Who "Spills Their Guts" Online?

Believe it or not, people who are most likely to keep things private offline are actually most likely to spill it online. What makes someone more likely to share online? And does this sharing relate to openness to forming relationships online?

We conducted a study to see whether the answers to these questions were related to personality traits. First, to measure people’s willingness to share private information, we told our community sample participants to imagine that they are chatting with someone online whom they’ve spoken to a few times, feel positive about, but have never met face-to-face. The instruction continued: “How would you answer the following questions if this person asked you?”

  • Tell me about a time you were embarrassed.
  • What is something you have lied about?
  • What is something surprising about you that maybe some of your closest friends would not even know?

Participants then rated how embarrassed they were, how serious the lie was, and how private the something surprising was. Responses to the first question included things like slips and falls or losing control over bodily functions in front of others. In terms of lies, responses ranged from lying about one’s weight, to lying about being pregnant, one’s sexual orientation, or one’s relationship status. Finally, responses to the final question ranged from hiding one’s “true self” to traumatic childhood events. So who shared these deep, dark, aspects of themselves online?

Who Shares More Online and Why?

Interestingly, it was people who do not share much in offline interactions, who disclosed more online in our study. It is easier to control the impression you give off online, including self-presentations that are less than honest. Lying online is easier than in person. This ease can sometimes serve as an invitation for those prone to lying to overshare both truths and fiction about themselves.

This is the case for those high in what we in psychology refer to as the “Dark Triad” of personality. The “Dark Triad” involves three negative traits:

  • Narcissism (being manipulative and callous),
  • Machiavellianism (being cynical and immoral), and
  • Psychopathy (issues with emotional and self-control).

People who are high on these traits told more serious lies during our self-disclosure task.

What About Forming Relationships Online?

We also questioned, then, whether people who shared more online were making online friends. After all, intimacy-building through self-disclosure is a key part of relationship-building. Past research has shown that aspects of the online environment, such as the removal of geographical divides and feeling anonymous, can even benefit relationship formation and further promote feelings of intimacy with others.

We also measured people’s tendencies toward self-inflation and bragging, and found that people who are high on that, and high on the “Dark Triad,” enjoy engaging in online relationships with others. This may go back to the fact that manipulating one’s impression is easier to do online than in person. So if those who like to brag, such as narcissists, love it when others see them as awesome, the online environment is just right for them to sell this ideal version of themselves.

The Sum of It

The findings overall suggest that people who are braggarts, concealers, narcissists, and Machiavellians are less likely to exercise a great deal of caution when communicating with others online. But they aren’t necessarily looking for a relationship when doing so. So although someone sharing secrets with us may lead us to feel a sense of intimacy, caution is wise when chatting online with new people. After all, as our results show, what is shared may just be a bunch of lies.


For Further Reading

D’Agata, M. T., Kwantes, P. J., Holden, R. R. (2021). Psychological factors related to self-disclosure and relationship formation in the online environment. Personal Relationships, 28(2), 230-250. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12361

McKenna, K. Y., Green, A. S., & Gleason, M. E. (2002). Relationship formation on the Internet: What’s the big attraction? Journal of Social Issues, 58(1), 9-31. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-4560.00246
 

Madeleine D’Agata is a Defence Scientist for Defence Research and Development Canada, whose research focuses on resilience in the areas of online behavior as well as mental health.

Problematic Internet Use: Is the Person or the Internet the Problem?

The internet has brought many benefits to people’s lives, from allowing interaction over long distances to the delivery of psychotherapy to many who would not otherwise be reached. It has enhanced our education from primary school through to university and has enabled education to continue during the recent pandemic when attendance at school or college was not possible. But what of the impact of the internet on our social and emotional life?

Parents Have Many Concerns About Their Children’s Use of Technology

There is often a focus on the negative effects while ignoring the benefits such as the development of problem-solving and technical skills. While some worry that social withdrawal may result from internet use, these concerns are often offset by the wealth of socially engaging opportunities available in online forums. These digital means to connect, which have proven particularly integral during the pandemic, can prevent loneliness.  

Evidence is clear that a balanced use of technology is beneficial for children as long as they do not develop a lifestyle without physical activity or become reluctant to engage socially with peers.  

But what about the amount of internet usage? At extremes, this can be an addiction. Certain personality traits, such as neuroticism (being a worrier) and social anxiety (being nervous about anticipated social situations), may lead some individuals to become addicted. On the other hand, those who have a more conscientious and agreeable personality style are less prone.

