Avatar Trustworthiness Perception And Online Initial Interpersonal Trust

The rapid development of the Internet has formed a new,virtual intertwined space-time structure,which has changed the traditional way of interpersonal communication.As a product of the network era,online trust has become complex and unstable due to the anonymity and virtuality of the network environment.When people face strangers in real life,they can judge and reason whether the strangers are trustworthy or not based on their faces and appearance.In the online world,avatars provide users with a wealth of visual information.As people express or suppress various physical and psychological characteristics through their avatars,academic researches on the interpersonal perception of avatars are increasing.Research findings consistently show that people’s perceptions of avatars influence their perceptions of others,and that evaluations of avatars may translate into evaluations of the person they represent.Moreover,the results of the researches on the perception of personality traits of avatars by domestic and foreign researchers show that people have certain accuracy in judging the personality of others through avatars.However,on the one hand,existing studies focused on the accuracy of perceptions of the Big Five personality traits of avatars,and lessened on the perceived accuracy of avatar trustworthiness,especially in the Chinese cultural context.On the other hand,current domestic research has mainly focused on the influence of face trustworthiness on the initial interpersonal trust of individuals in real life,while little research has examined the influence of avatar trustworthiness on online initial interpersonal trust.As an "identity representation" in the online environment,the relationship between avatar and online initial interpersonal trust is worth exploring.In addition,previous studies on avatar trustworthiness have mostly used explicit measures,while implicit aspects have not been explored.In summary,this study drew on three experiments to examine the perceived accuracy of avatar trustworthiness and the effect of avatar trustworthiness on initial interpersonal trust online.The aim of this study was to complement the exploration of trustworthiness in the online world and enrich the localized research on avatar trustworthiness.The pre-study asked participants to create avatars using Avatar Maker website creation software for different platforms respectively,and to rate the similarity of the avatars to themselves and between the avatars to explore whether users would create avatars based on the online environment.The standard trust game paradigm was used to measure the actual trustworthiness of the avatar creator,and the actual trustworthiness of the creator was quantified as its return amount.Study 1 used the standard trust game paradigm to explore the perceived accuracy of avatar trustworthiness and the relationship between avatar trustworthiness and online initial interpersonal trust.Participants were asked to rate the trustworthiness and attractiveness of each avatar and complete the trust game as a delegate.Study 1 found that avatar trustworthiness,gender and attractiveness could predict online initial interpersonal trust.Study 2 further examined the effect of avatar trustworthiness on initial interpersonal trust online and how avatar gender and attractiveness play a role in it at the explicit and implicit levels.Study 2 used the standard trust game paradigm and the picture initiation paradigm to manipulate avatar trustworthiness,gender,and attractiveness based on study 1.The findings of this study were shown below:(1)There were significant differences between avatars of different platforms.The similarity between users’ avatars used for WeChat and Weibo was low.The similarity between avatars used for WeChat and themselves was significantly higher than the similarity between avatars of Weibo and themselves.In other words,users created and used corresponding avatars based on the online environment to a certain extent.(2)The perception of avatar trustworthiness lacked accuracy.That is,participants’perception of avatar trustworthiness were not consistent with the actual trustworthiness of the avatar creator.(3)Avatar trustworthiness,gender,and attractiveness significantly predicted online initial interpersonal trust.Specifically,avatar trustworthiness and attractiveness positively predicted entrustment amount,and female avatars received more entrustment amount.(4)Avatar trustworthiness had a significant impact on online initial interpersonal trust from both explicit and implicit perspectives,and people showed more trust in highly trustworthiness avatars.In summary,in the process of online human interaction,people’s decision to trust the creator of an avatar relied heavily on their perceptions of avatar trustworthiness.However,avatar trustworthiness might be a less reliable signal that led people to make wrong decisions.This finding reminded people that they would not have too much confidence in perceptions of trustworthiness based on the appearance of avatars.In addition,individuals should search for more information about the interactive objects to identify and judge their trustworthiness,and construct trust relationships in a more rational way.