Do men heal more when in drag? Conflicting identity cues between user and avatar

Abstract

Studies in the Proteus Effect have shown that users conform to stereotypes associated with their avatars appearance. In this study, we used longitudinal behavioral data from 1,040 users in a virtual world to examine the outcome of conflicting identity cues between user and avatar. We found that false gender stereotypes become true in the virtual world as users perform expected gender roles when they gender-bend.