Who are you?

[threemonkeys]

It was only a matter of time before somebody conducted research into the effect your choice of avatar has on how you are perceived. I wonder if this carries over into lj icons?

Comments

[capnoblivious.livejournal.com]

"Tell us how much you trust these icons. And, ooh, link it to their perceived androgyny!"

And, lo, a correlation comes back between trustworthiness and perceived androgyny...

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Thus perception of avatars reflects social attitudes generally to androgyny. Perhaps. It does seem flawed experimental design to have trustworthiness and androgyny assessed by the subjects at the same time.

I suspect that the research reflects that people who appear to be hiding something, such as their sexuality, are less trustworthy. Which leads to the corollary that hiding is less desirable than lying since avatars of a particular sex do not necessarily reflect the sex of the person behind them.

I'm basing this hiding aspect more on the quote "the ketchup bottle character came second from last when rated on trustworthiness. Last was an avatar based on an intimidating lizard." I.e. hiding behind a non human facade is less trustworthy.

[stephanie-pegg.livejournal.com]

I know I feel a lot more comfortable talking to people online, or even on the phone, when I've met them in real life. I think visuals do a large part of my subliminal sizing up of people.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I agree entirely. You pick up a lot of stuff from body language, clothes etc. Not to mention tone of voice, odour and the like.

[mundens.livejournal.com]

There is a comment in that article that we base much of our interaction based around the sex of the people we communicate with, but they completely fail to mention that many people use different sex avatars.

What they're really showing, unsurprisingly, is an innate tendency to xenophpbia, i.e: humans distrust things which aren't human.

I wonder if they did any gender or racial correlations, such as were the black male avatars seen as less trustworthy? :)

And I wonder whether this LJ icon is giving you the right impression of me..... :)

[mundens.livejournal.com]

Also a ketchup bottle is not androgynous, and neither is a lizard. They're just not human.

Did they actually use any androgynous, but obviously human, avatars?

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

They claimed to.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

It could prove interesting to read the full study when it comes out rather than this new Scientist summary. Clearly NS are just plucking an aspect that will make a good headline. If the researchers are any good then they will have looked as all kinds of different characteristics. Also, if they are any good, they will compare to general population attitudes to see if those attitudes are magnified or otherwise altered online. Unfortunately being "any good" is not a given when is comes to this type of study - we can but hope.

Your icon gives me the right idea about you ;-) But only because I know you - Steph is right, knowing somebody in RL makes a big difference to how you see them online.