This exploratory study extends Proteus effect research to consider how organization-representing avatars (i.e., mascots) might induce behaviors that reflect cultural associations with the organization, in this case, misogyny. Participants (opposite-sex attracted men from the community) who used an avatar that was more closely associated with their university (as signaled by color) exhibited more misogynistic behavior, as reflected by lower time delays (i.e., less resistance) in a task requiring them to touch a virtual agent’s buttocks with their hand in the virtual world. However, this difference was driven by an interaction effect, and upon further analysis was found to only be significant when the avatar had a moderately masculine body shape. In other words, no difference was found by the university-color association for participants who used hypermasculine-sized avatars. Within the university-associated color condition, participants who used the hypermasculine body-type avatar exhibited less misogynistic behavior (greater resistance to buttocks touching) than those who used the moderately masculine mascot, which contradicted expectations. No differences were found by avatar body type within the non-university-associated color condition. Overall, these findings extend theorization on the Proteus effect, providing evidence that organization-representing avatars can induce behavioral conformity to attitudes associated with the organization, such as misogyny.The finding that participants who used the university-associated color (compared to non-university-associated color) avatar exhibited more misogynistic behavior—but only for moderately masculine (not hypermasculine) avatars—might suggest that when the body type was less recognizable as the university mascot, the color was the main indication of a connection to university sports culture and implicit misogyny. Hence, controlling this avatar induced more misogynistic behavior via the Proteus effect. It is also possible that “wearing” this university-associated color had a significant impact on their behavior regardless of the avatar. For example, Frank and Gilovich14 found wearing black jerseys increased participants’ aggressive behavior. However, the avatar’s clothing and the avatar itself were intrinsically linked in our study. Given the evidence that embodying (i.e., controlling) an avatar leads to stronger Proteus effects than viewing (without controlling) the avatar4,5,15, we interpret this finding as a reflection of the Proteus effect. Namely, controlling an organization-representing avatar (i.e., mascot) created associations between organization-related schema (i.e., sports culture and misogyny) and self-perception—especially in the moderately masculine condition—inducing conformity with related (i.e., misogynistic) behavior.The simple effects tests also found that the hypermasculine avatar led to significantly less misogynistic behavior than the moderately masculine avatar within the university-associated color condition. This unexpected finding may have resulted from the hypermasculine avatar being easily recognizable as a specific social other, namely, the university mascot. Instead of priming schema related to sports culture as a whole, this may have primed associations with the specific (fictional) individual mascot. Despite being hypermasculine, this mascot also serves as a family-friendly community member (e.g., posing for pictures with families at public events), so such associations may have counteracted antisocial (e.g., misogynistic) associations with university sports culture. It is also possible that participants attributed their actions to the avatar, a symbol of the university, and acted in accordance with the instructions in order to avoid tarnishing the university’s reputation. In other words, we infer that initial expectations regarding associations with the avatar were incorrect—the misogynistic associations of hypermasculinity were less salient than the prosocial associations with the mascot, perhaps because the mascot was highly recognizable in this community. This interpretation would explain why our results did not confirm our hypotheses about avatar body size. Future research in another social context could potentially support the predicted effect of hypermasculine avatar types. Overall, this finding highlights the challenge of predicting user associations with avatar characteristics, contributing to the body of research on limitations in Proteus effect, such as when social cues and individual identity cues are misaligned16.Theoretical and practical implicationsThis study extends Proteus effect research to consider organization-representing avatars and anti-social (misogynistic) behavioral outcomes of the phenomenon. Regarding the former, although the psychological mechanisms of the phenomenon are presumably similar, mascots and virtual influencers2 that are associated with entire communities or brands can be used by individuals as avatars, thereby influencing user behavior via those associations. This represents a novel paradigm for mediated interaction in virtual reality that may have implications for numerous psychological outcomes (e.g., sense of self and identification, motivation, and well-being).Regarding this study’s context of misogynistic behavior, these findings contribute to a line of research on antisocial or negative Proteus effect outcomes, such as aggression, self-objectification, and stereotype threat9,10,11,12,13. Although we may attempt to design avatars—organization-representing or otherwise—to induce more educational engagement, healthier behavior, or greater well-being, avatars may also cause psychological, social, or even physical harm via the Proteus effect. Although we may assume (or hope) that such outcomes are not implemented intentionally within virtual environments, the potential for inadvertent harm via the Proteus effect is quite real. People who use an avatar associated with misogynistic or other anti-social behaviors may act in misogynistic or anti-social ways, even outside of the virtual environment.The present findings can also be interpreted in the context of the proposed theoretical underpinnings of the Proteus effect. Namely, avatar embodiment15 facilitates deindividualization16 and primes avatar-associated characteristics9 which are incorporated into self-concept4,17,18, leading to changes in self-perception3,7 and thus