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posted by CoolHand on Saturday May 09 2015, @01:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the we-like-cartoon-chicks dept.

Researchers at Penn State have measured responses to avatars rated on a scale of attractiveness:

In a study of how people interacted with avatars in an online game, women received less help from fellow players than men when they operated an unattractive avatar and when they used a male avatar, said T. Franklin Waddell, a doctoral candidate in mass communications, Penn State.

"It doesn't matter if you have an ugly avatar or not, if you're a man, you'll still receive about the same amount of help," said Waddell, who worked with James Ivory, associate professor of communication, Virginia Tech. "However, if you are a woman and operate an unattractive avatar, you will receive significantly less help."

The researchers used six different avatars to study reactions to help requests among 2,300 players of the online game, World of Warcraft. The avatars represented male and female creatures across three different levels of attractiveness. Prior to this study, participants had evaluated the levels of attractiveness as high, medium and low.

WoW racism at work: the highly attractive avatars were blood elves, the somewhat attractive avatars were night elves, and the unattractive avatars were orcs.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 10 2015, @03:42AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 10 2015, @03:42AM (#180962) Journal
    I think the researchers should at least consider the possibility that they are unintentionally communicating a message that they don't want help. Unlike real life, the appearance of a WOW character is something that is completely customizable. Looking "ugly" means to me you want to be independent.