Addictive internet use and loneliness are also linked, but it’s not clear which is the cause and which is the effect. A person who spends a lot of time on the internet may, over time, become lonelier. But a person who has difficulty in developing friendships may resort to the internet as a source of comfort. So, which is it? Does personality predict the problematic behavior or does the problematic behavior shape one’s personality?

We may assume that personality characteristics are stable, but the evidence is that, particularly during adolescence and early adulthood, personality changes. ”Who we are” as a person becomes more settled as we develop and mature. It is a mistake to assume, then, that when personality traits are linked with problematic internet use, personality is the causal factor.

Both Paths Can Be True

Our study of over 600 emerging adults showed support for both excessive internet use leading to loneliness as well as loneliness predicting excessive internet use. This may help to explain the conflicting nature of research findings in previous studies where some claim it is the personality that leads to the problems and others that the problematic internet usage shapes one’s personality. Simply put, it is both.

Personality traits are a combination of behaviors and emotion that shape and are shaped by  how we interact with others in our social world. So behaviors linked to loneliness, like avoiding direct social contact, may lead one to the internet where they may become more socially isolated. Thus maybe the next question for us is to examine which behavioral tendencies linked with personality traits may predispose a person to other behaviors as opposed to focusing on whether personality is the cause.


For Further Reading

Dalton, F., & Cassidy, T. (2020). Problematic internet usage, personality, loneliness and psychological wellbeing in emerging adulthood. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy,  https://doi.org/10.1111/asap.12224

Koronczai, B., Kökönyei, G., Griffiths, M., & Demetrovics, Z. (2019). The relationship between personality Ttaits, psychopathological symptoms, and problematic internet use: A complex mediation model. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(4), e11837. https://doi.org/10.2196/11837

Shi, M., & Du, T. J. (2019). Associations of personality traits with internet addiction in Chinese medical students: the mediating role of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms. BMC Psychiatry 19, 183. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-019-2173-9


Tony Cassidy is Professor of Child and Family Health Psychology at Ulster University in Northern Ireland. He has particular interests in understanding resilience in vulnerable groups of children and in interventions that help build such.

 

Writing Online Reviews: Should You Tell a Story or Just Present the Facts?

Think of the last time you wanted to choose a hotel, purchase an electronic device, or make another expensive purchasing decision. Where was the first place you searched for information? Most people answer that they turn to online platforms where they can read reviews, such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, or Amazon.

These online reviews differ a great deal in how they are written.  Some people tell a story about their use of the product that conveys information about whether they liked it or not.  Other people just list positive and/or negative things about the product. 

We wondered whether reviews framed as personal stories about a product have more impact on readers' attitudes and behaviors than reviews framed as facts. In other words, a review could tell you a story about a vacation that included all the great things a hotel did for them, or they could just systematically list all the great things about the hotel.  Which would be more powerful?  We hypothesized that because personal stories are more vivid and immersing, they will have a stronger effect on readers’ attitudes about the product.

 One way to understand the impact of a review is to look at what happens when the review contradicts what the reader originally thought. For example, if you had a good impression of a hotel and then read a negative review about it, would it change your opinion?  Would you find it distressing to get that new information?  Would you try to bolster your initial opinion by looking for other reviews that also liked the hotel?  Would you put off making a decision about whether to go there?  All of those reactions would be signs that you were affected by the review.

We conducted five experiments to examine how people react to reviews that are written like stories. We found that reviews written as stories made our research participants more aware of the pros and cons of the product than reviews framed as facts. This may be because participants who read reviews framed as personal stories remembered more information compared to participants who read reviews framed as facts.

Whether reviews were written as stories or factual descriptions also affected how participants reacted to the reviews.  When people read positive and negative stories about a product, they felt more conflicted compared to when they got exactly the same information presented as facts about the product. In addition, participants who read reviews framed as stories later spent more time reading reviews that were consistent with their original attitude.  For example, participants who read that someone really loved a smartphone they thought was awful were more likely to spend more time reading other reviews that supported their original dislike of the smartphone.  Finally, participants who read reviews framed as stories took more time before deciding whether they wanted to own the product or not.

Overall, our findings suggest that reading stories about products is salient in memory and persuasive.  When those reviews didn’t fit with what they already thought, people were bothered by the reviews and did things to make themselves feel better.  So, if you want to influence other people with a review, express your views in a story.    


