People’s idealized self-representation on the internet

Differences among people are less pronounced online than offline / users particularly tend to idealize their psychological characteristics / publication in 'Current Psychology' Researchers in social and media psychology at the University of Cologne have explored digital environments in which people tend to portray themselves in an idealized way. The results show that there is a clear tendency to assign idealized attributes to one's avatar, especially regarding one's psychological traits. The study 'Self-representation through avatars in digital environments' has been published in Current Psychology . The internet allows people to present their physical and psychological attributes to an extent that does not correspond to reality. A research group led by University of Cologne psychologist Professor Kai Kaspar wanted to find out whether people tend to idealize themselves, and if so, in which contexts. For the study, 568 people were randomly assigned to one of six digital environments in an online experiment: online dating, competitive online gaming, cooperative online gaming, social network with friends, social network with strangers, social network with job contacts. Participants had to provide physical and demographic as well as psychological attributes, once for their actual self-image (i.e., how they actually assessed themselves), their ideal self-image (how they would like to be), and for the online avatar (through which they would like to portray themselves virtually). The main question the researchers explored was: Do people design their avatar more like they really are (real representation) or more like they would like to be (idealized representation)?