Want to play better? Try changing your avatar's gender

New study finds that from NPC kills to exploration, gamers' avatar gender affects various in-game behaviours.

07 October 2024

By Emily Reynolds


If you've played any recent videogames, chances are at some point you'll have spent an inordinate amount of time customising your character. Tweaking clothing, facial features, and body builds can add new layers of enjoyment to the gaming experience, and help us connect to the characters that we (at least in some series) play a large role in creating.

As well as changing how your avatar looks, many games now also give the option of selecting your character's gender. As Kim Szolin and colleagues from Nottingham Trent University explore in a new paper published in Entertainment Computing, this particular customisation choice can actually change how we behave in-game – both for better, and for worse.

This study involved 353 adult participants, most recruited from video game forums. Everyone who took part had played one particular well-loved title: Fallout: New Vegas, an open-world roleplaying game in which players act as a courier trying to survive in an apocalyptic landscape. Most participants (276) identified as male, and the rest as female (77).

Participants answered questions based on a save file from a previous game of Fallout to understand how they played and with what avatar. Firstly, they shared their own gender identity and the gender of their avatar, as well as how long they had spent playing. Next, they indicated how many quests they had completed; how many locations they had discovered; and how many non-player characters (NPCs) and enemies they had killed.

Analyses uncovered several interesting relationships between the players' gender, avatar gender, and in-game behaviour. In terms of quest completion, male players with a male avatar completed an average of 76 quests, compared to 66 quests when playing with a female avatar. For women, however, avatar gender had no impact on how many quests they completed.

When looking at the number of in-game locations discovered by players, female players with a female avatar found 30% more locations than those with a male avatar. In this instance, though, there was no significant difference in location discovery rates for male players playing as either gender.

There was no significant interaction between player gender and avatar gender on the number of NPCs and enemies killed – though perhaps counter to expectations, those with female avatars had a higher number of NPC kills than those with male avatars, regardless of their own gender. Men were more likely to kill NPCs than women.

Congruence between the gender of a player's avatar and their own identity seemed to improve game performance in several areas, chiming with other research suggesting that a visual similarity to an avatar can improve gameplay. The team suggests that increased identification with a character may be the driver behind this, engaging the player more deeply and improving their gameplay.

As for why female avatars had a higher NPC kill rate, the team argues that this may be to do with the game's "absence of physical world virtual users to reinforce societal expectations of gender and aggression." So, while in the real world women may be seen as less aggressive than men, a world in which gender roles are more regularly less fixed and binary may give players the freedom to engage in less stereotypical aggressive behaviour.

What wasn't covered in the study was gender identity in a broader sense. The team didn't explore whether participants were cisgender, transgender, or otherwise gender diverse — factors which may influence the exact ways players experience, relate to, or embody their avatars. The reasoning behind choosing different gendered avatars was also not probed, but future explorations of this could open up further interesting insights.

Read the paper in full:
Szolin, K., Kuss, D. J., Nuyens, F. M., & Griffiths, M. D. (2025). The Proteus effect in Fallout: New Vegas: Investigating gender-conforming behaviours in videogames. Entertainment Computing, 52, 100765–100765. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcom.2024.100765

SOURCE:

https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/want-play-better-try-changing-your-avatars-gender(accessed 16.10.24)

Learning from women and girls

Key insights from the five year Women and Girls Initiative
Research & evaluationPublic SectorCommunityGender & diversity






Still from the Women and Girls Initiative animation



Back in 2016, The National Lottery Community Fund (the Fund) invested over £44 million in the women and girls’ sector through its Women and Girls Initiative (WGI). We are proud to have been a key part of this work, delivering WGI Learning and Impact Services with our partners, DMSS Research and CWASU, since January 2018. As we now publish the Final Impact Report, it seems fitting to share a few reflections, and signpost to some of the WGI legacies.

It has been so refreshing and such a joy to work on the Women and Girls’ Initiative (WGI). It demonstrated what could be achieved when women and girls are listened to and given the time and space to access support as, when and for as long as it is needed. It was a brave and insightful investment from the Fund, with flexibility embedded. The WGI enabled projects to develop their expertise, improve the availability of holistic, specialist support and build stronger evidence of what works well. It supported projects to develop, adapt and grow, whilst ensuring the voice and influence of women and girls remained at the centre of this support.

As Learning and Impact Services partners between 2018 and 2022, we were also able to be flexible and adaptive to projects’ needs, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Activities included running Theory of Change and evaluation workshops, facilitating action learning groups, masterclasses and webinars — and bringing together a range of public outputs: blogs, briefings, reports, and audio-visual resources.