For Further Reading

Itzchakov, G., Amar, M., & Van Harreveld, F. (2020). Don't let the facts ruin a good story: The effect of vivid reviews on attitude ambivalence and its coping mechanisms. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology88, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103938.

Priester, J. R., & Petty, R. E. (1996). The gradual threshold model of ambivalence: relating the positive and negative bases of attitudes to subjective ambivalence. Journal of personality and social psychology, 71(3), 431-449.

van Harreveld, F., Nohlen, H. U., & Schneider, I. K. (2015). The ABC of ambivalence: Affective, behavioral, and cognitive consequences of attitudinal conflict. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 52, pp. 285-324). Academic Press.

Van Harreveld, F., Van der Pligt, J., & de Liver, Y. N. (2009). The agony of ambivalence and ways to resolve it: Introducing the MAID model. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13(1), 45-61.


Guy Itzchakov is an Assistant Professor at the University of Haifa, Department of Human Services. His research areas are antecedents and consequences of attitude ambivalence, as well as the effects of interpersonal factors such as listening and responsiveness on attitude structure and change.

Moty Amar is an Associate Professor at the Ono Academic College, School of Business. He also serves there as the chair of the department of advertising and marketing communications and as the principal of the behavioral research laboratory. 

Frenk van Harreveld is a Full Professor of social psychology at the University of Amsterdam, principal investigator of the Uncertainty Lab, and coordinator of the research program about perception and behavior at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment.

 

Critical Ignoring as a Core Competence for Digital Citizens

Digital technologies have revolutionized access to information: it is overabundant, and always within reach. But a person's attention remains a limited cognitive resource that is only too quickly overwhelmed when confronted with an unlimited supply of information sources. Furthermore, not everything that's online is what it claims to be, and alongside an abundance of high-quality information, people are also lured into the traps of low-quality, distracting, false, and manipulative information.

Therefore, when the world comes to people filtered through digital devices, not only must they decide what information to seek, but also what information to ignore. To regain control and reclaim autonomy in the world of information overabundance, new competencies are needed that shield people from the excesses, traps, and information disorders of today's attention economy. 

One key competence is what we call critical ignoring. This is the ability to choose what to ignore and where to invest one's limited attentional capacities. It is not simply about disregarding information, but rather, it involves developing mindful and healthy habits in the face of information overload.

Critical ignoring is a type of deliberate ignorance—a human desire not to know. This refers to the conscious decision to ignore information, even when the costs of obtaining it are minimal. Even though humans are often portrayed as "informavores," there are numerous circumstances when people avoid acquiring or using information. For instance, one may choose to avoid knowing the ending of a movie to enhance suspense, or hiring committees may opt to blind themselves to certain information about applicants for the sake of fairness. Deliberate ignorance can also serve as a tool for managing information, and this is where critical ignoring comes in.

There are various strategies for implementing critical ignoring, but three are particularly crucial. These strategies are tailored to address different types of harmful information.

  • Self-nudging refers to taking control of one's own information environments, such as social media feeds and digital devices, to minimize distractions and facilitate the accomplishment of desired tasks. It can be challenging to resist the pull of attention-grabbing content, so instead of relying solely on self-control, self-nudging removes the temptation altogether. This technique is accessible to anyone; for example, a common self-nudge is to remove addictive social media apps from the home screen or to set time limits on their use.
  • Lateral reading is a straightforward technique employed by professional fact-checkers. To verify the credibility of information from an unfamiliar source, one can leave the page and search the web to see what others, such as Wikipedia and news organizations, have to say about the source and its claims. Simply looking at a single website or social media post is not enough to determine its trustworthiness. Without having relevant background knowledge or reliable trust indicators, the best strategy to decide whether to believe a source is to research the author or organization and their claims elsewhere.
  • Finally, the "do-not-feed-the-trolls" strategy is an essential aspect of critical ignoring that involves filtering and blocking out malicious users. Trolls who engage in harassment and other antisocial behaviors thrive on attention. Users who deliberately spread dangerous misinformation often resort to similar trolling tactics. For example, one strategy used by science denialists is to create the illusion of a scientific debate where none exists by consuming people's attention. The "do-not-feed-the-trolls" strategy means not responding directly to trolling, such as correcting, debating, or retaliating. Instead, it suggests blocking trolls and reporting them. However, this is not the only line of defense against malicious actors, and it should be complemented by sensible and transparent measures on the platform level, such as debunking and content moderation.

