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On the Persuasive Power of Videogame Avatars on Health-Related Behaviours

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On the Persuasive Power of Videogame Avatars on Health-Related Behaviours On the Persuasive Power of Videogame avatars on Health-related behaviours Oliver James Clark PhD 2019 On the persuasive power of videogame avatars on health-related behaviours Oliver James Clark A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Manchester Metropolitan University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Health, Psychology, and Social Change Manchester Metropolitan University 2019 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is their own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2019 The Manchester Metropolitan University and Oliver James Clark For Audrey, who never doubted for a moment. Acknowledgements I am incredibly grateful for having such a fantastic supervisory team; Thank you Jenny Cole, Sarah Grogan, and Niki Ray for the comments, suggestions, and encouragement, and for tolerating my single minded dedication to Markdown and LATEX; and Kevin Tan for the technical advice over the past three years. It has been a pleasure working with you all. Thank you to my examiners Professor Phillipa Diedrichs and Professor Marc Jones for thoroughly reading the thesis, providing incredibly helpful feedback, and for an excellent discussion, with Professor Sue Powell, during my Viva. Thanks to the Chatistician, Chelsea Parlett-Pelleriti for the Reviewer-2 Special - this was invaluable! I also would like to thank the Technical Officer Gary Dicks for his support with getting my laboratory experiments off the ground and doing a fantastic job with the new labs. I am very grateful for the funding received from the British Psychological Society and the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science for conference attendance bursaries, and to the MMU Department of Psychology and the Stress, Health, and Performance research group for providing much needed funding for both conferences and vouchers for participants (particularly Jo Ashby and Marc Jones) . One of the highlights of the programme was the BBSRC Reproducibility Retreat at Cumberland Lodge, organised and delivered by some awesome people. It was a truly valuable experience. Thanks to everyone who participated, and Chris Chambers, Laura Fortunato, Stan Lazic, Dorothy Bishop for running excellent sessions and providing invaluable advice. I was fortunate enough to be able to pay a visit to the Red Square Lab at Technical University Eindhoven in September 2018. The experience was amazing, and I am eternally grateful to Danïel Lakens, Anne Scheel, Farid Anvari, and Peder Isager for making me feel welcome and introducing me to some really interesting people. To my friends and colleagues at the British Psychological Society Postgraduate Affairs Group (PsyPAG). PsyPag has been a hidden gem, and one of my few regrets is not getting involved sooner! I will be continuing my positions until the end of my tenure, but I have met some awesome people through both the conferences and meetings. Particularly the Core Committee past and present, who have always been on the end of a WhatsApp group to share indignation and memes. Thank you Maddi Pownall, Cat Talbot, Olly Robertson, Ben Butterworth, Jammy Stacy, Candie Whittaker, Elaine Coxon, Danielle Paddock, and Chris Robus for being a message away for laughs, advice, indignation, and memes. Early on in the programme, I attended four workshops on Bayesian Statistics. Mark Andrews and Thom Baguley did a stellar job dishing out Bayesian CoolAid at the Prior Exposure workshops and beyond. A major source of knowledge, advice, and entertainment has been the various academic podcasts that hosts pour hundreds of hours of unpaid work into. A major shout out to James Heathers and Dan Quintana from the Everything Hertz podcast - it’s possible I would have entirely missed the Open Science movement without you. Also, thanks to The Black Goat, Two Psychologists, Four Beers, ReproducibiliTea, and Very Bad Wizards. There have been a huge amount of inspiring people that have offered coding and stats advice over Twitter, at various journal clubs, and conferences. I am really thankful to Lisa DeBruine, Dan Simpson, Oscar Olvera Astiva, Paul Buerkner, Ed Berry, and everyone who has offered advice guidance and support in person, online, and elsewhere. A very welcome distraction from videogame avatars has been the various collaborations that I have sparked up over the past few years. Thanks to Andrew Stewart, James Bartlett, Emma Henderson, Yael Benn, and Sam Parsons for keeping my mind active! Also, thanks to Tom Hostler for letting me help with the Open Science Working Group at MMU, and for the various late evening drinking and riff sessions. The Kinisi-Fit group, and Manchester Taekwondo Warriors have been a major outlet for my physical and mental wellbeing. I am incredibly grateful to Michael Dean O’Reilly, Natalie Constanti, Ross Onufryk, Sarah Barker, and Matt Houston for their advice, sticky stop-watches, and providing the opportunity to hit