Exploring the Relationship Between Attribute Discrepancy and Avatar Embodiment in Immersive Social Virtual Reality

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Exploring the Relationship Between Attribute Discrepancy

and Avatar Embodiment in Immersive Social Virtual Reality

Cyan DeVeaux, BA,

Eugy Han, MA,

James A. Landay, PhD,

and Jeremy N. Bailenson, PhD

Abstract

Social virtual reality (VR) is an emerging set of platforms where users interact while embodying avatars. Given

that VR headsets track real physical movements and map them onto one’s avatar body, the nature of one’s

digital representation is an important aspect of social VR. However, little is known about how the visual

proximity of an avatar to the self shapes user experience in naturalistic, social VR environments. In this article,

we use this context to explore how embodiment is inﬂuenced by the perceived differences between the physical

attributes of a user and the virtual attributes of their avatar. We selected a number of attributes for this measure

that have been shown to be important for customization and representation in VR. Participants created an

avatar, spent time in social VR, and reported on their experience in a questionnaire. Our results demonstrate a

signiﬁcant negative association between attribute discrepancy and avatar embodiment, the psychological ex-

perience of one’s virtual body as their own body. We discuss implications for theories of self-representation and

suggest urgency on the part of games and VR designers to improve the methods of creating avatars.

Keywords: virtual reality, avatars, social VR, avatar customization, avatar embodiment

Introduction

vatar embodiment, or when an avatar’s virtual body is

experienced as one’s own body,

1,2

is a key feature of

social virtual reality (VR).

Social VR is an emerging eco-

system of immersive virtual platforms that allow users to in-

teract with each other through either a VR head-mounted

display (HMD) or a traditional desktop or laptop graphical user

interface.

4,5

Because of the tracking of head and hand move-

ments afforded by HMDs, users can experience a sense of self-

location, agency, and body ownership within their avatar.

2,3

Previous research has examined the relationship between

the appearance of a user’s avatar and their psychological

experience in both immersive and nonimmersive VR envi-

ronments. For example, avatar customization has been as-

sociated with immersion,

identiﬁcation,

8–10

and emotion

during gameplay.

In addition, there is a signiﬁcant link

between a user’s sense of presence and the distance from the

avatar to the self.

11–13

This study expands on this literature

by experimentally investigating how avatar embodiment is

impacted when users wear avatars with a greater discrepancy

from their physical selves in immersive social VR. We chose

to measure avatar embodiment because of the critical role that

avatars play in social VR. People ﬁnd their avatars more

personal and emotionally fulﬁlling in social VR compared

with traditional virtual worlds.

Therefore, we measured

avatar embodiment, as it reﬂects a key aspect of the user

experience on these platforms.

Although a few studies have established a link between

avatar similarity and embodiment or presence in VR envi-

ronments where researchers created the avatars,

12,15–17

this

relationship has not been thoroughly investigated in more

naturalistic, social, and immersive virtual settings. Whereas

this prior work achieves visual similarity through photo-

scanning, it is more common for users to customize or create

their own avatars in many of the currently available social

VR platforms.

Research on nonimmersive virtual mediums

has also suggested that customizing an avatar increases a

user’s sense of presence.

Therefore, to build a more com-

prehensive understanding of how the visual appearance of an

Departments of

Communication and

Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.

CYBERPSYCHOLOGY,BEHAVIOR, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING

Volume 26, Number 11, 2023

ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2023.0210

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avatar shapes avatar embodiment in VR, there is merit in

investigating this relationship using common and psycho-

logically meaningful approaches.

Moreover, as researchers continue to explore social VR as

a medium for education

and the future of work,

real-

world design implications exist for understanding how a

platform’s avatar system shapes user experience. This sug-

gests a need to explore this topic in naturalistic, social set-

tings as opposed to only isolated lab-made virtual

environments. To address this, this study explores the

question: How do discrepancies between the avatar self and

physical self inﬂuence avatar embodiment in social VR?

Higgin’s self-discrepancy theory, which posits how in-

consistencies between these different self-states may cause

psychological discomfort,

serves as the foundation for this

inquiry. We measure the discrepancy between the avatar self

and physical self by considering perceived differences be-

tween an array of speciﬁc physical and virtual attributes of

user avatars in social VR. Earlier work has shown that hair-

style, hair color, facial characteristics, and body are some of

the most important features for avatar customization among

users.

