The effect of behavioral synchrony with black or white virtual agents on outgroup trust

Tamborini, Ron; Novotny, Eric; Prabhu, Sujay; Hofer, Matthias; Grall, Clare; Klebig, Brian; Hahn, Lindsay; Slaker, Janine; Ratan, Rabindra; Bente, Gary

doi:10.1016/j.chb.2018.01.037

Cited by 25 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…There are several interesting areas of future study that could follow from this work. One comes from a study from Tamborini et al (2018) in which participants danced in a coordinated way with an avatar who was their same or different race. Results revealed an interaction between outgroup level trust and the race of the avatar: those who danced with a same race avatar were less trusting of the other race, and those who danced with a different race avatar were more trusting of that race.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Walking in My Shoes: Imagined Synchrony Improves Attitudes Towards Out-groups

Atherton

2020

Psychol Stud

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

People are prone to dividing others into the categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’. This can be particularly detrimental to minorities who may experience social exclusion, prejudice, and reduced access to equal opportunities. One method of improving intergroup relations is to create opportunities for contact. Common contact interventions have members of different groups meet and engage in conversation. There are also non-verbal embodied intergroup activities that produce the same effects. Previous work has shown that the pro-social effects of coordination may be linked to whether co-actors are classed as in or out-group members. The current study explored whether imagining walking in synchrony with in- or out-group members changed majority members’ attitudes towards those individuals. Imagining walking in synchrony fostered greater increases in empathy and decreases in negative attitudes only towards minority group members following imagined coordination (not in-groups). Implications and future directions are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Walking in My Shoes: Imagined Synchrony Improves Attitudes Towards Out-groups

Atherton

2020

Psychol Stud

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Hence, designers should include characteristics that increase relatedness, feelings of being understood, attractiveness, empathy, and so forth that appear natural to users to avoid the feeling of eeriness. Interacting with embodied agents that do not reflect users' ethnicity is rated as less trustworthy compared to interacting with embodied agents that do (Tamborini et al, 2018).…”

Section: The Uncanny Valleymentioning

confidence: 96%

“…This is because humans usually prefer to digitally interact with a representation that is similar to them. The perception of similarity here is not limited to physical appearance or gender between users and digital representations, but also includes ethnicity and culture (Tamborini et al, 2018). Human realism and psychological similarity can increase the sense of presence, immersion, and involvement with the embodied agent.…”

Section: Summary Of Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further, while research has emphasised the importance of high similarity between the user and a digital representation, the majority of studies on similarity considered just the avatar's physical appearance (e.g., body size, clothing, hair) or gender. Only three studies have explicitly considered the user's ethnicity (Fehrenbacher & Weisner, 2017;Spence et al, 2013;Tamborini et al, 2018). Digital representations in these three studies were based on, and hence represented, the ethnicity of (1) African-American and Caucasian people (Spence et al, 2013;Tamborini et al, 2018), and (2) Asian and Caucasian people (Fehrenbacher & Weisner, 2017).…”

Section: Future Research Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Only three studies have explicitly considered the user's ethnicity (Fehrenbacher & Weisner, 2017;Spence et al, 2013;Tamborini et al, 2018). Digital representations in these three studies were based on, and hence represented, the ethnicity of (1) African-American and Caucasian people (Spence et al, 2013;Tamborini et al, 2018), and (2) Asian and Caucasian people (Fehrenbacher & Weisner, 2017). It is known that visual appearances that are appropriate for one culture can be inappropriate in another (Abdallah & Douglas, 2010;Yusof & Zakaria, 2007).…”

Section: Future Research Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Avatars and Embodied Agents in Experimental Information Systems Research: A Systematic Review and Conceptual Framework

Aljaroodi¹,

Adam²,

Chiong³

et al. 2019

AJIS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Computerised graphical representations of human users and computer agents, known as avatars and embodied agents, have been extensively explored and investigated in Information Systems (IS) research and practice. Such digital representations can be employed in either 2D or 3D. In order to facilitate research on user and agent representations and their applications in IS, we conduct a systematic literature review and establish the current state of research on humans’ perceptions and behaviours when interacting with avatars and embodied agents. Our findings are based on an analysis of 90 articles published in top outlets in the IS field. This review identifies 1) different types of avatar and embodied agent-mediated interactions with users, 2) current application domains of such representations, 3) their dimensionality, 4) affected psychological constructs, and 5) practical considerations for the design of such digital representations. Finally, we discuss limitations of current research and, based on these, directions for future work.

show abstract