Avatars and projected identities

What is an avatar?

The wikipedia definition is multiple, but here are two that may make sense in our hyper-connected world.

The traditional definition speaks of the boundless, metamorphic dimension that belonged to a kind of historical mythology, such as the head of the Gorgon, the goddesses of beauty, of war, and that has been joining our reality in leaps and bounds since the advent of video games and the metaverse.

"The term avatar originated in India (from Sanskrit avatāra: "descent"; ava-TṚ: "to go downhill") and can be translated as "divine embodiment. "1
Since the end of the 19th century, "the meaning of avatar extended to each of the various forms that a thing or person successively takes" (Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, 1969)..."

Source Wikipedia - Avatar - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar

The computer definition is a bit more prosaic and is the first step in avatar. We have known it for 20 years and it is part of our worlds, It is in many programs the visualization of our identity whether it is simple or complex.

"An avatar is a character representing a user on the Internet and in video games. Originally, it is the digital embodiment of an individual in the virtual world of an online game. By extension this term arrived in discussion forums and then in everyday language, it then refers to the pseudonym used on websites and social networks."

Wikipedia source - Avatar - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar

Today with digitization, these avatars pop up in most applications

...whether necessary or not, they participate in defining our identities. Sometimes to ensure privacy or smooth application display, but most often, and almost always today, in contexts of personal amusement or professional interactions.

However, is this for the better?

"The author presents, in Cyberpsychology, a model of the relationship between an individual and a digital avatar (embodiment of oneself on the Internet, or in video games). This relationship depends on a process, cyber-empathy, which includes two loops of interaction.

In the first, pre-reflexive, loop, the avatar is modeled in the brain. By internalizing it, the brain simulates a virtual double of the avatar's properties. Simultaneously, the person externalizes his body schema in the object, leading to a modification of this same schema in the brain. This is what allows the avatar to appear, progressively, as a virtual double of the body.

In a second reflexive loop, the avatar is integrated as part of the psyche itself, i.e. as a virtual double of the psyche. In a first step, an extension of the surface of the Ego to the technology is manifested. It is accompanied by a projection of the image of the body, and of the subjectivity. In a second time, a virtual splitting of the Ego operates, allowing an empathy with its own psychic life. Finally, an integration occurs, consisting in making the avatar a part of oneself. It is enabled by the cyborg-self, which intervenes as a (unconscious) figuration that the subject uses to represent the technology as a part of himself.

Also, the person establishes a relationship with the avatar similar to the one that takes place inside his own psyche, influencing in return his conducts, and potentially shaping his identity.

Source: Self as an Avatar. How Identity is Constructed Today
Frédéric Tordo - In Imaginaire & Inconscient 2021/1 (No. 47),
https://www.cairn.info/revue-imaginaire-et-inconscient-2021-1-page-77.htm?content=resume

From the projection of the self to cyber-augmentation, from the outset the avatar proves to be a powerful tool that transforms our vision of ourselves from the inner self, but if the avatar represents the person, it is also an external projection that is intended to interact with others according to fields of possibility of our identities demultiplied almost to infinity.

"The malleability of the Self is an essential component in the constitution of a virtual identity in online interactions (Turkle, 1995). Avatars (i.e., digital representations of self) are a particularly representative example of this malleability in virtual environments. Indeed, the avatar is a character, often customizable, that symbolizes the user by projecting their identity and actions into the virtual (Ducheneaut, Wen, Yee, Wadley, 2009). The user has the possibility to create an avatar in his image, to experiment with a multiplicity of identities or to highlight certain facets of his ideal self (Bessiere, Seay, Kiesler, 2007). The possibilities offered by the personalization of the avatar make it possible to modulate the social roles, identity or gender of users.

As a result, since avatars allow the user to change appearance in the virtual environment, a central question is whether avatars are likely to modulate the behaviors of the users who embody them. Thus, when embodying a particular avatar, can the specifics of that character - and, thus, of the virtual identity - lead us to behave and express ourselves differently, or even to think differently?"

Source: Proteus Effect and priming: these avatars that influence us - Jérôme Guegan, Stéphanie Buisine, Julie Collange
In Psychology Bulletin 2017/1 (Issue 547)
https://www.cairn.info/revue-bulletin-de-psychologie-2017-1-page-3.htm

A lot of questions about these phenomena unheard of even a few decades ago. The question to be asked is also the effect of possible changes in our brain, in our views of things, in our interactions with others. Our brain works on patterns. The more we do an action, the more deeply it imprints itself in our psyche, in our life... in our studies, in our work. Offer new patterns and maybe you will create a new civilization.

