Proteus effect11/14/2022 ![]() ![]() ![]() The results showed that the costumes worn by participants affected the shock level that they administered to the research assistants. Downing, participants were instructed to give an electric shock to research assistants while wearing either a KKK disguise or a nurse's uniform. Individuals who experience deindividuation seem to be influenced to a greater degree by identity cues. The Proteus effect carries this idea into virtual environments, where individuals see themselves as their avatar which in turn shapes their behavior.ĭeindividuation refers to a decrease in self-awareness and self-evaluation as a result of being part of a group. The argument across these studies was that how participants perceived themselves (i.e., wearing a color that has negative associations) led them to adopt negative behaviors. Furthermore, participants who were instructed to wear black jerseys reported greater preferences for engaging in aggressive behaviors against competitors. Frank and Thomas Gilovich, participants who watched video recordings of sports rated NFL and NHL players wore black uniforms as being more aggressive. A series of studies on self-perception theory that looked at changes in behavior as a result of wearing black, a color associated with negative concepts like death and evil, were influential in the development of the Proteus effect. It was first introduced as an alternative to cognitive dissonance, which argued that changes in behavior can result from an individual's attempt to eliminate tension from contradicting behaviors and beliefs. Self-perception theory states that individuals determine their attitudes and emotions by making observations about both their own behavior and the circumstances that led to those behaviors. Instead, its goal is to explain how the individual's own stereotypes and expectations drives the change in behavior, independent of any social interactions that take place. The Proteus effect differs from behavioral confirmation in that it does not consider the actions of a perceiver. Specifically, this concept proposes that interacting with individuals who hold preexisting stereotypes will lead the target of those stereotypes to engage in behaviors that will confirm the perceiver's expectations. ![]() Behavioral confirmation īehavioral confirmation refers to the effects that a perceiver's actions can have on the resulting behavior of an individual. Three psychological concepts that led to the development of the Proteus effect are behavioral confirmation, self-perception theory, and deindividuation. Virtual world environments allow users to control many aspects of their appearance that they cannot easily change in the real world (e.g., height, weight, facial features). This effect is driven by the increased ability to control one's appearance in an online virtual environment. Although CMC comes in many forms (text, audio, video, etc.), the Proteus effect is particularly relevant to CMC in which individuals interact by using avatars. This is part of a larger field of research that looks at the behavior of individuals who engage in computer-mediated communication (CMC). Moreover, experimental manipulations of these characteristics in virtual environments have shown that individuals engage in stereotype-confirming behaviors. Support for the Proteus effect comes from past research in real world scenarios that has shown how certain physical characteristics, like attractiveness and height, are often associated with more positive social and professional outcomes. When an individual believes that others will expect certain behaviors from them because of their avatars' appearance, they will engage in those expected behaviors. The Proteus effect proposes that the visual characteristics and traits of an avatar are associated with specific behavioral stereotypes and expectations. ![]()
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