonstration of
beauty or wealth
With all, an individual must
make a choice as to whether or
not to change the avatar. Issues
of time, duration, announce-
ment, and scale arise. How
[ 4] Grohol Psyd, J. “The
Proteus Effect: How
Our Avatar Changes
Online Behavior.” http://
psychcentral.com/blog/
archives/2009/11/24/
the-proteus-effect-how-our-avatar-changes-online-behavior/
[ 5] Nowak, K.L.,
and Rauh, C. “The
Influence of the Avatar
on Online Perceptions
of Anthropomorphism,
Androgyny, Credibility,
Homophily, and
Attraction.” http://jcmc.
indiana.edu/vol11/
issue1/ nowak.html/
[ 6] Reeves, B. J.,
and Read, L. Total
Engagement: Using
Games and Virtual
Worlds to Change the
Way People Work and
Businesses Compete.
Boston: Harvard
Business Press, 2009.
May + June 2010
Four core considerations
I’ll highlight four areas where I
think we have work left to do.