Self-Expansion In Social Media:Evidence From Avatar Recognition

With the popularity of smart phones and mobile devices,online social media has been gradually infiltrating people’s lives.There was 904 million of Internet users in China,and the Internet penetration rate was 64.5%.At the same time,the three major domestic social media,WeChat circle of friends,QQ space and Weibo use penetration rates of 85.1%、47.6%and 42.5%,respectively,and social media has a high penetration rate among college students.At the same time,the online world has characteristics such as equality,anonymity,de-inhibition,and non-synchronization,providing individuals with an ideal platform for self-presentation.Individuals can build their own,selective roles in the online world.Individuals can construct network identities through various network self-presentation methods,such as screen names,avatarsavatars,posting photos or videos,and avatars.On the one hand,positive self-presentation in such social networking sites can shape a positive self-image and maintain a positive self-concept;on the other hand,individuals recognize the self-presentation in social networking sites,and possibly with the content presented ask yourself to live a corresponding lifestyle.In addition,individuals have the motivation to maintain self-evaluation,that is,individuals often associate positive emotions with self-related information and have self-positive biases.Therefore,it is necessary to explore the self-related information in social media,that is,to explore the relationship between the network self and the real self,and to explore whether the network self has the same positive bias effect as the real self.Further reveal the impact of social media use on individual development and its nature,and lay the foundation for future exploration of the relationship between virtual self and real self and its mechanism of action.Study 1 recruited 15 college students as participants,and used 98 virtual avatars in 7 categories as experimental materials.Visual search tasks were used to analyze individuals’ responses to social media by comparing their responses to different avatar pictures.Relevant information is intentionally processed to reveal whether avatars in social media are one of the sources of self-expansion.The results show:(1)In the visual search task,the self-avatar virtual avatar has similar processing advantages as the real self,that is,the search response of the self-avatar virtual avatar is significantly faster than the search response of other people’s virtual avatar and other people’s real self.However,there is no difference in its reaction with the real self;(2)In the visual search task,the QQ Penguin virtual network avatar has similar processing advantages as the real self,that is,the QQ Penguin virtual network avatar responds significantly faster than others The search response of the virtual avatar and the real self of others,but there is no difference between the response of the virtual avatar and the response of the self.Study 2 recruited 32 college students,using 100 positive and negative personality traits and virtual web heads as experimental materials,and further used an above-threshold attitude to start an experiment to examine whether self-expanding web heads have self-positive bias effects to prove self The expanded content is part of the offline self.The results show that:(1)the self-avatar-positive word pairing response time is significantly slower than the real self-positive word-pair reaction time and the QQ penguin head-positive word pairing reaction time;(2)the self-network head-negative word pairing the reaction time is significantly faster than the real self-negative word pairing reaction and the QQ penguin head-negative word pairing reaction time.Tencent QQ penguin’s head has a positive bias processing mechanism similar to its true self.The results of this study found that the virtual avatar of the self and the virtual avatar of the Tencent penguin logo belong to the extended source of the individual’s real self.The online virtual avatar of the Tencent penguin logo is similar to the processing mechanism of the real self,and has a positive self-biasing effect.This research result further clarifies the representation form of the network self and its relationship with the real self,and lays an empirical basis for clarifying the connotation and relationship between the virtual self and the real self.