The Effect Of Gaming Avatars On Prosociality

Nowadays,online games are favored by netizens with their exquisite game interface,vivid game avatars and huge game world background,especially the MMORPG.In such games,players can form teams at will,manipulate avatars in the game through teamwork,and socialize with other players through avatars in the game.Therefore the characteristics of the avatar(such as the physical appearance,the characteristics of behavioral skills,etc.)may have a certain impact on the player's behavior in the game and their performance in reality.The influence of the existing studies have found that some characteristics of avatar,such as the physical appearance and behavior tendency and other elements can affect individual behavior and self-concept.However,the internal mechanisms between avatar characteristics and outcomes are less discussed.Researchers put forward avatar identity,refers to the stereotypes and similar attitudes changed when players are playing game by manipulate the avatar,and will affect the content of the self-concept,change our attitude to other groups,and even behavior to different situations,thus avatar identification may be game features affect the Internal mechanism of individual pro-sociality.The automated model also suggests that positive avatars lead individuals to positive identification that promote pro-social behavior.In addition,the effects of avatars on individuals can be moderated by personal characteristics.For example,compared with female players,male players are more likely to identify with violent or aggressive avatars.And based on the General Learning Model,the effect of personal traits and game factors will interact in the subsequent internal state(self-concept,cognition,etc.),and further affect the individual behavioral responses,and long-term exposure to a game,may also change the internal state(self-concept,cognition,etc.),and make the individuals' personality changed gradually.Therefore,this study aims to investigate the influence of appearance and behavior tendency of avatars on the implicit pro-social cognition and pro-social behavior to different objects after the game.At the same time,based on the General Learning Model,the mediating effect of avatar identity and the moderating effect of social value orientation are also investigated.In this study,questionnaire and experiment methods were used to investigate the pro-social behavior of game players after long-term and short-term exposure to different avatars.In the first study,a questionnaire was used to measure the long-term game use,avatar characteristics,avatar identity and pro-social behavior tendency of 1068role-playing game players.The results show that the avatars of justicial appearance and high pro-social behavior can significantly positively predict the pro-social behavior tendency of individuals,and the avatar identification played a completely mediating role between the avatars of justicial appearance and pro-social behavior,while the avatar identification played a partial mediating role between the pro-social avatars and pro-social behavior.The first experiment investigated the effect of avatar appearance and behavior tendency on the level of avatar identity,implicit pro-social cognition,and the pro-social behavior to the stranger.Meanwhile,it also explored the mediating role of avatar identity between the characters of avtars and individual pro-sociality.This experiment using Overwatch game,employed a 2(Avatar Appearance:justice/evil)×2(Avatar behavior tendency: pro-social/aggression)between-subjects design.183 female college students were randomly assigned to use different avatars,and were asked to finish the Avatar Identity Scale,Implicit Association Test and Helping Decision Situation Task.Results showed that the individual's implicit pro-social cognition was significantly influenced by the physical appearance and behavior characteristics.Participants palyed high pro-social and justice avatars would promote implicit pro-social cognition,what's more,the avatar identification played a partial mediating role between.The pro-social behavior towards strangers was significantly affected by the interaction between the avatars' physical appearance and their behavior characteristics.Among the avatars of high pro-social behavior,the pro-social behavior induced by the justice appearance was significantly higher than that of the evil appearance group.In addition,individuals' identification to an avatar representing justice was significantly higher than the evil,and the relations between the avatars' physical appearance and identification was marginal influences by the avatars' behavior characteristics.When participants played the avatar with high pro-social tendencies,their identificaiton in the justice sppearance group is significantly higher than the evil group.The second experiment also explored the effects of avatars' physical appearance and behavior characters on the avatar identification and the pro-social behavior to in-group or out-group members.This experiment used Overwatch game,employed a 2(Avatar Appearance: justice/evil)×2(Avatar behavior tendency: pro-social/aggression)×(Social Value Orientation: pro-social/pro-self)between-subjects design.161 female college students were randomly assigned to use different avatars,then finished the Social Value Orientation of the slider scale,avatar identity scale,adapted one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma Game.The results showed that people's pro-social behavior to the in-group members was significantly affected by the behavior characteristics of avatars,which was manifested as the avatars with high pro-social tendencies,and the pro-social decision-making level of the in-group members was higher.The pro-social behavior of individuals facing out-group members was significantly influenced by the interaction between the social value orientation and the avatar's physical appearance,which is manifested as that in the evil image,the pro-social orientation individuals have a higher level of pro-social decision-making on the opponent than the teammate.In conclusion,those results supported the general learning model and the automaticity model.(1)long-term exposure to the physical appearance and behavior characteristics of game avatars will affect the behavior tendency of players in real life.Long-term exposure to the game avatars of justice image and high pro-social behavior will play a positive role in promoting the pro-social behavior tendency of individuals by enhancing their avatar identification.(2)Short-term exposure to the avatars with justice appearance or highly pro-social tendency could also promote the individual's subsequent implicit pro-social cognition.Moreover,short-term exposure to the justice avatar could positively affect the subsequent implicit pro-social cognition by improving the individual's avatar identification.(3)Avatar appearance and behavior tendency interacted with each other to influence individuals' subsequent pro-social behavior to strangers.Specifically,people using the avatar with justice appearance were more pro-social to strangers.(4)Only the avatar with high pro-social behavior tendency could improve the pro-social decision level to in-group members,while the pro-social decision to out-group members were influenced by the interaction of social value orientation and avatar appearance.The result shows that,pro-social individuals behaved more generous to out-group member than pro-self individuals when players using an avatar with evil appearance.