In 2020, when an in-person conference became impossible because of pandemic lockdowns, we adapted our support offer by hosting regular on-line community calls for project staff. As an alternative to the conference, we commissioned Leeds Animation Workshop to create an animation, involving project staff, volunteers and participants in the process. All published outputs produced through the Learning and Impact Services can be found through the Women and Girls Initiative home page and via references throughout the Final Impact Report.

Link for download:

https://www.tavinstitute.org/news/wgi-project-legacy

SOURCE:

https://www.tavinstitute.org/news/wgi-project-legacy(accessed 9.10.24)

‘I understand the power of words to both uplift and hold back’

Dr Denise Miller on her journey to being awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by Advance HE.

07 October 2024


During my secondary school years, one moment stands out with particular clarity. I shared my aspiration to become a teacher with the deputy headteacher/careers advisor. His response, a dismissive laugh, suggested that my goal was unrealistic and unworthy of serious consideration. Rather than allowing this to deter me, it fuelled my determination to prove that I was more than capable of achieving what he had deemed improbable.

You see, I come from a long line of activists, dreamers, and achievers. My amazing parents, Eric and Shirley Miller, migrated from Jamaica to the UK in search of a better life in the 1950s, during the Windrush era. They embodied resilience and perseverance, traits that were deeply ingrained in me as I grew up in this supportive environment. Their influence instilled in me a quiet confidence that I could succeed in any endeavour I committed myself to; albeit they told me that as a Black woman I would have to work at least 10 times harder than my White peers. This belief sustained me until 1996 when I qualified as a primary school teacher, absolutely cognizant of the power of words to both uplift and hold back.

My journey in education did not end there. In 2004–2005, I undertook training to become an educational psychologist. Once qualified, this role became a natural extension of my commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). Almost a decade later, I returned to the University of Greenwich, where I had initially trained as a teacher, to contribute to institutional change. In my academic positions, I remained fervent in my mission to advance EDI by working across various roles to develop educational environments where all university students felt valued, respected, and supported.

Like many others, however, my career in higher education has had its challenges. Notably, in 2022, I was made redundant from the School of Education. While this was a significant setback, I viewed it as an opportunity to refocus. I transitioned into a new job within the School of Human Sciences, and thereafter, I continued my work towards achieving educational transformation on local, national, and international platforms.

The impact of my efforts and hard work is reflected in the recognitions I have received for my contributions to teaching, learning, and research. A career highlight came in 2024 when I was awarded the prestigious National Teaching Fellowship (NTF). This achievement was historic, as I became the first Black person at the University of Greenwich, and the first Black educational psychologist in the UK, to receive this honour. For me, the NTF represents a personal milestone and also a symbolic victory for people from underrepresented and marginalised backgrounds who are invariably 'working harder' in academia.

So, for those of you who are aspiring to apply for the NTF, my advice is this. Begin the process as early as possible, as preparing a winning application requires considerable thought and planning. Indeed, I found it challenging to balance working on my application with my professional commitments and personal responsibilities, but an early start allowed me to create a structured timeline with space for multiple revisions.

It is equally important not to compare yourself to others. During my application process, I frequently questioned whether my achievements were 'good enough' compared to other candidates. However, you should keep in mind that the NTF recognises excellence in many forms, so just focus on your own unique strengths and contributions.

A significant part of the application process concerns self-reflection and identifying areas for improvement. However, balancing the need to acknowledge shortcomings while highlighting accomplishments can be quite tricky. I would recommend surrounding yourself with mentors and colleagues familiar with the NTF process. Seek constructive feedback from people who can critically evaluate your drafts and who can help you to address the criteria efficiently and effectively.

Finally, make the most of your word count and avoid unnecessary 'waffle'! Instead provide specific examples of your work that clearly align with each criterion. Develop a cohesive and compelling narrative that emphasises your influence and impact, and importantly, support every single claim with strong qualitative and quantitative evidence, such as student feedback and outcomes, evaluative data.

I hope my journey to NTF serves as a source of inspiration for those of you who have encountered doubt, ceilings, or marginalisation, and it encourages you to pursue your aspirations with confidence.

Dr Denise A Miller

Associate Professor of Child and Educational Psychology, University of Greenwich, Institute for Lifecourse Development; chartered member of the British Psychological Society

SOURCE:

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/i-understand-power-words-both-uplift-and-hold-back(accessed 9.10.24)

Could exposure therapy, without conscious exposure, actually work?

