The right avatar may remind us that we’re all human. And in turn, reinforce us to respond more empathetically toward others online.
So says new research from Laramie Taylor (2010) who looked at people’s responses in the Yahoo Answers Q&A service. People sign on to Yahoo Answers to ask their own questions, or answer other people’s questions about any and every topic imaginable.
Two studies were conducted to examine whether avatars elicit more emotional involvement — like empathy — from people who answer the questions. The researcher also hypothesized that questions that have avatars will receive more answers than those that don’t.
The first study looked at 881 answers in response to 132 questions on Yahoo Answers. The second study examined the altruistic nature of people who answered questions and their avatar usage, and looked at 125 responses. Responses were coded by independent raters.
The researcher found that avatars increased the sense of emotional involvement in this kind of community. Questions that used an avatar received more empathetic answers. And people who had more altruistic motivations had a stronger preference for answering questions posted by someone with an avatar.
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The avatar can also tell you what KIND of person you’re dealing with. A person who uses a pic like the one you’re using above, for example, would get a different response from me than, say, someone using a political avatar.
Interesting side note: on SparkPeople, which is focused on health and weight loss, many large women use pics of their kids instead of themselves. Says something about how ashamed they are of how they look. I try to urge them into the frame with their next avatar.
Makes perfect sense to me. I’m much more responsive to someone I can actually see. I’ve even included an image for the important people/numbers on my cell phone. It’s just makes things more personal.
I’m with you Bill. Makes perfect sense. But, I don’t know how to get a photo on my phone…that’s a good idea. I’m a little slow in reading my phones manual.lol
Great my avatar is suppose to be me! And it messed up on this comment.lol Instead it’s part of a painting my father did-his rendition of The School of Athens. UGh-must make changes.
Avatars do impact. The only thing i need to remind myself-and the kids though- is that people are not necessarily anything like their avatar. Sounding a little paranoid, i know…but like Bill, i would naturally empathize with a person-and inherent in that are a lot of assumptions-usually positive.That we can hide behind an avatar- when as Sarah notes there are feelings of shame about our appearance….-an avatar is a ‘start’ to re-engaging maybe. and on that note, Trish i’m not even sure that i have an avatar yet? woops!