Do Men Heal More When in Drag? Conflicting Identity Cues Between User and Avatar

摘要

Studies in the Proteus Effect have shown that users conform to stereotypes associated with their avatar's appearance. In this study, we used longitudinal behavioral data from 1,040 users in a virtual world to examine the behavioral outcome of conflicting gender cues between user and avatar. We found that virtual gender had a significant effect on in-game behaviors for both healing and player-vs-player activity.