New meta-analysis suggests that unconscious exposure therapy is surprisingly effective.

23 September 2024

By Emma Young


Phobias are among the most common psychological disorders, and are the most common anxiety disorder. An estimated 6% of the population suffer from full-blown arachnophobia, for example, while around 1 in 10 people in the UK are affected by claustrophobia at some point in their lives.

The standard treatment for phobias is 'exposure therapy'. For someone with a phobia of spiders, that could mean encouraging them to look at pictures of spiders, encounter virtual reality spiders, and ultimately even hold a spider — all in a safe setting. The aim is to help them to confront and overcome their fears, lessening their severity along the way.

There is abundant evidence that exposure therapy does work. But it is distressing, and this means that most people with phobias are reluctant to start therapy, or, if they do, they often drop out. A new paper in the Psychological Bulletin concludes, however, that unconscious exposure therapy — in which the person isn't even aware that they are being exposed to the object of their phobia, and so which does not stress them out — can be remarkably effective.

Paul Siegel at the State University of New York and Bradley S. Peterson at the University of Southern California conducted an exhaustive meta-analysis of findings from 39 studies that used an unconscious exposure intervention.

The interventions were not identical. In fact, the researchers identified 10 different approaches. In the 'very brief exposure' paradigm, for example, sufferers receive a series of 'microexposures' to images of their feared object (such as a spider), with each image immediately followed with another, benign image, to help to prevent it from being consciously recognised.

Another intervention, called 'spiderless arachnophobia therapy' takes a different approach. It involves showing people images of objects that resemble spiders, but which they don't consciously appreciate are spider-like — such as a camera tripod with its legs bent to resemble spiders' legs. Though the images themselves are consciously seen, this intervention relies on unconscious processing.

Overall, 38 or the 39 studies found that the intervention made a difference. Based on their analysis, Siegel and Peterson conclude that there is "ample evidence" that unconscious approaches work to reduce fear responses — even in highly phobic participants — and that they do this without inducing feelings of fear. Though the effect sizes on behaviour (willingness to approach a live spider, for example) were not quite as large as those found for standard exposure therapy for specific phobias, they were still "mostly large", the pair reports.

It's also worth noting that the vast majority of these unconscious exposure studies consisted of only a single 'treatment' session, whereas standard exposure therapy is often conducted over multiple sessions. Perhaps, then, a series of unconscious treatments may be even more effective, but further work is needed to explore this.

Based in part on brain scan data from some of these studies, the researchers think that the reason unconscious therapy can work is that our brains react both unconsciously and, separately, via different pathways, also consciously to scary things. They think that when someone with a spider phobia is repeatedly unconsciously exposed to a picture of a spider, their amygdala, which detects threats, is activated, but they don't go on to experience a racing heart or sweaty palms — or feel fear. With repeated 'training', this "likely revises the memory representation of phobic stimulus", the pair writes — so that their brain learns that this object should not trigger fear. "In essence, we are arguing that unconscious experience reduces fear by preventing fear itself," the researchers write.

Exactly which brain regions play a role in unconscious exposure therapy is not yet well understood. Neither is it clear yet which types of unconscious phobia intervention may be the most effective. But, given that specific phobias are so common, and that research shows that they often precede the development of other types of anxiety disorders, the pair argues that further research into unconscious approaches is now needed. They add that in theory, it's possible that the approach may also help people with some other anxiety disorders, such as PTSD.

"Psychologists have long maintained that feared objects and situations must be directly confronted to reduce fear of them," Siegel and Peterson write. "The findings of this review call this long-standing belief into question and suggest that a new generation of exposure therapies that reduce fear via unconscious processing is on the horizon."

However, since the unconscious and conscious memory systems that underlie fear-related learning are not completely independent, they think that the ultimate phobia treatment will probably target both systems. First, an unconscious treatment might make someone with a spider phobia, say, less terrified of spiders. This could then make it less stressful for them to embark on standard exposure therapy, in which the conscious, cognitive processes of phobic beliefs and subjective fear are tackled.

Read the paper in full:
Siegel, P., & Peterson, B. S. (2024). "All we have to fear is fear itself": Paradigms for reducing fear by preventing awareness of it. Psychological Bulletin, 150(9), 1118–1154. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000437

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SOURCE:

https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/could-exposure-therapy-without-conscious-exposure-actually-work(accessed 2.10.24)