For my psychological space, I chose the Online Multiplayer Videogame (OMV), or, more familiarly phrased as, the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.) Specifically, I chose the game Final Fantasy XI Online, which has a rather large player-base worldwide (though not nearly as wide in scope as that of World of Warcraft). In order to do this, I had to create an avatar of my own in order to interact with other players’ avatars. I chose to create a character that was a human male warrior (as opposed to female, or another race like elfin, or another profession such as mage.) My reasons for this was based on a 2008 CHI conference paper published by the WoW developers studying the demographic of their character base. Human, male, warriors were the most popular and 'generic' character choices. Being a new character, my avatar was not as advanced as older avatars, which had evolved as their players spent time having them fight monsters to grow stronger. Also being new, I asked for help accomplishing my first objective from a more experienced player.
I automatically assumed the advanced player (whose avatar name was Enaan) was male, around my age if not a few years younger, most likely a student at some university or at some high school. I made these assumptions simply based on what I knew about MMO’s in general. The player-base is largely male, despite being female myself, and knowing a good number of other females who played on the game. His character was also male. Since he agreed to help an inexperienced player like myself, I considered him very amiable and easy-to-talk to, as well as generous enough to waste time on answering my questions instead of playing himself. He was open about questions, friendly, careful about not losing my character while we ran around in the game, and seemed to be confident in what he was doing. The player did continuously ask me if I understood the directions, if my character was in danger, etc. which gave me the impression of his being very careful.
MMOs are different from chats in the fact that most players only talk about the game, and very little chat outside of what to do next in the game actually occurs. Therefore, no interpersonal probes actually occurred. Our interaction was limited to task-oriented verbal cues. Being that most other players ignore your requests for help, the fact that he agreed struck me as significant over everything else, and I felt compelled to like him, perhaps out of gratitude. Our limited communication exaggerated that point to me the most, such as discussed in the Hyperpersonal Model. I technically knew very little about him (if it was a ‘him’ at all), but I felt very strongly that he was a nice person, because of one thing he did for me, despite the fact that it was a task-oriented impression. The few traits he presented to me were positive, very likely an aspect of selective self-representation, so I may have very well filled in the rest of the blanks with positive things as well, to envision him as a likeable person.
My impression followed the Hyperpersonal Model the most. Unlike the CFO model, my impression was not ‘cool’, nor negative. In fact, it was a strong urge to like the player because they were helping me, despite not knowing much about him at all. This was the exaggerated over-attribution component of the Hyperpersonal Model, as well as the fact that I knew very little, but felt strongly about the one facet of his personality that I was able to observe (small breadth, huge intensity.) I did not have much time to interact with him, so the interaction did not follow the SIP model, which is based on how much slower CMC impressions are formed. (My impression was formed within a few minutes of interacting with the player.) Since the player was represented by an avatar, it would also not be out-of-the-ballpark to think that he was being nice to a new player for the reason of forming a good impression, as a sort of admirable senior figure. After all, it is called a Role-Playing Game for a reason.
2 comments:
I always wanted to play Final Fantasy Online, but then I got into playing WoW. I was wondering if you were actually new at the game or just pretending to be in order to see how people would treat you. I expected the “guy” to treat you the way he did, I’m almost 100% sure that he was a male. I see this on WoW all the time, where guys tend to be nicer to female avatars, and even go out of their way to help them out. It’s a very interesting behavior that hopefully this class will explain, since I don’t quite understand it.
You did a great job analyzing your interactions with Enaan and relating them to what we are learning in the class. Sometimes when someone helps me in the game I also feel very grateful towards them and like them, even though I barely know them. So, I can understand why you felt the way you did towards him at the end of your interaction. Good Job!
Your communication experiment was relatively similar to the Hancock and Dunham experiment in 2001 that supported the Hyperpersonal Model. Both your experiment and the Hancock experiment based their communication judgments on a task oriented conversation. From your resulting opinion of your partner, you have a good case for over-attribution. You automatically assumed that “he” was a likeable person because “he” helped you. The twist to the interaction is your initial gender deception. You are creating your initial impression formation while presenting an identity digital deception. This is really interesting, and I wonder how your impression would evolve with time. It is like experiencing impression formation from Alex’s perspective in Gelder’s article, “The Case of the Electronic Lover.” Your interaction concurred with the Hyperpersonal Model in a relatively unique setting. Good job.
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