Users of color have indicated that skin color, eye

dimensions, mouth, nose, and hair texture are important for

representing racial identity in online games.

Gradations of

hair color and other nuanced attributes that signal age were

important to women in midlife.

We investigated how the

discrepancy of some of these attributes, among others, inﬂu-

enced users’ sensation of embodiment within immersive VR.

Historically, avatar systems in virtual worlds have lacked

in providing a racially diverse set of avatar creation and

selection options.

26–28

With this context in mind, we explore

how attribute discrepancy may differ between white and

nonwhite users and whether there are any signiﬁcant differ-

ences in embodiment given these potential disparities.

Context

This study takes place on two popular social VR plat-

forms, VRChat and Rec Room. Both platforms allow users to

socialize with each other in user-generated virtual

FIG. 1. Users socializing

in VRChat.

FIG. 2. Users socializing

in Rec Room.

2 DEVEAUX ET AL.

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environments (Figs. 1 and 2).

29,30

We used two platforms

based on previous work that has recommended stimulus

sampling using multiple media as stimuli in experi-

ments.

31,32

This decision was also informed by prior work

that has demonstrated how virtual environmental contexts in

social VR inﬂuence a user’s psychological experience.

Both platforms include features that make attributes of one’s

avatar salient including being able to look at your hands from

a ﬁrst-person point-of-view and looking into virtual mirrors.

Avatar selection

Rec room.

Avatars are created with a customization in-

terface (Fig. 3) in Rec Room. This interface allows users select

through different menus to modify different aspects of their

avatar, including their face, hair, clothing, and accessories.

VRChat. At the time of this study, avatars could be ob-

tained in a variety of ways on VRChat such as selecting from

an in-game public avatar world (Fig. 4) or creating or editing

an avatar with software and uploading it to VRChat.

Methods

Participants

Participants were students in a summer course about VR at

university in the United States. All 96 students were invited

to participate in the study at the beginning of the course and

82 consented to participate. Participants who had nonhuman

avatars, did not complete relevant questionnaire items, or did

not complete this assignment in immersive VR were ﬁltered

from the dataset. After ﬁltering, 61 were used for analysis.

Ages of participants ranged from 16 to 25 (mean [M] = 18.69,

standard deviation [SD] = 2.87). Additional demographic

information of participants is given in Table 1.

Given the nature of the class they were enrolled in, by the

time of the study, each student had spent around 1 hour in

FIG. 3. User customizing

avatar in Rec Room.

FIG. 4. User selecting an

avatar in VRChat from a

public avatar world.

ATTRIBUTE DISCREPANCY AND AVATAR EMBODIMENT IN SOCIAL VR 3

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headset for the course. Safeguards implemented to ensure

privacy and consent included review both by our university

institutional review board (IRB) and second university ethics

organization, and third-party oversight of the consent process

and data collection. Students opted into the study with an

IRB-approved consent form or an IRB-approved assent

document for participants younger than 18 years. This pro-

cess required that researchers and course staff were unaware

of which students provided consent or assent until after the

course ﬁnished to avoid any plausible appearance of coercion

to participate. All students participated in this study, but only

data associated with consenting participants were analyzed.

Hardware

Participants were provided with Meta Quest 2 headsets

(503 g) and two hand controllers (126 g) for use in their

personal environment.

Measures*

Avatar embodiment.

A 7-point embodiment scale

(1 = never, 7 = always) developed by Peck and Gonzalez-

Franco (2021) was used to measure avatar embodiment.

Participants rated 16 statements, such as ‘‘I felt as if the

movements of the virtual body were inﬂuencing my own

movements,’’ to calculate appearance, response, ownership,

and multisensory scores. These submeasures were averaged

to calculate embodiment (Cronbach’s a = 0.89). Higher

scores indicated a greater sense of avatar embodiment.

