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Customizing Your Demons: Anxiety Reduction via Anthropomorphizing and Destroying an “Anxiety Avatar”
Character customization is a prominent feature in digital games, affording users the ability to tailor one’s virtual self-representation (avatar) to match aspects of their actual or ideal self, influencing psychological well-being. The mental health implications of character customization can be par...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2020
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7744781/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33343445 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.566682 |
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author | Pimentel, Daniel Kalyanaraman, Sri |
author_facet | Pimentel, Daniel Kalyanaraman, Sri |
author_sort | Pimentel, Daniel |
collection | PubMed |
description | Character customization is a prominent feature in digital games, affording users the ability to tailor one’s virtual self-representation (avatar) to match aspects of their actual or ideal self, influencing psychological well-being. The mental health implications of character customization can be partially explained by self-discrepancy theory, which argues that achieving congruence with one’s avatar reduces cognitive dissonance. However, the role of undesirable self-concepts such as mental health ailments have largely been overlooked in this context despite forming part of one’s identity. In theory, customization of an avatar representing undesirable self-concepts presents a self-regulatory paradox: individuals desire to reduce discrepancies with a self-representation, yet they also desire to enlarge discrepancies with a disliked-self. To reconcile this, two experiments explored the psychological implications of imbuing avatars with undesirable self-concepts. In Study 1 (N = 90), participants customized an avatar to represent anxiety within themselves (i.e., an anxiety avatar). Customization significantly reduced state anxiety compared to a control group, supporting the proposed discrepancy-reduction mechanism. Study 2 (N = 122) employed a 2 (customization: yes, no) × 2 (destruction: yes, no) between-subjects design, with participants either destroying or observing an anxiety avatar. Destruction of customized anxiety avatars resulted in the largest reduction in anxiety among all conditions, supporting the proposed discrepancy-enlargement mechanism. Theoretical and practical implications for the use of avatar-based e-mental health interventions are discussed. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7744781 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77447812020-12-18 Customizing Your Demons: Anxiety Reduction via Anthropomorphizing and Destroying an “Anxiety Avatar” Pimentel, Daniel Kalyanaraman, Sri Front Psychol Psychology Character customization is a prominent feature in digital games, affording users the ability to tailor one’s virtual self-representation (avatar) to match aspects of their actual or ideal self, influencing psychological well-being. The mental health implications of character customization can be partially explained by self-discrepancy theory, which argues that achieving congruence with one’s avatar reduces cognitive dissonance. However, the role of undesirable self-concepts such as mental health ailments have largely been overlooked in this context despite forming part of one’s identity. In theory, customization of an avatar representing undesirable self-concepts presents a self-regulatory paradox: individuals desire to reduce discrepancies with a self-representation, yet they also desire to enlarge discrepancies with a disliked-self. To reconcile this, two experiments explored the psychological implications of imbuing avatars with undesirable self-concepts. In Study 1 (N = 90), participants customized an avatar to represent anxiety within themselves (i.e., an anxiety avatar). Customization significantly reduced state anxiety compared to a control group, supporting the proposed discrepancy-reduction mechanism. Study 2 (N = 122) employed a 2 (customization: yes, no) × 2 (destruction: yes, no) between-subjects design, with participants either destroying or observing an anxiety avatar. Destruction of customized anxiety avatars resulted in the largest reduction in anxiety among all conditions, supporting the proposed discrepancy-enlargement mechanism. Theoretical and practical implications for the use of avatar-based e-mental health interventions are discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-12-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7744781/ /pubmed/33343445 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.566682 Text en Copyright © 2020 Pimentel and Kalyanaraman. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Pimentel, Daniel Kalyanaraman, Sri Customizing Your Demons: Anxiety Reduction via Anthropomorphizing and Destroying an “Anxiety Avatar” |
title | Customizing Your Demons: Anxiety Reduction via Anthropomorphizing and Destroying an “Anxiety Avatar” |
title_full | Customizing Your Demons: Anxiety Reduction via Anthropomorphizing and Destroying an “Anxiety Avatar” |
title_fullStr | Customizing Your Demons: Anxiety Reduction via Anthropomorphizing and Destroying an “Anxiety Avatar” |
title_full_unstemmed | Customizing Your Demons: Anxiety Reduction via Anthropomorphizing and Destroying an “Anxiety Avatar” |
title_short | Customizing Your Demons: Anxiety Reduction via Anthropomorphizing and Destroying an “Anxiety Avatar” |
title_sort | customizing your demons: anxiety reduction via anthropomorphizing and destroying an “anxiety avatar” |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7744781/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33343445 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.566682 |
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