To Be or Not Be Human-Like in Virtual World

Abstract

The main objective is a double one. First and foremost, it is a question of showing that foot-in-the-door as a proven behavioral influence technique in offline interactions maintains its efficiency in online interactions. It is then a question of exploring the impact of the anthropomorphism vs. the non-anthropomorphism of the requester avatar on the efficiency of this technique. Foot-in-the-door is based on a simple principle: you start by asking for a little in a first step to increase the probability of obtaining a lot in a second step. The research was conducted in the Second Life virtual world. In a control condition (n = 200), a requester avatar directly proposed the target request. In a foot-in-the-door condition (n = 200), the requester avatar started by presenting a preparatory request before proposing the target request. According to the conditions, the requester avatar was human-like (female or male), or non-human-like (flower, balloon, cube). As expected, our results show that overall the foot-in-the door-technique remains efficient in the virtual world; they also show that this efficiency depends on the human-like form of the requester avatar. This last result is interpreted as a reference to the theory of social presence. Non-human-like avatars could generate a weak social presence, to the point where the mechanisms of self-perception and commitment underlying the foot-in-the-door effect may not be automatically initiated. Player avatars would in this way be freed from the rules of social interaction occurring in offline interactions.

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“…Call-to-action. The "foot-in-the-door" strategy is a well-established evidence-based consistency strategy that showed effectiveness in offline and online environments to achieve compliance (Barbier and Fointiat, 2020;Beaman et al, 1983;Eastwick and Gardner, 2009;Gamian-Wilk and Dolinski, 2019;Lee and Liang, 2019). The strategy's effectiveness is explained by the human tendency to be consistent with prior investments (Cialdini, 2008).…”

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“…Un interesante artículo encontró que las motivaciones de los usuarios para la creación de los avatares son varias: (1) exploración del mundo virtual y de la propia virtualidad, (2) navegación social para conocer las dinamicas sociales y hacer amigos; (3) adaptación contextual para ajustarse y responder a los contextos socio-culturales, y (4) representación de la identidad 28 . La creación de avatares para adaptarse contextualmente al mundo virtual y/o representar una identidad pueden depender de la actividad que vayan a realizar o incluso de con quien interactue, ya que muchos usuarios están preocupados por la impresión social que pueda generar la apariencia de su avatar 29 . Llegan al punto, que muchos usuarios ya experimentados en mundos virtuales, si ven la apariencia de su avatar de cuando comenzó, se muestran sosprendidos de su primitivismo (primitiveness) y lo describen como grotesco, aburrido y no real 27 .…”

Learning from robotic artefacts: A quest for strong concepts in Human-Robot Interaction

“…In Human-Virtual Agents Interaction, the tension between anthropomorphism and non-anthropomorphism has been also discussed in relation to avatars (e.g. [9]) and conversational agents (e.g. [7]).…”