The benefits of the digital revolution are immense, but initial unbridled enthusiasm for the digital future did not survive the encounter with the unfolding reality. The idea that technology is liberating has been replaced by worries about "surveillance capitalism," and excesses of the attention economy.

Navigating this digital universe successfully requires new competencies that should be taught in school. Without the competence to choose what to ignore and where to invest one's limited attention, we allow others to seize control of our eyes and minds. Appreciation for the importance of critical ignoring is not new but has become ever more crucial in the digital world. As William James astutely observed at the beginning of the 20th century: The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to ignore. 


For Further Reading

Kozyreva, A., Wineburg, S., Lewandowsky, S., & Hertwig, R. (2022). Critical ignoring as a core competence for digital citizens. Current Directions in Psychological Science, https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214221121570
 

Anastasia Kozyreva is a Research Scientist at the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany. She studies the ways in which psychological science can help individuals counteract challenges in digital environments.

Sam Wineburg is the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of History & American Studies at Stanford University. He heads the Stanford History Education Group and studies how people judge the credibility of digital content.

Stephan Lewandowsky is Chair in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Bristol. His research examines the persistence of misinformation in society, how myths and misinformation can spread, and what variables determine whether or not people accept scientific evidence.

Ralph Hertwig is Director of the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany. He studies how people make decisions under uncertainty and how to boost people's decision-making competences.

Digital offense: Anonymity dulls our moral outrage

From online forums to community groups, research and experience shows people are more willing to insult and use menacing language online than in person, especially when there’s the protection of anonymity behind a computer. New research appearing in Social Psychological and Personality Science indicates that people react less strongly to malicious speech on digital platforms and see the victims as less “harmed” than if the words were said directly to a person.

“Many of us are taken aback when people like Milo Yiannopoulos target and harass people on Twitter, then go on TV and say that digital words don’t hurt anyone,” says Curtis Puryear (University of South Florida), lead author of the study.

“Yet our data finds that Yiannopoulos’s perspective resonates with many of us to some degree,” says Puryear. “We expect people to be less hurt by malicious words in certain digital contexts, and we respond with less outrage. This may make it easy to discount the experiences of victims of online harassment.”

Puryear and Joseph Vandello tested people’s reactions to negative comments and situations through four studies, examining reactions to malicious comments made in face-to-face and various online environments.

In one study of 270 students, people saw an image of someone participating in “nerd culture,” with a comment of “go back to your mommy’s basement nerd,” in one of three environments: face-to-face; online with social information, such as names and photos, or online with little social information.

In another study, of 283 people, participants read a remark insulting a woman for making a comment about infrastructure, and were presented with the negative comment being made on an online forum with little social information or as taking place at a public event.

Through each study, people expressed more concern and reaction to negative comments stated in person than to those stated in a digital environment. 

Comparing the digital environments, they found mixed results. The presence of more social information, from names to photos, brought about more reactions to inflammatory comments. But even when people are identifiable, they found initial evidence that inflammatory speech is less shocking in digital contexts.

The cues that help to identify people as individuals, can be dulled in the online environment, suggests Puryear.  This lack of “personalization” can dampen the social cues that tell people someone is a victim, making observers less likely to experience anger or act on behalf of the victim.

Another part of the dulled reactions to comments comes from what one could describe as “numbing,” either through the sheer volume of reports of harassment online, or from over-exposure of online harassment.

As more moral and social cues are communicated online, could people’s attitudes change and start to reflect standards similar to in-person situations? The results depend on how we shape our online communities, say Puryear and Vandello.  

Building digital platforms that depersonalize users and foster norms accepting of malicious speech may increasingly dull our responses to victimization.

“But if our norms and expectations begin to reflect that digital words really do matter then the disparity between how we react to victimization in digital and physical space may fade,” says Puryear.


Study: Curtis Puryear and Joseph A. Vandello Inflammatory Comments Elicit Less Outrage When Made in Anonymous Online Contexts Social Psychological and Personality Science. Online before print: October 16, 2018 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550618806350

Social Psychological and Personality Science (SPPS) is an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), the Association for Research in Personality (ARP), the European Association of Social Psychology (EASP), and the Society for Experimental Social Psychology (SESP). Social Psychological and Personality Science publishes innovative and rigorous short reports of empirical research on the latest advances in personality and social psychology.

