My Desired Self, Avatar: The Impact of Avatar Creation on Persuasion

Abstract

In computer-mediated communication CMC environments, users utilize their avatars as a communication channel to interact and connect with others, and they choose and create them accordingly to represent their self. As such, several major question areas arise: 1 As an extension of identity, how does a user customize his/her avatar? How is the avatar's appearance related to the avatar creator's self-concept? 2 How does avatar creation influence the avatar creator's psychological and behavioral consequences? To answer these questions, the current study leveraged a Korean social networking site, which currently provides avatars called "Minimis," in a randomized experimental setting. This study found that the more the participants perceived their avatars to look like their desired selves, the more likely they evaluated their avatars as being attractive, credible, confident, cool, capable, and persuasive, but failed to find a significant relationship between avatar users' perceptions toward self-created avatars and their attitudes toward the social network site or ads.. The limitations and implications will be discussed.