A Virtual Safe Space? An Approach of Intersectionality and Social Identity to Behavior in Virtual Environments
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v4i3.91Keywords:
social virtual reality, intersectionality, social identity, virtual body, avatarAbstract
Health measures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic have confined millions to their homes and minimized social contacts. During this period, a significant proportion of social activities—including work, education, and recreation—moved to digital media platforms. Among these platforms, social virtual reality (VR) has gained importance offering “alternative” realities in which users can engage with others, participate in cultural and sports events, complete education-related activities, and (mental) health treatments, to name but a few functions. With the increasing popularity of social VR and the expanding range of activities these platforms can host, hitherto-unexplored questions arise regarding social interactions and the representation of virtual bodies. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to outline a potential framework for assessing how avatars that represent various body types and demographic characteristics, such as gender or ethnicity, may impact behaviors and identity. The paper presents a theoretical study that combines social identity theory and theories of intersectionality and applies them to the case of digitally created human-like bodies. By doing this, it illuminates the challenges and benefits virtual reality platforms and digital body representations hold—including remote social interactions due to social isolation and social dynamics based on online personas.
References
Abrams, D., and Hogg, M. A. (1990). Social Identifications: A Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations and Group Processes. Florence: Taylor & Francis.
Abrams, D., and Hogg, M. A. (2010). Social identity and self-categorization. In Dovidio, J. F., Hewstone, M., Glick, P., & Esses, V. M. (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination. London: SAGE, 179–193.
Agar, I. (2019). How VR/AR may fundamentally change the concept of identity. PitchBook, March 13. https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/how-vrar-may-fundamentally-change-the-concept-of-identity
Alsop, T. (2021a). Augmented (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) market size 2021–2024. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/591181/global-augmented-virtual-reality-market-size/
Alsop, T. (2021b). Global mobile augmented reality (AR) users 2019–2024. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1098630/global-mobile-augmented-reality-ar-users/
Alsop, T. (2021c). Virtual reality (VR): Statistics and facts. Available at: https://www.statista.com/topics/2532/virtual-reality-vr/#dossierKeyfigures
AltspaceVR. (2020). New avatars! Available at: https://altvr.com/new-avatars-coming-soon/
Ceuterick, M. (2021). Queering cultural memory through technology: Transitional spaces in AR and VR. Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media(21), 89–110. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.21.05
Code, J., and Zap, N. (2009). Social identities, group formation, and the analysis of online communities. In Hatzipanagos, S. & Warburton, S. (eds.) Handbook of Research on Social Software and Developing Community Ontologies. Hershey: IGI Global, 86–101.
Combahee River Collective. (2000). The Combahee River Collective Statement. In Smith, B. (ed.), Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 264–274.
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum(1), Article 8. http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. https://www.doi.org/10.2307/1229039
Davis, K. (2008). Intersectionality as buzzword: A sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful. Feminist Theory, 9(1), 67–85. https://www.doi.org/10.1177/1464700108086364
Dill, B. T., and Zambrana, R. E. (2009). Critical thinking about inequality: An emerging lens. In Dill, B. T. & Zambrana, R. E. (eds.) Emerging Intersections: Race, Class, and Gender in Theory, Policy and Practice. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1–21.
Ducheneaut, N., Wen, M.-H., Yee, N., and Wadley, G. (2009). Body and mind: A study of avatar personalization in three virtual worlds. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Boston. https://doi.org/10.1145/1518701.1518877
Dzardanova, E., Kasapakis, V., and Gavalas, D. (2018). Social virtual reality. In Lee, N. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games. Cham: Springer, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08234-9_204-1
Faulkner, C. (2021). Oculus is rolling out its new and more expressive avatars starting today. The Verge, April 23. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/23/22398060/oculus-new-avatars-editor-features-vr-virtual-reality-facebook-quest-rift
Freeman, G., Bardzell, J., Bardzell, S., and Herring, S. C. (2015). Simulating marriage: Gender roles and emerging intimacy in an online game. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing, Vancouver. https://doi.org/10.1145/2675133.2675192
Geerts, E., and van der Tuin, I. (2013). From intersectionality to interference: Feminist onto-epistemological reflections on the politics of representation. Women’s Studies International Forum, 41(3), 171–178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2013.07.013
Goffman, E. (1956). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.
Goffman, E. (1986). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Gray, K. L. (2012). Deviant bodies, stigmatized identities, and racist acts: Examining the experiences of African-American gamers in Xbox Live. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 18(4), 261–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/13614568.2012.746740
Hogg, M. A. (2006). Social identity theory. In Burke, P. J. (ed.), Contemporary Social Psychological Theories. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 111–136.
Holvino, E. (2012). The ‘simultaneity’ of identities: Models and skills for the twenty-first century. In Wijeyesinghe, C. L. & Jackson, B. W. (eds.) New Perspectives on Racial Identity Development: Integrating Emerging Frameworks. New York: New York University Press, 161–191.
Huddy, L. (2001). From social to political identity: A critical examination of social identity theory. Political Psychology, 22(1), 127–156. https://www.doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00230
Jones, S. J. (2003). Complex subjectivities: Class, ethnicity, and race in women’s narratives of upward mobility. Journal of Social Issues, 59(4), 803–820. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.0022-4537.2003.00091.x
Latoschik, M. E., Kern, F., Stauffert, J.-P., Bartl, A., Botsch, M., and Lugrin, J.-L. (2019). Not alone here?! Scalability and user experience of embodied ambient crowds in distributed social virtual reality. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 25(5), 2134–2144. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2019.2899250
Latoschik, M. E., Roth, D., Gall, D., Achenbach, J., Waltemate, T., and Botsch, M. (2017). The effect of avatar realism in immersive social virtual realities. Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology, Gothenburg. https://doi.org/10.1145/3139131.3139156
Lugrin, J.-L., Latt, J., and Latoschik, M. E. (2015). Avatar anthropomorphism and illusion of body ownership in VR. Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR), Arles. https://www.doi.org/10.1109/VR.2015.7223379
Luppicini, R. (2012). The emerging field of technoself studies. In Luppicini, R. (ed.), Handbook of Research on Technoself: Identity in a Technological Society. Hershey: IGI Global, 1–25.
Maloney, D., and Freeman, G. (2020). Falling asleep together: What makes activities in social virtual reality meaningful to users. Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, Virtual. https://doi.org/10.1145/3410404.3414266
Marciano, A. (2014). Living the VirtuReal: Negotiating transgender identity in cyberspace. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(4), 824–838. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12081
Marwick, A. E. (2013). Online identity. In Hartley, J., Burgess, J., & Bruns, A. (eds.) A Companion to New Media Dynamics. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 355–364.
Marwick, A. E., and boyd, d. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114–133. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810365313
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill.
McVeigh-Schultz, J., Kolesnichenko, A., and Isbister, K. (2019). Shaping pro-social interaction in VR: An Emerging design framework. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Glasgow. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300794
McVeigh-Schultz, J., Márquez Segura, E., Merrill, N., and Isbister, K. (2018). What’s it mean to “be social” in VR? Mapping the social VR design ecology. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, Hong Kong. https://doi.org/10.1145/3197391.3205451
Minsky, M. (1980). Telepresence. OMNI, 2(9), 44–52. https://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/Telepresence.html
Mori, M., MacDorman, K. F., and Kageki, N. (2012). The uncanny valley [translation]. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 19(2), 98–100. https://doi.org/10.1109/MRA.2012.2192811
Ngan-Ling Chow, E., Texler Segal, M., and Tan, L. (Eds.). (2011). Analyzing gender, intersectionality, and multiple inequalities: Global, transnational and local contexts. Emerald.
Orgad, S. (2009). How can researchers make sense of the issues involved in collecting and interpreting online and offline data? In Markham, A. & Baym, N. (eds.) Internet Inquiry: Conversations About Method. Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 33–53.
Patel, H., and MacDorman, K. F. (2015). Sending an avatar to do a human’s job: Compliance with authority persists despite the uncanny valley. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 24(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1162/PRES_a_00212
Puar, J. K. (2012). “I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess” Becoming-intersectional in assemblage theory. philoSOPHIA, 2(1), 49–66. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/486621
Robertson, A. (2021). Mark Zuckerberg says realistic avatars are Facebook’s next big VR bet. The Verge, March 8. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/8/22319737/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-vr-ar-face-sensors
Roth, D., Lugrin, J.-L., Galakhov, D., Hofmann, A., Bente, G., Latoschik, M. E., and Fuhrmann, A. (2016). Avatar realism and social interaction quality in virtual reality. Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR), Greenville. https://www.doi.org/10.1109/VR.2016.7504761
Rubin, P. (2019). Facebook can make VR avatars look—and move—exactly like you. Wired, March 13. https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-oculus-codec-avatars-vr/
Sacheli, L. M., Christensen, A., Giese, M. A., Taubert, N., Pavone, E. F., Aglioti, S. M., and Candidi, M. (2015). Prejudiced interactions: Implicit racial bias reduces predictive simulation during joint action with an out-group avatar. Scientific Reports, 5(1), 8507. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep08507
Schroeder, R. (2002). Social interaction in virtual environments: Key issues, common themes, and a framework for research. In Schroeder, R. (ed.), The Social Life of Avatars: Presence and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments. London: Springer, 1–18.
Selvet, R. (2016). I used my own avatar in VR and it was awesome. Virtual Worlds, December 13. https://medium.com/virtual-worlds/bringing-lifelike-avatars-to-social-virtual-reality-70affa194301
Siani, A., and Marley, S. A. (2021). Impact of the recreational use of virtual reality on physical and mental wellbeing during the Covid-19 lockdown. Health and Technology, 11(2), 425-435. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12553-021-00528-8
Slater, D. (2002). Social relationships and identity online and offline. In Lievrouw, L. A. & Livingstone, S. (eds.) The Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs. London: SAGE, 533–546. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781848608245
Slater, M. (2009). Place illusion and plausibility can lead to realistic behaviour in immersive virtual environments. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 364(1535), 3549–3557. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0138
Slater, M., Perez-Marcos, D., Ehrsson, H. H., and Sanchez-Vives, M. V. (2008). Towards a digital body: The virtual arm illusion. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2(6). https://doi.org/10.3389/neuro.09.006.2008
Sykownik, P., Emmerich, K., and Masuch, M. (2020). Like in the good old times, but virtual: A case for simulating co-located multiplayer games in VR. Extended Abstracts of the 2020 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, Virtual. https://doi.org/10.1145/3383668.3419885
Tajfel, H. (1972). Social categorization. In Moscovici, S. (ed.), Introduction a la psychologie sociale. Paris: Larouse, 385–426.
Tajfel, H. (1981). Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tajfel, H., Flament, C., Billig, M. G., and Bundy, R. F. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 149–177. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420010202
Tajfel, H., and Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In Austin, W. G. & Worchel, S. (eds.) The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Monterey: Brooks, 33–47.
Tajfel, H., and Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behaviour. In Worchel, S. & Austin, W. G. (eds.) Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 7–24.
Taksa, L., Powell, G., and Jayasinghe, L. (2015). Intersectionality, social identity theory, and explorations of hybridity: A critical review of diverse approaches to diversity. In Bendl, R., Bleijenbergh, I., Henttonen, E., & Mills, A. J. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Diversity in Organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 518–538.
Taylor, K.-Y. (2017). How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective. Chicago: Haymarket Books.
Turner, J. C. (1975). Social comparison and social identity: Some prospects for intergroup behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 5(1), 5–34. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420050102
Turner, J. C., and Reynolds, K. J. (2016). The story of social identity. In Postmes, T. & Branscombe, N. R. (eds.) Rediscovering Social Identity. Oxon, New York: Routledge, 13–32.
van Zoonen, L. (2013). From identity to identification: Fixating the fragmented self. Media, Culture & Society, 35(1), 44–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443712464557
Warner, L. R. (2008). A best practices guide to intersectional approaches in psychological research. Sex Roles, 59(5), 454–463. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9504-5
Wiederhold, B. K. (2020). Using social media to our advantage: Alleviating anxiety during a pandemic. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 23(4), 197–198. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.29180.bkw
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 The Author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
