Saturday, October 29, 2011
Hall 1-2 (San Jose Convention Center)
Research suggests that many women are concerned with body-image, especially women who have low body esteem. The purpose of this study is to examine why the manipulation of an avatar will affect the over-all body esteem and body satisfaction of women. An anonymous questionnaire asked participants to create an avatar for an online course. Participants will be instructed to imagine they will be meeting someone online for the first time and must discuss lecture material for an exam. Participants will complete post-avatar creation body esteem and body satisfaction measures to access participants' body concerns. It is predicted that participants had significantly lower body esteem and dissatisfaction with their bodies after creating an avatar that allows the user to play an active role in the virtual world. Results will also suggest that participants with a lesser body satisfaction manipulated the avatar character to look much different than their actual self. This study will specifically present preliminary results concerning body esteem and avatar creations. These findings suggest that creating an avatar in the virtual world has a negative effect on body esteem and body satisfaction of women.