Attribute discrepancy. Taking into account features im-

portant to users’ virtual self representation, we developed a

new measure, attribute discrepancy, as the aggregated dis-

crepancy between speciﬁc attributes of an avatar and a user’s

physical attributes. This measure captures how users per-

ceive differences between speciﬁc parts of their avatar. This

measure, adapted from Ducheneaut and colleagues,

invited

participants to ‘‘imagine yourself and your avatar standing

side-by-side’’ and compare the differences in attributes be-

tween their physical and virtual body. The attributes included

were: accessories, esthetic, body, eye color, eye shape,

fashion, gender expression, hair color, hairstyle, hair texture,

lip shape, nose shape, and skin color. Nose shape and lip

shape were removed from the scope of analysis because no

avatars in Rec Room possessed these attributes. These items,

each consisting of 5-point Likert scales (1 = very similar,

5 = very dissimilar), were averaged together to calculate at-

tribute discrepancy (Cronbach’s a = 0.81).

Higher scores meant a greater discrepancy between an

avatar’s attribute and the participant’s actual attribute.

Avatar creation motivation. We assessed each partici-

pant’s typical avatar creation motivation using an adapted

scale from Loewen et al.

(Table 2). Their response was

used to determine whether their motivation was to create

avatars that were ‘‘Realistic,’’ ‘‘Ideal,’’ or ‘‘Different.’’

Analysis of overall avatar embodiment, attribute discrep-

ancy, and avatar creation motivation took into account the

entire sample. While investigating differences in attribute

discrepancy and embodiment across race, we narrowed the

sample to Asian and white monoracial participants for two

reasons. First, they were the two largest racial categories

within the sample. The number of participants from other

racial and ethnic backgrounds was too small for a reliable

analysis. Second, the representation needs of Asian users of

virtual worlds have not been met to the same degree as the

representation needs of white users. Asian users have voiced

a desire for the inclusion of avatars with a wider spectrum of

skin tone options as well as other attributes such as nose

shape and eye shape.

Consequently, there is relevance to

understanding attribute discrepancy and embodiment dif-

ferences between these two groups.

Procedure

Each participant was randomly assigned to either VRChat

or Rec Room and completed the study asynchronously in

their own chosen remote location. Participants ﬁrst watched

a promotional video about their speciﬁed platform and were

informed about their platform’s security features. Partici-

pants then created an account if they did not already have one

and signed on in headset. Then, they created or selected an

avatar based on the avatar procedures available on their

platform with the instructions to ‘‘create or select a human

avatar that you would feel comfortable using as your main

avatar for prolonged periods of time around other people.’’

Afterward, participants completed a task where they com-

pleted a set of poses with their body in front of a virtual

mirror. The purpose of this task was to induce avatar em-

bodiment by watching their physical movements sync with

their avatar’s movements.

Next, participants spent 5–10 minutes exploring a desig-

nated virtual world, selected by the ﬁrst author, to experience

interacting with a public virtual environment while in their

avatar. We capped this task at 10 minutes to ensure that

alongside the onboarding, avatar selection, and avatar em-

bodiment task, participants would only spend *20–30

minutes in VR to minimize simulator sickness. Although a

longer period of time would be ideal, given that our

Table 1. Demographic Breakdown of Participants

Gender

Women 33

Men 25

Prefer not to say 3

Race/ethnicity

Asian or Asian American 32

White 16

Hispanic, Latina, Latino, or Latinx 4

Bi-/multiracial 3

Black or African American 2

Middle Eastern or Northern African 2

Prefer to self-describe 1

Prefer not to say 1

Prior VR experience

Never used social VR 29

Rarely used social VR 17

Sometimes used social VR 11

Used social VR several times a week 4

VR, virtual reality.

*There were additional measures collected at the end

of the questionnaire that are not centrally related to this study

and are not included here.

4 DEVEAUX ET AL.

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participants were mostly VR novices, we tried to remain in

the range of our lab’s ‘‘30-minute rule,’’ which recommends

not stay in VR longer than 30 minutes without a break. Fi-

nally, participants completed a questionnaire outside VR.

Data analysis

Our main research objective was to quantitatively examine

the impact of discrepancies between a user’s avatar self and

physical self. To achieve this objective, an exploratory

analysis was conducted on the ﬁltered questionnaire data to

capture individual avatar creation motivations and investi-

gate the relationship between avatar embodiment and attri-

bute discrepancy. This relationship was examined with a

multiple linear regression model that predicted avatar em-

bodiment from attribute discrepancy with platform as a

covariate. We used a linear regression because it allowed us

to examine how strong the relationship between our variables

was of theoretical interest. Although not of theoretical

interest, we included platform as a covariate because dif-

ferences between VRChat and Rec Room may account for

some of the variance in embodiment. To compare differences

in attribute discrepancy and embodiment between partici-

pants from different racial backgrounds, we used two-sample

t-tests.