stuff! The vast majority of my thesis was written over guest filter coffees and brunch at two local Third Wave Coffee establishments. Thank you to all of the staff at Takk Oxford Road and University Green, and Foundation Whitworth Lock for being patient over the hundreds of hours I must have spent nursing cups of coffee! My family have been wonderfully supportive, and I’d like to thank Jane Wright, Ian Wright, and Tim Clark for being available for phone calls and videogames. I would like to thank Han Clark for always believing in me. I am fortunate to have some excellent friends: I’ve had some great downtime drinking beers and going to gigs with orta Therox, Jon Wingrove, James Twiddy, and Matthew Barrell. Dr Awesome Kev Elner who encouraged me to get back on the Academic Horse, gave great advice on the perils of perfectionism and has been an excellent support over my various academic endeavours. My lab mates Lucy Walker, Kat Fradley, Rebecca Dwyer, Rachel Zieme, and Georgia Wilson have been a great support during the long hours waiting around for participants. I’d like thank Dr A Gledhill, who got me over the last hurdle of the thesis. Last, but not least, thanks to my El Dude Bro Sofia Persson for being an amazing friend, colleague, and academic exemplar; it was from early conversations with you that I plucked up the courage to jump back into education. Abbreviations Term Abbreviation Associated Systems Theory AST For what it’s worth FWIW If You’re Interested IYI Massively Multiplayer Online RPG MMORPG Non-playable character NPC Open Science Framework OSF Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analysis PRISMA Role Playing Game RPG Self-Discrepancy Theory SDT Self-Perception Theory VSM Virtual Self Modelling SPT Glossary Term Abbreviation Affordances Customisable elements of an avatar, e.g. weight or skin colour Agent A computer-controlled character. Autotelic activity An activity that is to be enjoyed in and of itself Avatar The representation of the self in a virtual environment Chocobo A bird-like creature from the Final Fantasy series Exemplar A non-controlled representation of a group Exergame A videogame that uses exercise-like actions as input. Non-Playable Character Another word for agent Serious games Games with a message, or educational purpose outside of enjoyment Shovelware Hastily hacked software or games bundled to imply value Tank A videogame character whose main purpose is to take damage. Abstract Background: Avatars are representations of the self in a virtual environment. They have been used to influence behaviour and may represent a promising avenue for designing interventions to promote health-related behaviour change. Aim: To determine the extent to which a representation of the self in a videogame influences health-related behaviours. Method: In addressing the aim of the thesis, a mixed methods approach was adopted. This started with a systematic review investigating the effectiveness of various attempts at health persuasion using avatar appearance manipulation. Next, a qualitative study investigating gamers’ avatar design preferences and experiences of playing an exergame with an idealised, self-similar avatar was conducted. The quantitative phase of the thesis involved three quantitative studies investigating the existence, ambivalence, and variance of stereotypes associated with plus-sized and athletic physiques over three modalities (text, image, video); and a replication-extension of an exergame-based Proteus Effect study involving larger-bodied and ‘average’ avatars. In this latter study, a bespoke exergame was developed that used the stimuli developed in the previous studies as avatars. Results: The systematic review (Chapter 4) revealed that a small number of studies had investigated using avatars to promote health related behaviour, and a common finding was that using larger-bodied (compared with athletic) avatars in exergames resulted in reduced physical-activity. Since this was explained in terms of stereotypical behaviours, such as laziness, being assimilated into the players’ behaviour, the qualitative study (Chapter 5) explored participants’ accounts of being restricted to an athletic avatar and found that this was not always a positive experience. To explore this further, Chapter 6 investigated the stereotype structures of plus-sized and athletic bodies were both found to suggest ambivalence. Text descriptions of prototypical ‘athletic’ groups (Chapter 6), and images of virtual humans with athletic bodies (Chapter 7) were rated as more competent, more arrogant, and less friendly compared with larger-bodied examples. Negative stereotypes, such as laziness, were reflected in evaluations of larger bodied representations, but so was the potentially positive trait of affability. In Chapter 8, larger-bodied exemplars that were animated with counter-stereotypical information (running on the spot) were rated less negatively than those that were stationary. When the exemplars were used as avatars, there was no evidence for behaviour change as a function of avatar-physique in the experimental replication study (Chapter 9).
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