Avatars prove to be human

People participating in online virtual worlds react to others' avatars in many of the ways they might in the real world -- carrying biases based on skin color, for example. That's one of the major findings in field studies conducted by a pair of social psychologists from Northwestern University. Their findings are published in a report called: "Is It a Game? Evidence for Social Influence in the Virtual World."

The study, conducted within the virtual world of There.com, involved one avatar making requests of others to see how the others would react to avatars with different characteristics, such as skin tone.

"For decades, research has shown that the outcome of that reciprocity-inducing technique is affected by how the requester is perceived, whether a person -- or in this case an avatar -- is deemed worthy of impressing," says one of the researchers in a statement.

The finding is consistent with studies in the real world as well as the few in the virtual world that clearly demonstrate that physical characteristics, such as race, gender and physical attractiveness, affect judgment of others.

The study was conducted in There.com, a relatively unstructured online virtual world that brands itself as an online getaway where users can hang out with friends and explore an immense and unusual landscape.

While there has been some thinking that people would separate their real social selves from their virtual ones, the Northwestern researchers found that that seems increasingly not to be the case.