Results

Attribute discrepancy is negatively associated

with avatar embodiment

We explored the relationship between attribute discrep-

ancy and avatar embodiment using a multiple linear regres-

sion at the level of the entire sample. This model predicted

avatar embodiment based on attribute discrepancy and in-

cludes platform as a covariate

{

. The results of the regression

showed that the two predictors explained a signiﬁcant

amount of the variance [R

= 0.16, F(2, 56) = 5.33, p < 0.01,

= 0.07]. When controlling for avatar platform, attribute

discrepancy had a signiﬁcant relationship with avatar em-

bodiment [b =-0.31, t(56) =-2.06, p = 0.04; Fig. 5].

Discrepancy in skin tone was signiﬁcantly different

between Asian and White participants

When comparing attribute discrepancies between partici-

pants from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, there is

noteworthy difference. Two-sample t-tests were used on the

discrepancy data between participants who identiﬁed as

Asian or Asian American and participants who identiﬁed as

white, as they were the two largest racial categories within

the sample. The signiﬁcant ﬁnding that emerged from these

tests pertained to skin color. Asian participants (M = 2.31,

SD = 1.06) had a greater discrepancy between their avatar’s

skin color and their physical skin color compared with white

participants (M = 1.81, SD = 0.54), t(45.93) = 2.16, p = 0.04,

d = 0.54 (Table 3). These ﬁndings indicate that Asian par-

ticipants, on average, embodied human avatars with skin

tones different from their own signiﬁcantly more than white

participants.

However, there were no signiﬁcant avatar embodiment

differences between Asian (M = 3.15, SD = 1.03) and white

participants (M = 3.23, SD = 1.07), t(29.51) =-0.24, p = 0.81,

d = 0.07.

Most participants generally create avatars in reference

to their physical appearance

When participants were asked to describe how they gen-

erally create avatars on social games, 41 percent indicated

creating avatars similar to themselves, 30 percent indicated

creating avatars that were ideal versions of themselves, 23

percent indicated creating avatars that were different from

themselves, and 7 percent indicated having no experience

creating avatars. Given that a majority of participant moti-

vations were to create similar or ideal avatars, it can be said

that, overall, most participants in this sample of relatively

new social VR users typically use their physical self as a

starting point when creating an avatar.

Discussion and Conclusion

Embodying an avatar body in immersive social VR is

experientially different than avatar embodiment in 2D virtual

environments and is a key metric of user experience. Al-

though prior lab studies demonstrated that distances between

the avatar similarity can inﬂuence avatar embodiment in

Table 2. Questionnaire Items for Avatar Creation Motivation Based on Loewen et al.

Avatar creation

motivation

When you create avatars in social games, generally which of the following statements best

describes you?

When I create avatars in games, I tend to create them as similar to myself as possible

When I create avatars in games, I tend to create them as an idealized version of myself

When I create avatars in games, I tend to create them as someone distinctly different from myself

I have never made an avatar outside of this assignment

FIG. 5. A scatterplot showcasing the relationship between

attribute discrepancy and avatar embodiment with a regres-

sion line and a 95 percent conﬁdence interval superimposed.

{

We ran an additional multiple linear regression including prior

VR experience as a covariate and found that there was no effect of

prior VR experience on avatar embodiment.

ATTRIBUTE DISCREPANCY AND AVATAR EMBODIMENT IN SOCIAL VR 5

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VR,

12,15–17

there has not been a comprehensive investigation

of this relationship in naturalistic, virtual contexts where

users customize their own avatars. There is a need to un-

derstand how avatars shape user experience in VR contexts

outside of bespoke, nonsocial virtual environments made for

lab studies. With this in mind, our article investigated how

discrepancies between the avatar self and physical self in-

ﬂuence avatar embodiment in social VR.

We found a signiﬁcant inverse relationship between at-

tribute discrepancy and avatar embodiment when controlling

for platform. We extend the virtual self-discrepancy litera-

ture cited previously to highlight how greater discrepancy

between speciﬁc attributes may play a role in one’s sense of

avatar embodiment. However, we cannot rule out the case

that one’s sense of avatar embodiment could be affecting

their perception of discrepancy.