avatar-user behavior. Participants were randomly assigned to control in VR (i.e., embody) an avatar mascot that reflected no personal characteristics (i.e., deindividualizing) and potentially signaled a group norm associated with the organization (i.e., priming) represented by the mascot. The avatar’s social identity (i.e., university sports-culture association) potentially became salient to participants’ self-concept and self-perception, thereby influencing their behavior in ways that were consistent with perceptions of that identity (e.g., misogynistic acts). Unfortunately, the present study was not designed to test these specific mechanisms of the Proteus, but they remain plausible explanations of the patterns found.Limitations and future directionsWe offer some future directions for Proteus effect research based on this study’s limitations, including the study timing and location. The study was conducted shortly after a number of incidents that led to public scrutiny of misogyny within sports culture at multiple universities. Although these events prompted and reinforced the timeliness of the current study, this research was conducted at a university that changed dramatically in the following years in response to those incidents. The association between the university sports culture and misogyny likely varies depending on publicized news items, events, and cultural initiatives, hindering the potential for replicability in the study as originally designed. Hence, future research on organization-representing avatars should carefully consider what organizational associations are likely to induce the Proteus effect.Another limitation is the current sample, which was composed only of “opposite-sex attracted” men. Although this decision was purposeful, based on the misogynistic context of the research, future studies should sample from wider populations to increase external validity and better support claims.The current study only used one mascot that was connected to one specific university. It is possible that the Proteus effect found in this study was specific to this mascot, and thus the phenomenon should be tested at other universities or organizations, with other cues to organizational associations besides color—as well as additional colors beyond those tested here—to enhance external validity.There was a potential confound in avatar style, with the hypermasculine avatars appearing more cartoonish than the moderately masculine avatars. While we do not believe this difference accounts for the present findings, future research should aim to achieve stylistic consistency across avatars to better isolate Proteus effects.The present study is limited in its reliance on a single type of implicit measurement of virtual misogynistic behavior. Corroborating this approach with direct measurement of participants’ perceived association between organizational culture and misogyny would have strengthened the behavioral metric’s validity, but such self-report measures about sensitive topics like misogyny are susceptible to social desirability bias. Another approach could have been to add a survey question asking participants about the extent to which they viewed the buttocks-touching as a transgression. We did not think of this approach at the time, but future research could easily institute this validity check.Future research could support behavioral measurement validity by including physiological measures or implicit association tests (IAT) of attitudes45. Only a few avatar-effects studies have utilized physiological measures [e.g., arousal;18,46] or the IAT [e.g., to assess racial bias;47,48], while most Proteus effect research has utilized implicit behavioral metrics besides the IAT4. Future research could triangulate virtual behavioral effects with physiological or implicit attitudinal measures to bolster internal validity and elucidate psychological mechanisms behind the effects.Also related to the behavioral metric, we limited the maximum duration of each trial to 10 s, which may have hindered the internal validity of our data by removing the possibility of more extreme data points. Although failed trials and flawed trials were relatively rare, future research should consider avoiding this issue by using naturalistic behavioral metrics that require less experimental constraint.Another possible critique is that our findings might not have resulted from the Proteus effect, but instead on compliance to the body-touching task in general, not just for the buttocks trials. To address this, we replicated our main analyses, conducting an ANOVA with avatar color and avatar body type as the independent variables and the time-to-touch non-buttocks trials as the dependent variable. There were no significant effects found for mascot body type [F(1, 128) = 0.86, p = 0.26, ηp2 = 0.01] color [F(1, 128) = 0.32, p = 0.81, ηp2 = 0.00], or the interaction [F(1, 128) = 1.12, p = 0.09, ηp2 = 0.01]. Hence, this analysis does not contradict our interpretation of these findings as a Proteus effect.These limitations to measurement validity notwithstanding, the present research illustrates how VR is an ideal platform for observing behaviors that closely mirror real-world dynamics, facilitating analysis of rich, contextually nuanced data that is often challenging to capture through traditional methods49. In particular, the study exemplifies an examination of a sensitive topic (i.e., misogynistic behavior) that would be difficult ethically to conduct in a non-virtual environment and less valid if conducted in a less immersive, less naturalistic media environment. Future research should follow this paradigm to ethically measure antisocial effects (Proteus or otherwise) via virtual behavior.Lastly, the present research was largely exploratory in its approach to examining how a mascot might serve as an avatar and induce the Proteus effect. Future research should continue this line of inquiry on how organization-representing avatars (e.g., mascots, virtual influencers) influence user behaviors in ways that are consistent with stereotypes about organizational culture, for better or in this case, worse. Such research will contribute new theoretical extensions of the Proteus effect as well as practical inferences that are important for technological and societal development, especially as interest in avatar-mediated communication platforms and the metaverse continue to grow.
