The Impact Of Virtual Avatars On Individuals’ Prosocial Behaviors In Video Games

With the development of information technology and computer graphics technology,video games have become one of the most popular entertainment activities for young people now.The researchers found that prosocial characteristics of the video games can influence individuals’ prosocial behaviors by resulting in prosocial cognition and prosocial affect.Virtual avatar in video games refers to the way of self-presentation that can be seen by oneself and other players in real time.Virtual avatars can influence the self-concept and behavior of individuals through avatar clues(avatar appearance and avatar behavior).However,there are few researches on the impact of virtual avatars on prosocial behaviors,especially lacking of research on long-term effects and the controversial conclusion on short-term effects.Based on the existing researches and theories,this article explores the impact of virtual avatars of video games on individuals’ prosocial behaviors and psychological mechanisms through two studies.First,this research investigated the long-term influence of the use of virtual avatars on prosocial behaviors,and further explored the mediating role of trait empathy and avatar identification.However,the questionnaire study was unable to operate and control the avatars.Then,the effect of avatars’ behavior and appearance on prosocial behavior,state empathy,and avatar identification was explored through experiment method,and try to discover the mediating mechanism.1.A questionnaire survey was conducted among 501 gamers of "League of Legends"or "Honor of Kings".The results showed that:under the premise of controlling gender,age,video game experience,and agreeableness,the cooperative avatar experience positively predicts the prosocial behavior tendency of individuals,and avatar identity and trait empathy was a mediator in the relationship between them.2.To investigate the short-term effect of virtual avatar on the inclusion of aggression in prosocial behaviors(help-seeking tasks),state empathy(story-situation tasks),and avatar identification,a 2(avatar behavior:attacking opponent/healing teammates)×2(avatar appearance:justice/evil)between-subjects design was employed.156 subjects were randomly assigned to use avatars representing justice or evil to attack opponents or heal teammates.The results showed that:(1)Compared with the justice appearance,evil appearance had a more significant effect on the avatar identity.(2)Compared with attacking opponent,healing teammates had a more significant effect on the avatar identity,state empathy and prosocial behavior.(3)The mediating role of avatar identity between avatar behavior and prosocial behavior is marginal significance,while state empathy is not significant.In summary,the present research found that virtual avatars will have short-term and long-term effects on individuals’ prosocial behaviors.Cooperative avatar experience has a long-term impact on prosocial behavior though avatar identity and trait empathy.However,under strict control of the experimental materials,the short-term effects’ underlying mechanisms is unclear.Finally,although the short-term mechanism of action found in this research is unstable,this research has conducted an in-depth discussion on the impact of virtual avatars in video games on individual prosocial behaviors and their internal mechanisms and put forward reasonable prospects for future research.