Why the Internet Isn't Making Us Smarter and How to Fight Back

In the hours since I first sat down to write this piece, my laptop tells me the National Basketball Association has had to deny that it threatened to cancel its 2017 All-Star Game over a new anti-LGBT law in North Carolina – a story repeated by many news sources including the Associated Press. The authenticity of that viral video of a bear chasing a female snowboarder in Japan has been called into question. And, no, Ted Cruz is not married to his third cousin. It’s just one among an onslaught of half-truths and even pants-on-fire lies coming as we rev up for the 2016 American election season.

The longer I study human psychology, the more impressed I am with the rich tapestry of knowledge each of us owns. We each have a brainy weave of facts, figures, rules and stories that allows us to address an astonishing range of everyday challenges. Contemporary research celebrates just how vast, organized, interconnected and durable that knowledge base is.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that our brains overdo it. Not only do they store helpful and essential information, they are also receptive to false belief and misinformation.

Just in biology alone, many people believe that spinach is a good source of iron (sorry, Popeye), that we use less than 10 percent of our brains (no, it’s too energy-guzzling to allow that), and that some people suffer hypersensitivity to electromagnetic radiation (for which there is no scientific evidence).

But here’s the more concerning news. Our access to information, both good and bad, has only increased as our fingertips have gotten into the act. With computer keyboards and smartphones, we now have access to an Internet containing a vast store of information much bigger than any individual brain can carry – and that’s not always a good thing.

Better access doesn’t mean better information

This access to the Internet’s far reaches should permit us to be smarter and better informed. People certainly assume it. A recent Yale study showed that Internet access causes people to hold inflated, illusory impressions of just how smart and well-informed they are.

But there’s a twofold problem with the Internet that compromises its limitless promise.

First, just like our brains, it is receptive to misinformation. In fact, the World Economic Forum lists “massive digital misinformation” as a main threat to society. A survey of 50 “weight loss” websites found that only three provided sound diet advice. Another of roughly 150 YouTube videos about vaccination found that only half explicitly supported the procedure.

Rumor-mongers, politicians, vested interests, a sensationalizing media and people with intellectual axes to grind all inject false information into the Internet.

So do a lot of well-intentioned but misinformed people. In fact, a study published in the January 2016 Proceedings of National Academy of Science documented just how quickly dubious conspiracy theories spread across the Internet. Specifically, the researchers compared how quickly these rumors spread across Facebook relative to stories on scientific discoveries. Both conspiracy theories and scientific news spread quickly, with the majority of diffusion via Facebook for both types of stories happening within a day.

Making matters worse, misinformation is hard to distinguish from accurate fact. It often has the exact look and feel as the truth. In a series of studies Elanor Williams, Justin Kruger and I published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2013, we asked students to solve problems in intuitive physics, logic and finance. Those who consistently relied on false facts or principles – and thus gave the exact same wrong answer to every problem – expressed just as much confidence in their conclusions as those who answered every single problem right.

For example, those who always thought a ball would continue to follow a curved path after rolling out of a bent tube (not true) were virtually as certain as people who knew the right answer (the ball follows a straight path).

 

Defend yourself

So, how so we separate Internet truth from the false?

First, don’t assume misinformation is obviously distinguishable from true information. Be careful. If the matter is important, perhaps you can start your search with the Internet; just don’t end there. Consult and consider other sources of authority. There is a reason why your doctor suffered medical school, why your financial advisor studied to gain that license.

Second, don’t do what conspiracy theorists did in the Facebook study. They readily spread stories that already fit their worldview. As such, they practiced confirmation bias, giving credence to evidence supporting what they already believed. As a consequence, the conspiracy theories they endorsed burrowed themselves into like-minded Facebook communities who rarely questioned their authenticity.

Instead, be a skeptic. Psychological research shows that groups designating one or two of its members to play devil’s advocates – questioning whatever conclusion the group is leaning toward – make for better-reasoned decisions of greater quality.

If no one else is around, it pays to be your own devil’s advocate. Don’t just believe what the Internet has to say; question it. Practice a disconfirmation bias. If you’re looking up medical information about a health problem, don’t stop at the first diagnosis that looks right. Search for alternative possibilities.

