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August 20, 2007, 04:05 PM ET
Avatars of Deception
A good liar, it’s been said, is someone who can tell tales while staring you in the face, betraying nothing. In real life, that can be tough. In the virtual world Second Life, apparently, it’s not as much of a challenge.
Two researchers at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln have completed a study on “deception in cyberspace,” and they’ve hit on something pretty interesting: In text-based chat rooms, people who are lying generally get anxious. But in virtual worlds that let people create avatars, that edginess seems to fade away. “This suggests that ‘wearing a mask’ in cyberspace may reduce anxiety in deceiving others,” the researchers conclude.
People who tell lies in Second Life are more likely to choose fanciful avatars, ones that look nothing like their real-world selves, than virtual truth-tellers are, the study also found.
Second Lifers may or may not find that the report jibes with their own anecdotal evidence, writes a blogger at Your 2nd Place, but the study will strike a chord: “This is likely to become one of the foundation papers of reference related to virtual worlds.” —Brock Read
Categories: Virtual-Worlds, Research
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