The Proteus Effect: self-perception in virtual environments

"According to Yee and Bailenson (2009), virtual environments, which anonymize interlocutors, can be seen as digital versions of the darkroom in the "Deviance in the dark" experiment cited above (Gergen et al., 1973). These are, in effect, spaces conducive to de-individuation due to the anonymity and physical isolation of individual users.
In addition, in these environments, the avatar is not a simple costume but a "full and complete representation of oneself" (Yee, Bailenson, 2007). In other words, the costume is one identity cue among others, but the avatar is the primary identity cue in virtual environments. As such, deindividuated individuals in these environments should be particularly sensitive to the social cues associated with the new identity they infer from their avatar.

Just as individuals in black uniforms conform to a more aggressive identity (Frank, Gilovich, 1988), users will perceive the specifics of their avatar and conform to it by engaging in behaviors prone to confirm the expectations of a hypothetical outside observer.

Under the action of his own image, of the virtual self-representation, the individual will thus self-influence and rationalize his attitudes and behaviors within the virtual environment, in the direction of the identity cues conveyed by the avatar. This influence of the avatar's appearance is called the "Proteus effect" (named after the Greek mythological god who possessed the faculty of metamorphosis).

In accordance with the theory of self-perception, this phenomenon can appear even when the individual is alone. The user can, in fact, perceive himself "in the third person", by adopting the point of view of an external observer. Thus, if it is trivial to recall that the user has a direct control and influence on the avatar he embodies, the latter can also influence the user's behaviors and attitudes. As a result, it can be considered that "the user/avatar relationship is initiated in a circular fashion and leads to the development of a specific identity" (Guegan, Michinov, 2011). "

Source: Previous Idem - Proteus effect and priming: these avatars that influence us
Jérôme Guegan, Stéphanie Buisine, Julie Collange

More than a model, the avatar demonstrates an empirical and exponential construction of the personality of the one using the avatar. We thought we were malleable with solid personal foundations. But, like a dog in a bowling alley, the avatar shows us that nothing is fixed, even our personalities. Let's take the example of those who experiment with the game of sex change behind their avatars.

"Other work analyzing massively multiplayer gaming situations has also revealed that the gender of the embodied avatar can influence the user in accordance with gender stereotypes and associated social roles. For example, female players embodying a male avatar are more likely to engage in in-game confrontations and communicate less with other players (Huh, Williams, 2010). Conversely, players embodying a female avatar (whether male or female) are more likely to care for their teammates (Yee, Ducheneaut, Yao, Nelson, 2011).

Together, these different researches allow us to appreciate the influence that the avatar can exert on the behaviors, but also on the attitudes of the users. The study by Fox, Bailenson, and Tricaze (2013) provides a good example of this phenomenon. This experiment examines the influence that the more or less sexualized and suggestive nature of a female avatar can have on the users who embody it. Specifically, the authors manipulated two factors: the outfit (sexualized versus non-sexualized) and the avatar's face (looking like oneself versus not looking like oneself).

During the experiment, each female participant entered into an interaction with a male avatar. At the conclusion of the interaction, the authors measured thoughts related to the physical, i.e., elements of self-objectification (Fredrickson, Roberts, 1997) involving viewing women as objects reduced only to sexual attributes. Results reveal that participants embodying a sexualized avatar express more elements of self-objectification than participants embodying a non-sexualized avatar.

In addition, this study examined the degree to which participants exhibited an unwarranted responsibility bias toward rape victims. It appears that participants embodying a sexualized avatar that physically resembles them have the highest inclination to exhibit this type of bias. Indeed, the attribution of responsibility to the victim allows for the generation of protective beliefs (if victims are partly responsible for their fate, there is less chance that it will happen to me), which are all the more useful when the sexualized avatar and the user resemble each other. The results of this experiment highlight the influence that the avatar's appearance can exert at the attitudinal level and in terms of the mobilization of certain types of beliefs."

Source: Previous Idem - Proteus effect and priming: these avatars that influence us
Jérôme Guegan, Stéphanie Buisine, Julie Collange

Avatars have effects on empathy and community belonging. Thus when faced with situations of rape victims, a non-female user could become a victim advocate by association and experience. This is very interesting, but it can also be scary if the avatar represents a serial killer for example. And, oh how many video games offer hyper violence to their players. However, the avatar could also in other contexts prove to be a powerful learning tool if we can master the ins and outs of it.

