10: Avatar Attractiveness

Plastic surgery aside, in real-life individuals can alter their appearance through a new hair style, makeup choices, clothing selection, and a variety of other superficial means. However, in the virtual space Second Life, individuals can easily alter the appearance of their avatar (their digital representation) in more ways than I ever expected possible. Yee and Bailenson’s (2007) study analyzes how self-representation can impact an individual’s behavior in these spaces.

When I first signed up for Second Life, I chose to be represented by one of the standard avatars, referred to as “Girl Next Door.” Shortly after being dropped off on Orientation Island, another newbie approached me and we began chatting. His avatar was very good looking, and I became self-conscious since this standard avatar wasn’t necessarily how I wanted to present myself. Since we were both fairly unsure of how to maneuver our way through this virtual world, we helped each other out as we learned our basic skills—how to communicate, how to search, how to move, and most importantly how to alter your appearance.

After completing my orientation, I opted to be transported to Help Island, where I spent a great deal of time altering my avatar’s appearance. Who knew that eye spacing, earlobe attachment, nostril division, lip ratio, jaw shape, and neck thickness were aspects that would be considered in forming our digital self-representations? After creating an avatar that I believed was very attractive, I enhanced the look I was going for by altering her clothing to make her appear more confident with her body. I achieved this by changing her jeans into super-short jean shorts, changing the long-sleeve shirt into a tank top, and revealing some cleavage.

According to Yee and Bailenson (2007), the Proteus Effect states that “in line with self-perception theory, [individuals] conform to the behavior that they believe others would expect them to have” (p. 274). This means that individuals evaluate themselves from a third-person perspective and behave consistently with how they are represented. After altering my avatar’s appearance, I had the feeling that others would expect me to be outgoing and confident simply based on my avatar’s attractiveness and her clothing.

I signed onto Second Life again later in the day with my new appearance perfected. My first Second Life friend that I met on Orientation Island initiated a chat conversation with me although we were on different islands. Following through with his request to meet up, I transported him to the island I was currently exploring. Once he saw my avatar’s new look, he suddenly acted more intimate than he did during our initial meeting—greeting me with “Hey Hottie.”

In Yee and Bailenson’s (2007) study, they found that the attractiveness of an individual’s avatar impacts how intimate they are willing to be with a stranger. In particular, the results showed that participants who had attractive avatars exhibited increased self-disclosure and were more likely to stand closer to others. My Second Life interaction supports Yee and Bailenson’s (2007) observations. Prior to my appearance alteration, the male avatar and my avatar were standing a reasonable distance away from each other and we chatted strictly about how to use Second Life. However, after I altered my avatar's appearance and we met up again, we stood fairly close to each other and I felt comfortable sharing a great deal of personal information about myself with this stranger. Since I felt that others would interpret my avatar as being attractive and confident, I acted consistently with these beliefs.

In addition to how I perceived my avatar, the way the male I was interacting with viewed my avatar led the relationship to become more intimate. Yee and Bailenson’s (2007) study intentionally excluded the effect of behavioral confirmation (the idea that individuals behave in ways that confirm the other’s expectations) in order to focus on the effect of changing an individual’s self-representation. In their experiment the confederate was blind to the attractiveness of the participant’s avatar, therefore removing the effects of behavioral confirmation. However, while interacting in Second Life, the male I was interacting with clearly expressed that he found my avatar attractive and therefore behavioral confirmation probably contributed to how I acted in addition to my own perception of my avatar’s attractiveness. Ultimately, although our self-representations can affect how we behave in Second Life or any other virtual environment, I believe it is unrealistic to ignore behavioral confirmation since this plays a huge role in interaction.

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