Time Second Life photo

A recent Time Magazine article reports the work of Jeremy Bailenson and Nick Yee, both at Stanford University.  It’s a pretty interesting piece that discusses the implications of what Nick Yee elsewhere termed the “Proteus Effect” — that is, how avatars (qualities acquired online and conforming to expected behaviors of the avatar) can change how people behave, at least in the short term.  More attractive avatars led to greater confidence, extraversion, and friendliness to other avatars; taller avatars led to greater aggression in a bargaining task.  This is pretty cool work.  I spent half of last fall at Stanford as a visiting scholar, and it was pretty awesome to hang out in Wallenberg Hall, but I didn’t really get to spend time with Nick and Jeremy or their lab.  It would have been fun to chat with them about Proteus Effect stuff.  Oh well..