"Another illustration of the influence of avatars on attitudes is provided by the study by Peña et al. (2009, Study 2). This study (inspired by Johnson, Downing, 1979) had participants embody an avatar representing a doctor, a KKK member, or a transparent body (control condition). This experiment did not use the subjective view, the avatar being perceived in the third person.

During the experiment, participants moved around a virtual museum and had to imagine stories based on the boards displayed (taken from the Thematic Apperception Test). It appears that participants embodying a KKK avatar, with clearly negative stereotypical attributes, imagined the most negatively connoted stories (related to murder, revenge, crime, and contempt) and with fewer positive elements than participants in the physician and control conditions.

Thus, according to Peña et al, in addition to maximizing the occurrence of negative elements, "using avatars related to aggressive associations inhibits positive thoughts to a greater extent" (2009).

Finally, on a more general level, it seems that the Proteus effect can be initiated regardless of the realism, graphical quality, or degree of behavioral sophistication of the avatar: the studies cited above were conducted within different types of virtual environments, using different graphical engines and different immersion devices. Therefore, a high level of realism does not seem to be necessary; it is the identity cues that determine the behavioral and attitudinal modulations, not the quality of the rendering."

Source: Same as above - Proteus effect and priming: these avatars that influence us
Jérôme Guegan, Stéphanie Buisine, Julie Collange

Appropriation, distancing, it's a subtle game of back and forth where if one experiences meanness or joy, or any other experience, these can turn out to be without return. What appears to be a game could influence the brain forever. It seems that the line between reality and play through the virtual is ultra thin and radiates one side as the other.

"Rape on Second Life: Between Game and Reality

Second Life, as the designers explain to us on their site, is "a three-dimensional virtual world shaped and organized entirely by its residents. More than six million people around the world form this community governed mainly, as we will see, by capitalist and neo-liberal imperatives on the one hand, sexuality in all its forms on the other hand.

Concretely, individuals wishing to join this virtual platform create a character (an avatar) of which they choose the name but also the physical aspect modulable at each moment. Each avatar encountered is thus created and directed by a real person with whom, through his computer screen, it is possible to interact.

Sale of virtual objects of all kinds, "real estate" speculation, "places" of meetings, proposals for paid services ranging from simple babysitting to prostitution; "everything becomes possible", to take up Nicolas Sarkozy's slogan during the last electoral campaign for the French presidential elections.

And it is through this "everything possible" that the shift from a regulated game to the blurring of the principle of reality and the necessarily fake promise of a world where individuals would no longer have to deal with a fundamental and structural lack is already heard.

Another element further confuses what is fantasy - staged without too much risk through the game - and the tangible reality of the experience. Indeed, all the transactions in Second Life are made with a virtual currency: the Linden Dollars (LD). But these LD can at any time be converted into real U.S. Dollars.

Let's think for a moment of this woman filling her refrigerator thanks to the money earned as a prostitute in Second Life, of this man seeing his bank account credited with a certain amount of money received for his virtual activities as a gogo dancer while he shudders at the idea of speaking to a stranger.

"In the virtual world of Second Life, a character was recently raped. Following this virtual rape, the judicial police of Brussels opened a file. "The aim is to verify if any offenses have been committed," says the federal police. The public prosecutor's office has also been alerted. It seems that the Brussels public prosecutor's office has asked investigators from the Federal Computer Crime Unit to go on patrol in Second Life. Police officers - not in civilian clothes but "in avatar" - investigating in a virtual world about, among other things, the rape of a 3D graphic representation by another; are we in the middle of science fiction?

This could be amusing if this news item did not reveal a disturbing fact: a young woman seems to have experienced psychically the very real devastating effects of a rape and this confusion between two orders of reality is validated by social institutions. In other words, we cannot simply state some diagnostic hypothesis about this young woman. If the institutions themselves validate this confusion, then we have to hold, in our reflections, the double thread of the clinic and of the study of contemporary transformations in our society."

Source: Virtual Worlds and the Capacity for Illusion: The Avatars of the Bond
Christophe Janssen, Sophie Tortolano
In Cahiers de psychologie clinique 2010/2 (No. 35) -
https://www.cairn.info/revue-cahiers-de-psychologie-clinique-2010-2-page-57.htm

Is a virtual rape a rape? It would seem so if individuals become emotionally invested in their avatars. Is this a sign of fragility? Is it a mutation of our humanity? Nothing is simple and requires extensive studies on the subject. If these misadventures happen to adults, what about their impacts on children and teenagers whose personalities are being created.

