Virtual-self Identity Construal in Online Video Games: A Repertory Grid Study

Detailed Summary

New technologies are changing the way of approach for many concepts that used to be quite established in the past. The Internet, and especially online videogames where people can create a customizable character to serve as their avatar on a virtual environment, seems to have a great impact on the way people construe their identity. People may use online gaming as a means to experience an enhanced version of their self that matches more accurately the attributes and traits they often relate to their ideal self or even other alternative selves. With this project, the researchers aim to study the role that new technologies have on the way people build their identity nowadays. More specifically, the researchers intend to study how people use videogame avatars as a means to explore different alternative identities. The rebelieve that, it is possible for people to manifest entirely different versions of themselves through their online videogame characters. Sometimes, those alternative identities may even be a projection of what the player considers to be an ideal version of themselves. Other variables may increase or hinder that capacity to project the ideal self on a customizable "virtual self"; some are inherent to the person, such as cognitive complexity, their current level of psychological distress or their main motivation for playing, while others may be more related to the specific game they play, such as the degree of immersion experienced while playing. The researchers will use the repertory grid technique to explore online videogame players' personal construct systems and how an ideal version of themselves and their perceived self-image may help to understand their need to explore alternative identities through their videogame characters. They will also administrate other instruments to measure people's experienced immersion when playing the game, the aspects of it that are more appealing to them, and their degree of subjective psychological distress in order to assess how these variables, among others extracted from the repertory grid, may affect this identity exploration.

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