游戏邦在:
杂志专栏:
gamerboom.com订阅到鲜果订阅到抓虾google reader订阅到有道订阅到QQ邮箱订阅到帮看

关于玩家使用异性虚拟角色的研究(3)

发布时间:2014-02-20 15:44:35 Tags:,,

作者:Hugo Aranzaes

使用异性虚拟角色已经成了一种普遍现象。鉴于于游戏所提供的不同性别定制机会,出现这种情况并不令人意外。玩家可以借此尝试不同的外观造型和行为,并在探索自己新个性的同时创建虚拟角色。这些虚拟角色不但是玩家辛勤创建的产品,还是他们自身的扩展版。但我们会向角色倾注自己的多少特点呢,我们又能从中得到什么?我们究竟知不知道自己的这一杰作如何影响我们自身?它究竟是我们保留在游戏记录中的自身行为,还是其他元素?(请点击此处阅读本文第1第2篇

心理学家似乎认为从他人的视角出发,有可能改变我们的想法和行为。有时候,仅仅将我们自身置于他人的位置来思考问题就已经足够激发效果。那么在一个虚拟环境中具体化一个角色的沉浸体验又能产生什么影响?这正是一群调查人员在设计一系列分析人类虚拟化身的影响时所产生的想法。在这些试验中,他们给予参与者一个拥有独特“生理”外形的虚拟角色。看到他们自己在虚拟镜子中的形象时,受试者必须与另一名由一个演员控制的角色互动。结果显示,拥有迷人外形的虚拟角色的参与者,明显会站得更靠近其他角色,并且在受访中能够透露更多信息。在一项涉及金钱共享的相似任务中,使用更高大角色的受试者所分得到钱远超过拥有那些矮小角色的受访者。数据分析还显示,那些身材较矮的个人比起正常身高、以及个头较高的受访者正可能接受不公平的待遇(72%)。结果显示,那些拥有理想外形的虚拟角色可以让玩家呈现更有自信的行为,至少在虚拟世界是如此。调查人员认为这是因为虚拟环境中的人倾向于做出自己认为其他人所期待的行为,这一现象就是所谓的普罗透斯效应(游戏邦注:即如果我们的虚拟化身很高,我们可能会更自信)。

tall and attractive(from thepunkeffect)

tall and attractive(from thepunkeffect)

由于我们认为更有吸引力的角色更有安全感,参与者就会据此在虚拟环境中作出相应的行为。

上述试验可能证明了普罗透斯效应的存在,但实验定结果却并不一定能够反映现实世界的情况(在这种情况下指的是虚拟世界)。最近有项研究以现了MMORPG中出现这种现象的又一证据。2009年Yee\Bailenson和Ducheneaut收集了来自三个《魔兽世界》服务器的数据,其中涉及76843名个人角色的相关信息。在分析数据之后,他们发现更高的虚拟角色一般可呈现更高级的发展情况。这也许可以表明角色身高对于其升级情况的积极影响。此外,在那些富有吸引力的角色中,高个与矮个角色之间也存在较大区别。结果还显示,当虚拟角色个子较高时,富有吸引力的角色级别比没有吸引力者更高。有趣的是,这种关系在矮个角色之间却是相反的,即不具吸引力的角色在升级过程中的表现超过了富有吸引力的角色。这表明角色的吸引力对升级具有积极影响,但仅限于角色的身高。作者认为发生这一现象的原因在于,吸引力虽然可以让角色起起来更自信,它也会让矮小的角色看起来更有趣,而这却是无助玩玩家升级的特点。另一个解释可能就是,拥有额外的理想属性可能会让玩家更清楚自己的虚拟形象。由此来看,富有魅力可能会让角色身高对用户来说更明显,从而触发普罗透斯效应。

假如虚拟角色的形象有可能影响玩家行为,那么我们就不难推断由某一属性引发的效应与角色的性别一样重要。最近的两项调查似乎能够支持这一观点。2009年关于《EverQuest II》玩家的调查显示,拥有异性角色的女性玩家比那些拥有同性角色的女性玩家、男性玩家(无论其使用哪种性别的虚拟角色)更少使用文本聊天方式。作者认为女性玩家会根据自己角色性别的需要来采取行动——男性的行动多于语言。在另一项调查中,《魔兽世界》中女性虚拟角色治疗的机率更高,而男性角色在PvP战斗中的注册比例更高。这表明,无论玩家的真实异别是什么,他们都倾向于根据虚拟人物的传统性别角色来行动。在这种情况下就是女性助人,男性战斗。这一效应还得到了最近一项针对《Uncharted Waters Online》玩家观察的支持。在分析游戏角色数据库和聊天截取的文本之后,调查人员发现男性角色比女性角色更可能寻找间接帮助。这一行为与传统的男性行为期望一致:男性并不需要帮助(所以他们真正需要帮助时会很含蓄)。虽然这还不足以构成结论,但之前的结果已指出我们已经有足够的基础相信虚拟角色性别可能影响玩家行为。换句话说,MMORPG用户似乎会根据自己所想的他人对角色性别的期望而采取行动。

older avatars(from thepunkeffect)

older avatars(from thepunkeffect)