But perhaps the avatar is something beyond a multidimensional image or personality. Is it not already the case that putting photos of one's private life online on Facebook is of the order of the avatar especially when we see the increase in disrespectful, even aggressive behavior and their effects on young minds that can lead them to suicide or the opposite the extreme highlighting of some individuals that makes them gods.

"Faced with such injunctions, we have created worlds that we know, most of the time, to be of a reality other than the one we usually evolve in. This reality, we designate it, moreover, as being "virtual"; that is to say "which is only in power but without actual effect".

And yet, actual effects of the virtual, there are some; the first one being to allow the individuals to escape for a time from these tyrannical social norms by taking refuge in a largely imaginary world, where the ego can take itself for the ideal-self. A world where everything would be possible.

The virtual worlds appear, from then on, as an attempt to reintroduce the transitional in a society where the links are weakened, but which fails by not allowing that a real intermediate area unfolds. That is to say that the exchanges on these sites do not fulfill the conditions of a possible illusion. What seems to open up as a transitional experience is put in failure by a preponderance of creating over finding.

We spoke at the beginning of the article of confusion between realities; we would like to qualify, or specify, our remarks here. We do not think that the majority of users of virtual platforms confuse the tangible reality of the experience with the one they experience through their computer screen. However, failing in its hoped-for transitional function, the risks are indeed to lead either to the almost exclusive choice of the virtual at the expense of the real environment, or to the confusion of these two realities."

Source: Idem preceding - Virtual worlds and capacity for illusion: the avatars of the link
Christophe Janssen, Sophie Tortolano - In Cahiers de psychologie clinique 2010/2 (n° 35)

The fields of modification in our society seem immense even if we do not feel them yet.

The avatar is a symptom on which we can already work in the absence of other subjects that have not yet emerged to our consciousness.

It is a topic that is also the subject of academic studies as in the thesis: Projective identity and learning: Impacts of physical and psychological representations of avatars in collaborative learning activities in Second Life (.pdf), the conclusion of which is as follows.

"This exploratory study investigated how projective identity and its dimensions are involved in avatar use and participation in collaborative learning activities in this environment. Results suggest that the physical appearance of the avatar may influence the relationships developed by participants with other users who collaborate to learn in Second Life.

It also appears that users learn to read avatars and begin to associate certain characteristics with certain levels of desirability as a potential future collaborator in the virtual world.

Then finally, we find that the identity work that participants did in Second Life invited them to rethink their perceptions of themselves as teachers or learners, to reevaluate their professional practices on virtual and non-virtual levels, and to develop an appreciation for the avatar as a vehicle for learning.

Overall, this study has contributed to the literature by confirming that Gee "s (2003) tripartite game can be formed in contexts outside of video games, proposing a conceptual framework of projective identity in virtual collaborative learning, proposing the concept of reconfigurative capital, and contributing to the definition of virtual ethnicity.

While we make recommendations for teachers and learners who participate in collaborative learning activities through avatars in virtual environments such as Second Life, it is also important to raise awareness among departments of education.

Overall, this research project has left us with the belief that identity work should play a greater role in teaching and learning activities that are formed online in traditional classrooms.

It is intriguing that references to identity development are beginning to appear in provincial curriculum documents as a cross-cutting competency (e.g., Quebec "s education program) and ministries of education expect teachers to help students achieve this competency through the teaching and learning activities they plan.
In fact, anecdotal evidence gathered by the researcher suggests that many educators believe that identity work is of little importance in a learner "s education and that time would be better spent mastering the "serious content" that they believe is more useful for student advancement and success.

Thus, in order to reverse this attitude and ensure that all learners can benefit from such an education, it is strongly suggested that ministries of education include goals for student identity development not only as a cross-cutting competency, but also as disciplinary competencies that they will apply to all learners from kindergarten through high school.
Similarly, it is essential for researchers to create a typology that describes when users' projective identities are stimulated and how these stimulations influence their vision, self-representation, as well as their collaboration on the virtual plane. With a more representative sample and through a period of data collection more typical of ethnographic studies, it will be possible for researchers pursuing these lines of inquiry to help those who teach and learn in Second Life better understand the virtual world they inhabit and the factors that are at play in their identity exploration on the virtual plane."

Identity will undoubtedly be one of the pillars of education in the future. But tomorrow is already today, and those who anticipate will have the keys to help their learners while others will let them wander. Be doers. Yesterday no longer exists, you all need to move forward.

Illustration: Pixabay - coffeebeanworks