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Can racism actually exist in a world inhabited by avatars, such as 'Second Life' and 'World of Warcraft?' Researchers at Northwestern University seem to think so after conducting a series of social manipulation studies.
The researchers used two different social manipulation techniques known to work well in the real world. The so-called foot in the door (FITD) approach asks a simple favor of someone that can be quickly and easily accomplished making the person more likely to agree to future requests, while the door in the face (DITF) approach makes a more complex and time consuming request at first, making the person more likely to agree to a simpler follow up request.
The really interesting (and disturbing) results came when researchers decided to add another variable to their experiment -- skin tone. They set the skin tone of their avatars to the extremest light and dark ends of the allowable spectrum then approached random users to make their requests. When using the FITD method, 75-percent of people agreed to the second request, and 80-percent agreed when the DITF method was employed. The catch was that these results were for white avatars only. When the researchers used darker-skinned avatars, only 60-percent agreed to the second request of either approach.
It's both disturbing and absurd that racism has been dragged into virtual worlds, places where people can be anyone they want. It's unclear whether black avatars are being discriminated against because the users are perceived as black, or because the users are choosing black avatars. We thought the Internet was supposed to break down barriers and bring people together -- guess we were being a little overly idealistic. [From: Ars Technica]
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Comments
6
Subscribe to commentsCawama SanaaSep 29th 2008 1:36PM
Well, again this shows how immature we, Americans are. We talk about being the leaders of the free world and yet, we are bound with our sick and immoral issues based on color! And here we are telling the rest of the world to clean up their human rights abuses...do I sense double standards here?
BaronSep 29th 2008 2:35PM
If you think that American's are the only ones in the world that are "racist", you are grossly wrong. The amounts of racism and associated atrocities in the world today make the USA look like school boys (aka, not so bad).
I am not sure if this study was based only on American people since both games are worldwide, but I do not know if you are limited to a "world" based on IP.
On another note, it is "human nature", if you will, for people to separate into groups based on similarities.
nacirfaSep 29th 2008 1:37PM
Well, again this shows how immature we, Americans are. We talk aboutbeing the leaders of the free world and yet, we are bound with oursick and immoral issues based on color! And here we are telling therest of the world to clean up their human rights abuses...do I sensedouble standards here?
iHoppipollaSep 29th 2008 3:26PM
Baron is right. It's completely a global issue. A human issue, not just an American issue. Americans can claim that they do not physically kill as many of those people of other races that they hate but hatred with the heart is only a step away from hatred with the fist... or the gun.
sebOct 12th 2008 11:52AM
This is not a racism issue as much as it is one of prejudice. They are 2 different things. The latter of which is part of being human. People throw around the word "racism" far too quickly.
StarsNov 7th 2008 2:55PM
In SecondLife the Partiotic Nigras (PN) typically used black avatars.
there is a lack of black avatars in SL, there are Asians, but blacks are way under represented.
Perhaps there is some sort of prejudice against blacks, or maybe it's just that they render badly. People in SL also tend to be over 6 foot tall...