虚拟角色的异性可能影响玩家行为这一事实也许还是减少性别刻板性的重要启示。我们都看到了,切换性别允许玩家下以异性眼光来看待不同问题。这可以让他们更好地理解自己必须面临的挑战和优势 ,从而呈现更具现实感的另一种形象。虽然我们找不到关于性别切换与人们对异性态度的影响这种著作,有些调查人员研究了虚拟化身对其他老套类型的影响。例如,在2006年的一个试验中,使用年长角色的参与者在虚拟世界中会明显呈现对待年长者的积极态度。但是,角色的年龄与其他两个考量因素(问卷调查表的态度和故事中的老年角色的描述)并不存在明显的联系。在另一个试图找到具体化特定种族角色效应的试验中,他们要求参与将自己想象成照片上的一位黑人或白人模特。一群参与者还得到了基于真实模特的虚拟角色。他们的任务包括在虚拟镜子中自我观察,并与其他角色互动,仿佛自己正在进行一项工作面试。拥有黑人模特的参与者对传统白人明显呈现出积极态度。作者认为这可能是因为具体化一名不同种族的人,一般会鼓励那种刻板化的态度。除此之外,参与者还要将自己想象成另一名没有什么特殊的人,无论他们是白人还是黑人。这表明将自己想象成不同种族的人并不足以激发种族态度的可衡量变化。最后,其他衡量要素——自尊程度和两个关于信念和对非籍美国人的态度的应用调查却并没有发现什么明显的结果。这两项调查表明在虚拟环境中具体化一个不同的角色可能影响对队的态度,但结果太不一致了,所以无法作为结论。换句话说,我们需要更多信息以便使用虚拟化身作为反对刻板化的武器。

使用虚拟角色所能昨生的心理影响可能超过了我们的预期。这可能悄悄改变玩家的态度,信念和行为。有时候甚至是发生在他们根本不知道的前提下。但这未必是一件坏事。普罗透斯效应为教育和医疗领域创造了一个不同的机遇。基于游戏的虚拟角色可用于减少校园中的种族刻板印象,或者帮助没有安全感的人呈现更高的自信(至少是在虚拟环境中)。但在我们推广虚拟角色的益处之前,还需要额外调查。以缓慢而安全的步伐推进科学,试图跳过其中的步伐可能会给玩家、开发者和调查人员带来不确定性。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Avatars of the Opposite Sex. Part 3 of 3: Take Control of Yourself!

By Hugo Aranzaes

The use of avatars of the opposite sex has become a common practice. This shouldn’t come as a surprise after seeing the different opportunities gender customization has to offer. Players can try different physical appearances as well as behaviors, and build fictional characters while exploring new aspects of their own personalities. It’s normal then for players to feel tempted to identify with their avatars. Not only are they the product of hard work but also an extension of their own selves. But how much from of us are we transmitting to our characters and how much are we receiving? How aware are we of the way our creations are affecting us? Is it really our behavior what gets registered on the game records, or is it something else?

Psychologists seem to think that taking the perspective of someone else has the potential to change how we think and behave. Sometimes, just the act of mentally putting ourselves in someone else’s place is enough to provoke the effect. What could be the impact then of an experience as immersive as embodying an avatar in a virtual environment? This is what a group of researchers had in their minds when they designed a series of studies to analyze the effects of virtual embodiment in people. In these experiments they gave participants an avatar with a particular “physical” appearance. After watching themselves in a virtual mirror, subjects had to interact with another character controlled by an actor. The results showed that participants with an attractive avatar stood significantly closer to the other character and revealed significantly more pieces of information during an interview (Yee & Bailenson, 2007). In similar experiments involving a money sharing task, subjects using taller avatars split the money significantly more in their own favor than those embodying short characters (Yee & Bailenson, 2007; Yee, Bailenson, & Ducheneaut, 2009). Data analysis also showed that individuals in the short condition were approximately two times more likely to accept an unfair offer (72%) as participants in the normal (31%) and tall conditions (38%) (Yee & Bailenson, 2007). The results of suggest that embodying an avatar with desirable physical attributes makes the player show a more confident behavior, at least in the virtual world. Researchers think this happens because people in virtual environments tend to act in correspondence with the behavior they believe others expect them to have, a phenomena known as the Proteus Effect (Yee & Bailenson, 2007). Since they think more attractive characters are expected to be more secure, participants behaved accordingly in the virtual environment.

