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The Proteus Effect in Role-Playing Games


The name Proteus comes from the Greek God who can take on a multitude of forms. When a player has multiple characters that he/she would consider being extensions of their selves, we call that The Proteus Effect (GameSpot, 2014).

When a player takes on a characters role they begin to play upon the way they perceive their character should act. When this occurs, similar to Greek mythology, they are taking on another form and thus becoming 'protean'. Jeremy Baileson, an associate professor at Stanford University and Infinite Reality's co-writer explains the Proteus effect being "(a) phenomenon where people change their in-game behavior based on how they think others expect them to behave" (Baileson, 2007).

A study at the Stanford university suggests that avatars shape their owners. Meaning that an in-game character that a player takes on may in fact affect the actual real-world-self of the player. According to Bailenson "Avatars are not just ornaments - they alter identity of the people who who use them". However, these alterations are somewhat minor. An example was conducted in Jesse Fox's study at the Stanford university. Fox found that when participants were finished playing their avatar selves exercise in-game that these people were more inclined to go to the gym. "If they saw a person they didn't know, they weren't motivated to exercise. But when they saw themselves, they exercised significantly more" (Fox, 2009).

In an episode of Reality check, a GameSpot online game design series, Mark Coulson argues that player's who create avatars that represent the idealized self are more likely to have self-esteem issues as well as weight and height problems. Thus players who neglect the character creation options are more likely to be confident in their appearance (GameSpot, 2014).

However, I disagree with this argument as I find it to be too generalized. I do not see the correlation between creating an idealized representation of oneself in a fantasy setting and having issues with one's real representation.

Bibliography
  • GameSpot (2014) Reality Check - What Are We Hiding? Character Creation Psychology! (Part.1) - Reality Check [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brsfdLroDNA&t=179s&ab_channel=GameSpot. [Accessed 11 March 2017].
     
  • Yee, N. and Bailenson, J., 2007. The Proteus effect: The effect of transformed self‐representatiohavior. Human communication research, 33(3), pp.271-290

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