Seeking evidence to the contrary

In addition, look for ways in which that diagnosis might be wrong. Research shows that “considering the opposite” – actively asking how a conclusion might be wrong – is a valuable exercise for reducing unwarranted faith in a conclusion.

After all, you should listen to Mark Twain, who, according to a dozen different websites, warned us, “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”

Wise words, except a little more investigation reveals more detailed and researched sources with evidence that it wasn’t Mark Twain, but German physician Markus Herz who said them. I’m not surprised; in my Internet experience, I’ve learned to be wary of Twain quotes (Will Rogers, too). He was a brilliant wit, but he gets much too much credit for quotable quips.

Misinformation and true information often look awfully alike. The key to an informed life may not require gathering information as much as it does challenging the ideas you already have or have recently encountered. This may be an unpleasant task, and an unending one, but it is the best way to ensure that your brainy intellectual tapestry sports only true colors.


The ConversationDavid Dunning, Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

What Can Your Online Avatar Say About Your Personality?

More communication among individuals is occurring online, and often between individuals who do not know each other offline. Researchers at York University are looking to understand the potential impressions and their limitations of those we meet in a digital context. In a study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin the researchers specifically looked at what personality traits are conveyed by a user's avatar.

Design of the study

An avatar is typically an image that represents the self in a virtual world, ranging from simple drawings (e.g., Mii characters on Nintendo Wii) to detailed three-dimensional renderings of characters (e.g., World of Warcraft). Avatars allow individuals to express, or suppress, various physical or psychological traits in a digital world. Previous research has shown that individuals typically choose and prefer avatars perceived to be similar to themselves.

The researchers included two components of profile similarity in their analysis--overall accuracy and distinctive accuracy. Overall accuracy is how well personality can be predicted as a whole, and is the sum of both distinctive accuracy and expectations based on typical norms. "For example, if my perception of someone's extraversion closely matches their true level of extraversion, without any reference to how this related to average levels of extraversion, this is overall accuracy," explains lead researcher Katrina Fong. "If I can accurately perceive how much more extraverted than average a person is, that involves distinctive accuracy."

In the first phase of the study participants created customized avatars, and in the second phase of the study a different set of participants viewed and rated the avatars created in the first phase. Creators were assessed on five major traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Results of the study

According to the analysis, some personality traits are accurately communicated better than others. For instance, how outgoing or anxious a person is was easier to perceive based on an avatar compared to how open to new experiences or conscientious the person is. Outgoing and sociable individuals tend to create avatars that communicate their personality. In contrast, people who are high in neuroticism tend to create avatars that don't communicate their personality accurately. People who are more agreeable and more typical of the general population in personality tend to create avatars that elicit friendship intentions of others.

Avatars with open eyes, a smile or grin, an oval face, brown hair and/or a sweater were more likely to elicit friendship intentions. In contrast, avatars with a neutral expression, or any other expression other than a smile, black hair, short hair, a hat, and/or sunglasses were less likely to elicit friendship intentions. Two cues were specifically related to creator agreeableness and friendship intentions--open eyes and a neutral expression (a negative predictor). Based on the results, customizing an avatar to have open eyes and avoiding a neutral expression would be more likely to elicit agreeableness and friendship intentions.

Gender differences were also examined in the study. The researchers found that when rating avatars created by females, perceivers tended to rate them as being more contentious and open, even after taking into account the creator's actual traits. Based on previous studies, the researchers expected to see individuals relying on gender associations to inform their personality judgments. Surprisingly, avatar gender didn't influence judgments in typical gender stereotypic directions. "One possibility is that digital contexts activate different gender stereotypes than in real-world contexts, but more research is necessary to explore this," Katrina Fong says.

The avatars in the study are basic and simple avatars, so the researchers caution on extending these results to more complex and dynamic avatars, like those found in three-dimensional digital worlds. The study does show that avatars can offer accurate information about the creator's personality, and individuals high in agreeableness tend to create an avatar that others want to befriend--not unlike the real-world.

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This research was funded in part by a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Fong, K., Mar, R.A. (2015). What Does My Avatar Say About Me?: Inferring Personality From Avatars. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(2). http://psp.sagepub.com/content/41/2/237.abstract

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (PSPB), published monthly, is an official journal of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). SPSP promotes scientific research that explores how people think, behave, feel, and interact. The Society is the largest organization of social and personality psychologists in the world. Follow us on Twitter, @SPSPnews and find us at facebook.com/SPSP.org