How Second Life Affects Real Life

About a year ago in my first visit to Second Life, the popular online virtual world, I spent half an hour trying to make my avatar, or online character, look like a hotter version of myself — which isn't easy when you don't know how to use the tools. When I finally made it onto Money Island to mingle, a stranger approached me and said, "Hello there, Devon." I froze. Then I tried to run. I was desperately searching for the teleport tool when my sister walked into the room, peered over my shoulder at the computer screen and said, "Why'd you make your avatar ugly?" I logged off.

I didn't realize how instructive my sister's question was until recently, when I discovered research being done at Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL). Jeremy Bailenson, head of the lab and an assistant professor of communication at Stanford, studies the way self-perception affects behavior. No surprise that what we think about ourselves affects the confidence with which we approach the world. What is a surprise is that this applies in the virtual world too. With my plain=Jane avatar and my inexperience in Second Life, I did what most people would want to do in an uncomfortable social situation: run away.

What's more, Bailenson's research suggests that the qualities you acquire online — whether it's confidence or insecurity — can spill over and change your conduct in the real world, often without your awareness. Bailenson has found that even 90 seconds spent chatting it up with avatars is enough to elicit behavioral changes offline — at least in the short term. "When we cloak ourselves in avatars, it subtly alters the manner in which we behave," says Bailenson. "It's about self-perception and self-confidence." But researchers are still trying to figure out the psychological mechanisms at work, and which way the effect flows: "Do you consciously wear your power suit to feel confident, or is it that you're in this suit and you're feeling up, but you're unaware of the reason?" says Bailenson.

Bailenson's findings have a lot more real-world meaning than you'd think, if only because so many people are spending so much time in the unreal world. Some 13 million people have visited Second Life at least once, with about 450,000 residents online in a given week. Even more popular is the online game World of Warcraft, which has 10 million active subscribers who pay to participate. People spend on average about 20 hours a week in alternate worlds like these, and at VHIL, whose high-tech virtual world is entered by way of a $24,000 helmet, Bailenson and his Ph.D. students are trying to figure out how these increasingly common virtual experiences bleed into reality. "I've been doing this for years and people have been laughing at me," says Bailenson. "All of a sudden, I have people calling and asking about what I do."

In one experiment, published in Human Communication Research last year, researchers assessed how an avatar's attractiveness affected human behavior, both online and off. Thirty-two volunteers were randomly assigned an attractive or unattractive avatar (attractiveness was rated by undergrads in a survey beforehand) and instructed to look at them in a virtual mirror for 90 seconds. Then they were asked to interact with other avatars, controlled by the experimenters, in a classroom-like setting. Overall, subjects using good-looking avatars tended to display more confidence, friendliness and extroversion, just as in the real world: they approached avatar strangers within three feet, and in conversations tended to disclose more personal details. Ugly-duckling avatars, meanwhile, stayed five and a half feet away from strangers and were more tight-lipped.

Lead researcher Nick Yee, a former Stanford graduate student who now works for the nearby Palo Alto Research Center, replicated his study, then appended a second part: an hour after their forays online, the same volunteers were told they were participating in an unrelated study about online romance. They were instructed to pick two potential dates out of nine photos in an online-dating pool. People who had used attractive avatars seemed to hang on to some of the self-assurance that came from being handsome, choosing better-looking dates than those who had homely avatars. "They thought they had a shot," says Bailenson.

If feeling pretty builds confidence, what does height do for you? To find out, Yee recruited 50 volunteers, randomly assigned them to short or tall avatars, then instructed them to divide a virtual pool of $100 with another participant — one player would suggest how to split the pot, and the other could accept or reject the offer, with each person getting nothing if offers were rejected. People with tall avatars (three or four inches taller than the stranger avatar) negotiated more aggressively than the short ones, while short avatars were twice as likely as the tall ones to accept an unfair split — $25 versus $75.

Again, the behavior held up in real life. When Yee had the subjects shed their avatars and negotiate face-to-face, sitting down, people who had inhabited tall avatars bargained more aggressively, suggesting unfair splits more often. And participants who had had short avatars accepted less-than-even money more often than the tall ones. How tall the people were themselves became less important, if only temporarily, than the height of their online alter egos.

Virtual behavior may even affect real-world health. Stanford graduate student Jesse Fox randomly assigned avatars to 75 volunteers and divided them into three groups: one group watched their look-alike avatars run on treadmills for about five and a half minutes; another group saw their virtual counterparts lounge around; and a third watched avatars who did not look like them, but were of the same age and sex, run on treadmills. A day later, Fox found that participants who watched avatars of their own likeness exercising had themselves exercised an hour more in the intervening 24-hour period than people in the other two groups. (It's worth noting that the volunteers were all Stanford undergraduates, who were likely more active and fitter to start than the average adult.) "What I'm hoping to find out by picking apart these mechanisms is what motivates people and why this works," says Fox. "If you are energized by seeing yourself run, maybe you can put an avatar on the bottom of your computer screen for five minutes and it would persuade you to go to the gym."

The possibilities are — virtually — endless. Inhabit buffed-up versions of yourself to lose weight, cuter versions of yourself to gain confidence, or older versions to start putting money away for the future (that last one is being studied at Stanford now). "The most stunning part is how subtle the manipulations are and how difficult they are to detect," says Bailenson, "but how much it affects real life later on."

Of course, the effect could potentially work both ways — for good or for bad. "In a therapy setting, we could use these virtual environments to get people to become more confident," says Yee. "But they can also be used in advertising and as propaganda."

Before I entered Second Life again I upgraded my avatar to much cuter dimensions. This time I found myself conversing with people instead of logging off. I was more outgoing. Next, I'm considering giving my avatar a cottage by the sea and a job doing charitable work. Maybe some of the positive vibes will rub off into my real life. I'll let you know how it works out.

Second Life 对现实生活有何影响？

  我首次接触Second Life大约是一年前的事情了，它是一个很流行的在线虚拟世界，我用了半个小时时间改造了一个很像我自己的avatar，也就是在线虚拟人物形象，若你不知道怎样应用工具条的话这可不是件简单的事哦。当我好不容易踏上Money岛的时候，忽然冒出一个陌生人主动跟我搭讪，“那个谁你好，我是Devon。”我当时就呆住了。然后立刻跑开了。当我正在拼命寻找瞬间传送工具条的时候，我妹妹进来了，她的视线刚好落到我电脑屏幕上，便随口说了一句，“你怎么把你的avatar设计的这么丑？”我气得立刻注销了下线了。
 
   直到最近，在斯坦福大学虚拟人物交际实验室(VHIL)的研究完成时，我才认识到我妹妹的话是多么有教育意义。
Jeremy Bailenson，在斯坦福是VHIL实验室的头头兼通信技术助理教授，研究方向是自我感知行为学。毫无疑问，我们对自身的认识决定着我们的世界观。惊奇的是在虚拟世界里竟然也是这样。当我的名为plain=Jane的avatar面对完全陌生的Second Life世界，一个不自在的虚拟社会环境时，我做了大多数人都会做的行为：逃避。

  而且， Bailenson的研究指出，你在虚拟世界里养成的—些特质——无论是自信还是心神不定——都会不自觉的在现实世界中流露出来。Bailenson还发现只要你用avatar聊天超过90秒，就足以诱使你离线后发生行为变化，至少是短时期的。他说：“当我们完全投入到avatar中后，它就会潜移默化的改变我们的举止行为。包括自我感知和自信。”研究人员正在努力找出起作用的心理学原理，及其影响的流向。 Bailenson接着说到：“（在虚拟世界里）你是否有意识的穿上靓丽的套装使自己很有自信，再或者因为这身套装使你感觉很好，但你从没想过为什么。” 

  就单从有如此之多的人们投入大量时间精力用于虚拟世界这一点，Bailenson的调查就比我们想象的还要有现实意义。至少有1千3百万的用户访问过Second Life，而其中约有45万名居民稳定在线。魔兽世界则是更为流行的付费网络游戏，其拥有1千万的活跃玩家参与其中。人们每周平均花费20小时时间用于这些虚拟世界,而在VHIL,一个充满高科技并花费2万4千美元搭建的虚拟世界中,Bailenson和他的哲学博士生们正在努力研究这些积增的虚拟世界体验是怎样流入现实世界的.Bailenson说:"我研究这个领域很多年了,同时很多人都在嘲笑我,我总是突然接到电话，询问我到底在做什么.

  去年在人类交流研究中心发布了一次实验,目的是研究人物虚拟形象的魅力对用户行为的影响,无论是在线还是离线后.研究人员挑选了32名志愿者，每人被随机分配给一个avatar(avatar的魅力指数在事先由大学生们进行的评定),并要求他们关注自己的虚拟镜像90秒钟。之后志愿者被要求利用自己的avatar与其他avatar在类似于虚拟教室的环境中进行交谈。总体来说，拥有比较帅气avatar形象的志愿者们表现得更为自信、亲切和外向，就像在现实情况中表现一样:他们会主动接近陌生的avatar，并在交谈中表现出更多个人细节。然而，丑小鸭般的avatar们却对陌生人敬而远之并一言不发。
 
  领导本次研究的主任 Nick Yee，是毕业于斯坦福大学的研究生，现工作于Palo Alto研究中心，他在自己原有研究的基础上添加了第二部分：当这批志愿者在线闲逛了一个小时之后，他们被告知正在参与一个与实验无关的多人在线浪漫约会。他们被允许从在线约会厅的九张照片中挑选出2个理想的约会对象。具有帅气avatar形象的志愿者们始终充满了自信，相比于形象欠佳的avatar，他们总会挑选更为漂亮的约会对象，相信这得益于帅气的外表。Bailenson说：“他们相信自己有资格试一试！”

  如果漂亮帅气的外表塑造了自信，那高大的身材又有什么影响呢？为了研究清楚，Yee又重新招聘了50名志愿者，随机分配身材高矮不同的avatar给他们，之后告诉他们要与另一个参与者洽谈瓜分一份价值100美元的虚拟池——一名玩家可以提出怎样确定分割点，而另一名玩家可以选择接受或拒绝对方的出价，如果多次出价被决绝他们都将一无所获。具有高大身材的avatars比身材矮小的avatars在谈判中表现的更为积极，结果是身材矮小的avatars接受（虚拟池）不公平分割的人数将近于高大身材avatars的两倍——不公平的分割结果即为三七分。

  这种表现同时又一次影响到了现实生活。当Yee要求这些体验者真正面对面坐下来谈判时，曾用过高大身材avastar的志愿者在讨价还价时表现的更为活跃，他们总更愿意主动提出不公平划分。而用过矮小身材avastar的志愿者更容易妥协于获得少的那一份。此时，他们本人实际的身高优势已暂时不起作用了，完全被他们在线虚拟形象塑造的心理高度所影响。

  虚拟世界中的行为甚至可能影响人们在现实世界中的健康。斯坦福大学研究生Jesse Fox给75名志愿者每人分配了一个avatar，并把他们分成了三组：一组成员被要求在5分半的时间内一直看着和他们自己长得很像的avatar在虚拟跑步机上运动，另一组成员看着自己的虚拟形象在闲逛，第三组成员则是看着和自己长得不像但年龄性别都一样的avatar在虚拟跑步机上运动。一天后，Fox发现第一组的成员似乎是受到跟自己很像的虚拟形象的影响，比其他2组的成员在接下来的24小时内多锻炼了1个多小时。（值得一提的是，这些志愿者都是斯坦福大学的本科生，他们比一般成年人更活跃更适合于本次测试。）Fox说：“通过分析这些机制，我想要发现是什么在刺激人们（的行为）并确定其起作用的原因，如果通过看到你自己在做运动而会产生刺激，那你也许可以在你电脑屏幕底部放一个自己的avatar，看它运动五分钟，你很可能就想去健身房了。”
 
（虚拟世界对你产生的影响）实际上是充满无限可能的。拥有苗条纤细版的虚拟形象会促使你减肥，可爱版的虚拟形象会让你获得自信，成熟版的虚拟形象会督促你现在开始为未来攒钱（最后这个现象斯坦福大学实验室正在研究中）。Bailenson说：“这项研究最具有吸引力的地方就是，这种影响发生的很微妙并且这种变化很难被检测出来，当然还有后来它对现实生活产生的影响（也很有意思）。”

  当然，虚拟世界的影响会潜在的形成积极和消极两个方面。Yee说：“这种环境可以具有治疗作用，我们可以利用这些虚拟环境使人们变得更加自信，但同时它们也可能成为广告和传销的集散地。”

  在我再次踏入Second Life 时，我让自己的avatar脱胎换骨了，把它改造得特别可爱。于是当我再次面对陌生人时，我用主动交谈代替了注销离线。我变得更加外向了。接下来，我正考虑在海边建造一个小屋，来做一些慈善工作。这些积极上进的影响也许会充斥到我的现实生活中呢哈哈。我一定会让大家看到它的成果！