虚拟现实社交环境中的普罗透斯效应:情境、羞怯的影响

The Proteus Effect in Virtual Reality Social Environments:Influence of Situation and Shyness

化身是虚拟世界中的一种重要的自我呈现方式,化身特点会在有意无意间影响用户的认知、态度和行为,即普罗透斯效应(Proteus effect)。本研究通过3个实验,采纳一种新的研究方法——"虚拟情境模拟",对普罗透斯效应进行了较为深入的探讨,不仅系统考察了虚拟社交情境中化身的效应,而且着重考察了社交情境这一情境因素与羞怯这一人格因素的潜在影响。研究结果最终表明:(1)普罗透斯效应受到情境因素(社交情境)和个体变量(羞怯水平)的影响。(2)社交情境调节了化身的效应,进入社交情境中化身主效应显著,而在维持社交情境中主效应不显著。(3)在维持社交情境中,普罗透斯效应受羞怯水平的调节。低羞怯个体的社交表现水平比高羞怯个体更易受化身影响。(4)高低羞怯个体之间的差异产生于认知层面。

With the rapid development of the virtual world, Collaborative Virtual Environments （CVEs） allow geographically separated individuals to interact via networking technology, which has become an important mode of interaction. Human interaction in the virtual world is different from face-to-face （FtF） interactions. For people to participate in virtual interactions, they have to rely on the help of virtual self-presentation. Avatars are one main kind of self-presentation in virtual environments with people participating in virtual social interaction via virtual avatars. Avatars can affect people’s perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors consciously or unconsciously on avatar-based online social interaction, which is known as the Proteus effect. The study included three experiments. The participants in the research were “high-shy” undergraduates and “low-shy” undergraduates. The College Students Shyness Scale was used to classify participants into “high” and “low” groups. The study created a new paradigm of “virtual scenario simulation” to further understand the Proteus effect and investigate the impact of avatars on social behavior in different social interaction contexts. The first experiment investigated the impact of avatars on the level of social participation in participating- social-interaction contexts. The experiment involved a 2 Attractiveness of the avatar （high/low） ＆#215; 2 Level of shyness （high/low） two-factor between-subject design. Participants were randomly assigned to have an avatar with an attractive or unattractive appearance of his or her own gender. The second experiment extended the work beyond participating-interaction context to maintaining-interaction context. We also employed a two-factor between-subject design, 2 Attractiveness of avatar （high/low） ＆#215; 2 Level of shyness （high/low） for this experiment. The third experiment involved one more two-factor between-subject design, 2 Value of avatar （negative /positive） ＆#215; 2 Level of shyness （high/low）, for this experiment. The experiment examined whether the difference between high-shy and low-shy individuals was elicit in cognitive aspect. The findings of the present study ultimately showed that： （1） Some factors affected the occurrence of the Proteus effect in virtual environment, including contextual factors （different social interaction contexts） as well as individual factors （the level of shyness）. （2） The Proteus effects were moderated by the contextual factor. Avatars manifested different effects in different contexts, it showed the main effect in the participating- interaction context and showed an interaction effect in the maintaining-interaction context. （3） In the maintaining- interaction context, the Proteus effects were moderated by the level of shyness. The social performances of high-shy individuals were significantly affected by the avatar cues while that of low-shy individuals were not. （4） The difference between high-shy and low-shy individuals was elicited by the cognitive level.