The mentioned experiments may have proven the existence of the Proteus Effect, but laboratory results doesn’t necessarily reflect what happens in the real world (or, in this case, the virtual world). A recent study however might have found additional evidence of the occurrence of the phenomena inside MMORPGs. In 2009 Yee, Bailenson and Ducheneaut collected data from three World of Warcraft servers, obtaining information about 76,843 individual characters. After analyzing it they found out that taller avatars tend to show higher levels of development (Yee, Bailenson, & Ducheneaut, 2009). This could indicate a positive effect of character’s height on the level achieved. Also, among attractive characters, there is a higher difference between tall and short models. Results also showed that, when the avatars are tall, attractive characters tend to reach higher levels than unattractive ones. Interestingly, the relationship is the opposite between short avatars; where unattractive characters tend to outperform attractive characters in the leveling up process (Yee, Bailenson, & Ducheneaut, 2009). This suggests that the avatar’s attractiveness has a positive effect on levels, but only when the characters are tall. The authors think that this happens because, while attractiveness helps tall avatars seem more confident, it makes short characters look rather playful, a characteristic that wouldn’t be beneficial for the leveling up process (Yee, Bailenson, & Ducheneaut, 2009). Another explanation could be that having additional desirable attributes would make the player more aware of his virtual appearance. In this case, being attractive could be making the avatar’s height more noticeable for the users, triggering a Proteus Effect.

Tall and attractive avatars seem to make people feel more secure about themselves.

If the avatar’s appearance has the potential to affect the player’s behavior, then it’s only logical to expect some sort of effect from an attribute as important as the character’s gender. A couple of recent studies seem to support this idea. A 2009 research on EverQuest II players revealed that female users with main avatars of the opposite sex engaged in text chatting significantly less than female players with same main characters of the same gender and male players (regardless of their character’s sex) (Huh & Williams, 2009). The authors think female players were acting according to what was expected from their avatar’s gender: Men talk less and act more. In another study, female World of Warcraft avatars showed a significantly higher tendency to heal, while male characters registered significantly higher ratios for PvP activities. This suggests that, regardless of the player’s real gender, they tend to behave accordingly to the avatar’s traditional gender role (Yee, Ducheneaut, Yao & Nelson, 2011). In this case: Women help and men fight. The effect is also supported by a recent observation between players of Uncharted Waters Online. After analyzing the game´s avatar database and a sample of text from chats, researchers found out that male characters were significantly more likely to seek help indirectly than female characters (Lehdonvirta, Nagashima, Lehdonvirta, & Baba, 2012). This behavior is congruent with traditional gender expectations for male behavior: Men don’t need help (so they have to be subtle when looking for it). Although far from conclusive, the previous results indicate that there is enough base to believe that the avatar’s gender could be influencing the player’s behavior. In other words, MMORPG users seem to act according to what they think is the behavior others expect from their characters gender.

Is this the face of a healer? Well actually, it is.

The fact that the avatar’s sex can influence the player’s behavior could have important implications for the reduction of gender based stereotypes. As we have seen, swapping genders allows the player to take the perspective of the opposite sex in different types of situations. This can let them acquire a better understanding of the advantages and challenges they have to face (Yee, 2001), promoting the construction of a more realistic representation of the other. Although we couldn’t find works about the effects of gender swapping on attitudes towards the opposite sex, some researchers have studied how virtual embodiment affects other kinds of stereotypes. In a 2006 experiment, for example, participants that used a character of an older person in a virtual environment associated significantly more positive traits with the elderly. However, no significant relationships were found between the age of the avatar and two other measures: An attitudes questionnaire and a description of an old character in a story (Yee & Bailenson, 2006). Another experiment tried to find out the effects of embodying an avatar of a particular race. They did it by asking participants to imagine themselves as a black or white model seen on a photograph. A group of participants were also given an avatar based on the same model. Their task consisted on watching themselves in a virtual mirror and interact with another character as if they were going through a job interview. Participants with black models showed a significantly higher tendency to associated positive words with traditionally white names. The author thinks this happened because embodying an individual of a different race tends to encourage stereotyping in a way that overwhelms any positive effects that would have come from taking the perspective of the other. Additionally, subjects that were only asked to imagine themselves as the other showed no differences in preference, regardless if they were on the white or black condition. This suggest that imagining ourselves as someone of a different race is not always enough to provoke measurable changes in racial attitudes. Finally, no significant results were found in the other measures applied: A self-esteem scale and two questionnaires about beliefs and attitudes towards African Americans. (Groom, Bailenson & Nass, 2009). Both of the experiments indicate that embodying a different individual in a virtual environment could affect attitudes towards other groups, but the results are too inconsistent to be regarded as conclusive. In other words, we need more information in order to be able to use virtual embodiment as a weapon against stereotyping.

Seeing ourselves as an older person could improve our attitudes towards the elderly.

Using a virtual character may have a bigger psychological impact than we expected. It could potentially change players’ attitudes, beliefs and behaviors; sometimes even without their knowledge. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. The Proteus Effect opens different opportunities for education and therapy. Avatar based games could be used to reduce racial stereotypes in schools or help insecure individuals show higher levels of confidence (at least in a virtual environment). But additional research is needed before we start promoting the benefits of virtual characters. Science advances with slow but secure steps, and trying to skip some of these could only bring uncertainty to players, developers and researchers.(source:thepunkeffect


上一篇:

下一篇: