Alex Britez

Understanding how Children in Early Adolescence Perceive Aesthetics,

Personal Identity and Self-Expression through Virtual Worlds
Research in Games and Simulation: Theory Paper
May 15, 2011

1. Introduction
1.1 Virtual Worlds
A virtual world is described as “a computer- generated display that allows or
compels the user (or users) to have a sense of being present in an environment
other than the one they are actually in, and to interact with that environment”
(Schroeder, 1996, pg. 25). This allows for the 'user' to experience a immersive
sense of 'being there' (Taylor, 2002) and having ability to interact with each other
as well as with computer-controlled non-player characters (NPCs) by assuming
different personae, better known as their 'avatar'.

1.2 Avatars
An avatar is a self-imposed representation of a participant interacting within a
virtual environment, and is far more then an object manipulated by a participant.
It is a method in which users could embody themselves into these virtual
environments (Taylor, 2002). As T.L Taylor (2002) points out, avatars are

"... the material out of which relationships and interactions are embodied:
much as in offline life with its corporeal bodies, digital bodies are used in a
variety of ways – to greet, to play, to signal group affiliation, to convey
opinions or feelings, and to create closeness."

This graphical representation combined with actions, communicational and social

affordances brought about through a virtual world, help in developing a sense of
being 'there' from the player (Taylor, 2002). This immersion results in avatar
behaviors that mimic the social constructs of 'real life'. An example of this is
shown by how participants feel a sense of 'personal space' from within a virtual
environment. Similar to 'real life', physical proximity between avatars can be used
to signal friendship and aggression towards another player (Taylor, 2002).

In this paper, we will discuss how we could influence emotional engagement in

children by understanding their needs, developmental abilities and experiential
goals, while increasing their sense of presence in the system. These influences
could then be used as a guideline for both aesthetic and mechanical design
choices that may have an impact on a child's virtual world experience.

1.3 Growth of Children Participating in Virtual Worlds

Computers have become much more accessible for children around the world,
with 71% of households in developing countries owning a computer and 65.6%
having internet access (International Telecommunications Union, 2010). With the

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increase of working households, many parents use media as “a chance to get
their chores done, quiet their kids down, or just have some 'me' time, knowing
that their kids are 'safe' — not playing outside, and less likely to be making
trouble around the house” (Rideout & Hamel, 2006, p. 32). As a result, the
popularity of virtual world registered accounts has dramatically increased for this
demographic. KZero reports (2011) that the 6-10 year old demographic has
grown from 77 million, to 272 million in only 2 years.

Before being able to successfully design a virtual world for this audience it is
important to understand the developmental and social differences amongst the
group, when compared to adults. Bellow is a brief overview of relevant literature
depicting aspects of developmental and social milestones that could influence
the methods in which children interacts with virtual worlds.

2. Aesthetics: Avatars and Non-Playing Characters

Individuals instinctually formulate quick and lasting judgments of people they
meet for the first time, based primarily on nonbehavioral cues (McArthur, 1982).
This is what formulates our 'first impression', and bases how we formulate our
initial interactions with each another (Isbister, 2006). Katherine Isbister (2006)
argues that people are also influenced by game character in the same way.
Understanding how people react to the “social surface” can be beneficial to when
designing a game character.

2.1 Babyface Effect

Research has shown that adults with facial features that share similarities to a
baby’s face are associated with babyish traits (Montepare & Zebrowitz, 1998). It
describes a tendency to see people with baby-faced features as more naive, less
accountable for their actions and more honest (Masip, Garrido, & Herrero, 2004),
when compared to more mature features.

The physical features for this bias resemble the features of an infant. They
consist of large eyes and pupils, small chin, high eyebrows and forehead, small
nose, and full lips and cheeks (Montepare & Zebrowitz, 1998). In the context of
in-game character design for this demographic, where a designer is looking to
achieve a sense of trustworthiness and friendliness, they may opt for using this
bias to favor their emotional intent (Isbister, 2006).

2.2 Physical Attractiveness

Physical attractiveness has a definite influence on social judgments (Masip,
Garrido, & Herrero, 2004). Attractive people are seen as warmer, kinder,
stronger, more sensitive, more outgoing, more socially persuasive and dominant,
and even smarter than others. (Zebrowitz, Voinescu, & Collins ,1996; Isbister,
2006). This finding is consistent with the attractiveness-halo effect (Berscheid &
Walster, 1974), where an attractive person is judged as having a more
desirable personality and more skills than an average looking person.
It is important in this game that the player identifies with his player character.
Designing them to be attractive, based on the conversions of the players culture,
gender, etc, improves the odds of this happening for the player (Isbister, 2008). It
comes to no surprise that most heroes and heroines in videogames, movies and
comics are attractive.

2.3 Creating Friendly Game Characters For Young Children

Isbister (2006) notes that, social psychologist have also determined that the first
two questions that a person asks himself or herself when initially meeting
someone new are:

1. "Is this person friendly?" or Agreeableness: a cue that the person is

friendly and safe to interact with.
2. "How powerful are they?" or dominance: a cue that the person we are
interacting with feels that they are or could be superior then us.

Studies show that visual appearance, communicative style, and pedagogical

roles of agents impact their acceptance and trust, and change the way people
interact with them (Haake, 2009). Friendliness could be portrayed with attributes
such as a smiling, with steady but not overly intense eye contact. Their postures
would be open and relaxed, and have a warm and energetic voice (Isbister,
2006).

A study that measured children’s preferences of user agent design found that
young participants, when asked to select an avatar for a learning companion in
subjective tasks, showed a preference for a more simplified and cartoonish style.
Children tended to feel "judged" by the more formal instructor avatars
representations (Haake, 2009).

3. Identity & Developmental Characteristics

3.1 Social Development
Looking at virtual worlds from a socio-constructivist lens, knowledge is a social
activity (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978) and there is great value in the
collaborative aspects. Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978), believed that
social interaction plays a fundamental role in a child’s cognitive development. His
belief contrasted the views of Jean Piaget's stages of development
(Piaget,1971). Instead of development preceding learning, Vygotsky (1978) felt
that social learning precedes development. He states that, “every function in the
child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on
the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the
child (intrapsychological).” (Vygotsky,1978).

Vygotsky (1933) also shares his ideas about children and play, stating how role-
play allows for children to differ immediate gratification though self-regulation. He
argues that development comes in two levels, the child’s independent level and
their assisted level. The distance between both levels is what Vygotsky (1933)
calls their Zone of Proximal Development. By interacting in group-based play
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activities, such as those found in virtual worlds, a child is able to exercise self-
regulation and play in the confounds of the various roles and narrative set forth
by the play scenario.

Erik Erikson (1963), viewed this developmental stage as a time where children
develop a 'sense of industry', learning the skills necessary for cooperation with
both peers and adults. This age also brings about new social norms, such as
formal schooling and increased involvement in organized activities. This
exposure to a variety of social settings and circumstances, is what enables a
child to master the skills required in these situations, and acquire a broadened
view of themselves and the world around them (Eccles, 1999).

During this time, children’s behavior balances on what is expected by their

parents and their peer groups (Erikson, 1963), better known as peer pressure.
The child's role in his or her peer group, classroom, and extracurricular programs
are tied directly to the child's achievements and personal qualities (Eccles, 1999).

3.2 Play Pattern Development

As children cognitive and social development matures, so do their play patterns.
Role-playing reaches its peak between the ages of 5 and 8 (Fein, 1981), as they
start developing more elaborated forms of socio-dramatic play. Smilansky’s
(1968) description of socio-dramatic play characteristics consists of the following
elements:

• Imitative role-play: the child performs a make-believe role and acts it out
through imaginary kinesthetically actions and/or speech.
• Make-believe with regard to objects: play behaviors and/or speech
dialogues and/or materials or toys that are not replicas of the object itself
are substituted for real objects (ie. using a banana as a phone).
• Verbal make-believe with regard to actions and situations: verbal dialogue
takes the place of body movements.
• Persistence in role-play: the pretend play sessions increase in duration,
and lasts at least 10 minutes.
• Interaction: more than one person participates in pretend play session.
• Verbal communication: verbal dialogue is exchanged between the players.

During this age, children become increasingly concerned with peer-acceptance,

and start to analyze what would be considered “cool” and “uncool” (Acuff, 1997;
Erikson. 1963). It is common for a child in this age group to firmly demonstrate
their repulsion to programs designed for younger audiences (Mielke, 1983), even
if they where a fan themselves. Children at this age start leaning towards
realistic character and animals, and keep their distance from the more childish
characters.

4. Self-Expression in Virtual Worlds

Children in this age demographic have relied on adults and older siblings to
guide most of their interactions. They rarely have been given the opportunity to
exercise power or control, either physically or socially (Bee,1995). Virtual worlds
offer a child the unique opportunity of making choices. The choices they make
could range from the physical design of their avatar, the clothing that they wear,
the items that they buy (Bailey, 2009) and how they choose to interact with the
other participants of the community (Bartle, 2003).

4.1 Virtual Assets

Virtual assets are comprised of intangible items that only exist in the virtual world,
in which the user is participating. Elements can range for objects that improve the
appearance or capabilities of an "avatar", to virtual currencies. An avatar's
competence in a virtual world is judged by the artifacts and wealth that the avatar
possesses (Manninen & Kujanpää, 2007, p. 26). This coincides with the
developmental changes that this demographic is experiencing regarding peer-
acceptance, resulting in their identity crises (Erikson, 1963, 1959).

Research on the effect that customizable avatars have on emotional engagement

for children, aged 8-12, proposes "customization of game avatars can affect both
subjective feelings of presence and physiological indicators of emotion during
game play" (Bailey 2009). It is believed that, due to the decreased frontal lobe
activity, there is a higher reported levels of presence amongst children
(Baumgartner, 2006 ). This suggest that designing games that allow for more
customizability could make the experience more arousing, which may in
influence the amount of emotional valence experienced (Bailey 2009).

"The findings of this study indicate that offering more customization

options in terms of avatars may make games more enjoyable with higher
highs and lower lows. It is likely that making these games more
physiologically arousing will keep players coming back to play and playing
longer, which gives sponsors of advergames with customization options
several advantages, mainly a willing audience who will spend more time
with their brands. (Bailey 2009, pg. 5)"

Customization of virtual worlds, and the avatars that live in them, has become a
major source of income in the US. According to the Inside Virtual Goods report
(2010), the US virtual goods market will reach $2.1 billion overall in 2011 and
estimated that sales from social games made up more than half the total U.S.
virtual goods revenues in 2010.

4.2 Player Types

Choice in a virtual world, not only included virtual assets and appearance, but
also the decisions a player makes in how they would like to play the game.
Bartle (2003) argues that players typically fall into four player types:

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 1) Achievement within the game context: This type of player assigns
themselves various game-related goals, and puts effort in achieving
them.
2) Exploration of the game: This is the player that tries to learn as much
as possible about the virtual world. Initially this includes exploring the
various maps and their topology and finding hidden places. Later this
shift to experimenting with other game elements, such as the physics.
This type of player loves to uncover glitches and “easter eggs” in the
game.
3) Socializing with others: These players choose to play the game for its
socialization features, rather then game play.
4) Imposition upon others: Players use the tools provided by the game to
cause distress to other players.

Bartle (2003) adds that, “these areas cross over, and players will often drift
between all four, depending on their mood or current playing style. However, my
experience having observed players in the light of this research suggests that
many (if not most) players do have a primary style, and will only switch to other
styles as a (deliberate or subconscious) means to advance their main interest.”

5. Conclusion
By understanding the various design principles, social and play development,
and the types of choices a child is able to make, we are able to make explicit
design decisions that affect a participants experience with the game. Studies that
demonstrate how offering customization features have positive effects on
emotion (Bailey, 2009), show how important it is to understand the
developmental maturity of your audience. It also illustrates how closely an
individual’s pursuit of identity correlates from the real world (Erikson, 1963) to the
virtual world (Bailey, 2009).

When developing materials for avatar creation and designing non-playing

characters, we should be able to identify how the character translates in terms of
friendliness and approachability, and what cues we have to convey this message
(Isbister, 2006). These design decision cannot open for interpretation be team
members, hence need to be documented and properly communicated with all
who work on game development (Isbister, 2008). Animators, voice-overs and
programmers need to understand the exact emotional target that the game
designer is aiming for. Inconsistencies in emotional cues could be misinterpreted
as the avatar or NPC lying (Isbister, 2008).

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