The Proteus Effect In Virtual World: Implications Of Avatar On Online Interaction

The virtual world is an important part of modern society, symbolized by digitization,networked, interactive and virtualization. With the rapid development of the virtual world,human interaction in the virtual environment has become an important mode of interaction.Human interaction in Virtual world is different from the face-to-face (FtF) interaction. If userswant to participate in virtual interaction, they often need the help of virtual self-presentation.Avatar, one main kind of self-presentation in virtual environment, has attracted the interest ofresearchers. Users usually participate in online social interaction via virtual avatars. Avatars canaffect users’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors in consciously or unconsciously onavatar-based online social interaction, which is known as the Proteus effect. In recent years,researchers have conducted a series of studies on Proteus effect. Existing researches on Proteuseffect showed that researchers had summarized the influential factors of Proteus effect,systematically discussed the multifaceted impacts of Proteus effect on users, and explored thepotential occurrence mechanisms of the Proteus effect based on relevant theories. The previousresearches provided a starting point for exploring psychological phenomena inside the virtualworld. But in summary, both the theoretical construction and the empirical research are stillrelatively scarce，not sufficient and deep enough.Shyness refers to individual’s behavioral inhibition in social situations and a fear fornegative evaluation in social situations which is closely associated with social cognition. Shyindividuals have their own features, which make them have more “online social interactionpreferences”, they are more inclined to entering the virtual world for participating in onlineinteraction. Virtual social interaction could have important impacts on shyness and interact levelof individuals, especially shy individuals. Taking these into consideration, the subject of shynessin the virtual world is increasingly concerned by researchers.The study included two sub-study, a total of three experiments, The main research aims asfollows: firstly, examining the potential influencing factors of the Proteus effect, in particular investigating the relationship between the effect and shyness. Secondly, to further clarify andimprove the Theoretical explanation framework of Proteus effect. The subjects in the researchwere shy undergraduates and non-shy undergraduates. College Students Shyness Scale was usedto pick out shy and non-shy individuals, then the Chinese version of Buss＆Perry AggressionQuestionnaire Was used to match the two groups based on their levels of aggressiveness.92subjects were ultimately selected to participate in formal experiments. Study1referred topriming effect paradigm, investigated the effect of the avatar on the Interpersonal cognition invirtual world. The results showed that situational factors and shyness level are both impactProteus effect. Study2conducted a more in-depth testing and expansion via the method of“Virtual scenario simulation” to further clarify how situational factors and shyness affect Proteuseffect.The findings of the present study ultimately showed that:(1) Some factors impact theoccurrence of Proteus effect in virtual environment, including situational factors (the valence ofsocial interaction situation) as well as individual factors (the level of shyness).(2) In negativeinterpersonal interaction situations, Proteus effect was not measured both in cognitive dimensionand behavioral dimension.(3) In positive social interaction situations, Proteus effect wasmeasured both in cognitive dimension and behavioral dimension, meanwhile, the effects aremoderated by the level of shyness. That is, although avatars of shy individuals were exactly thesame as non-shy individuals’, significant Proteus effect was only measured in non-shyindividuals, not in shy individuals.(4) In negative interpersonal interaction, compared with cluesfrom avatar, negative clues from situation and events exerted a greater impact on informationprocessing.(5) In positive social interaction situations, the moderating effect of shyness was dueto different levels of self-perception between shy individuals of different levels. Non-shyindividuals had a larger degree of self-perception, whereas shy individual had a smaller degree.