Although this study only

captured one time point, it is still relevant to understanding

what less heavy users of social VR may experience. It is

plausible that if someone goes into a social VR experience

hoping to create an avatar that is a similar or ideal version of

themselves, which was preferred by most participants in this

study, but is unable to do so, that can have consequences on

how present they feel in their virtual body. This has impor-

tant implications for understanding the consequences of lack

of diverse avatar customization options.

In addition to the pre-existing literature on the topic, our

study found that differences between avatar skin tone and

actual skin tone were substantially greater for Asian partic-

ipants than white participants in VRChat and Rec Room.

This ﬁnding extends previous work by Passmore and Man-

dryk (2018) that found that Asian gamers expressed a desire

for a wider array of skin tone and undertone options.

Al-

though our results did not ﬁnd signiﬁcant differences in

embodiment between white participants and Asian partici-

pants, considering that the skin texture of an avatar in VR has

been shown to inﬂuence body ownership,

it is possible that

the degree of skin tone difference may be an additional factor

contributing to embodiment. Further research should be

conducted to understand the nuance of race, avatar repre-

sentation, and embodiment on a larger, more diverse sample.

Additionally, this ﬁnding reveals an urgency on part of game

and VR designers to ensure the creation of equitable avatar

customization options.

As social VR continues to be explored in a number of real-

world contexts,

20,21

there is growing importance in investi-

gating the psychological experience of its users. The primary

contribution of this work is toward understanding how the

design of an avatar system can in turn shape how embodied

one might feel in their avatar. Within the context of a VR

class comprised of young students mostly new to VR, our

results suggest that having avatar options that enable users to

create avatars that look visually similar to them may help

provide a more seamless embodiment experience.

Limitations

This study was limited by a relatively small sample size

that consisted primarily of young participants from a conve-

nience sample who were new to social VR. Our sample size

was constrained by the nature of this study being conducted

during a class and could cause some concerns surrounding the

generalizability of our ﬁndings. For the smaller proportion of

participants with greater previous social VR experience, it is

possible they held different attitudes that may have impacted

their perception of discrepancy and embodiment. Prior work

has shown self-presence to increase in VR over time,

which

could shape their results. Future iterations of this study should

involve a larger, more diverse sample of participants who

come from a greater diversity of backgrounds, social VR

experiences, and cultural contexts. In addition, our results

might be compromised by their low statistical power.

Lower statistical power increases the likelihood of Type II

error and could mean that there is a possibility that our

ﬁndings were based on chance. Therefore, the reliability of

our results should be understood accordingly and future

studies should aim to test the robustness of these ﬁndings.

Participants also spent a relatively short amount of time in

VR. Because of this short time, it did not help mitigate the

potential attitudinal differences between the new users and

power users of social VR. It is also worth noting that due to

the content of the class that participants were enrolled in,

they had preliminary knowledge about avatars and VR.

Acknowledgments

The authors would thank Brian Beams, Anna Gibson, and

Rachael Lee for their support with the course in which this

Table 3. t-Test Results Comparing Attribute Discrepancy Between Participants

Attribute

All participants,

n = 61

Asian participants,

n = 32

White participants,

n = 16

M SD M SD M SD df TpEffect size

Accessories 3.23 1.44 3.44 1.29 2.69 1.66 24.38 1.58 0.13 0.53

Esthetic 3.43 1.37 3.53 1.46 2.94 1.18 36.36 1.51 0.14 0.43

Body 3.21 1.38 3.19 1.38 3.12 1.45 28.68 0.14 0.89 0.04

Eye color 2.79 1.52 2.53 1.39 3.06 1.73 24.99 -1.07 0.3 0.35

Eye shape 3.1 1.27 3.22 1.34 3.06 1.34 31.14 -1.28 0.21 0.12

Fashion 3.48 1.43 3.31 1.47 3.56 1.36 32.18 -0.58 0.56 0.17

Gender expression 1.77 1.23 1.94 1.41 1.56 1.03 39.53 1.04 0.3 0.29

Hair color 2.38 1.44 2.47 1.5 2.25 1.34 33.36 0.51 0.61 0.15

Hairstyle 2.85 1.25 2.72 1.2 2.38 1.2 29.96 0.93 0.36 0.29

Hair texture 2.59 1.26 2.91 1.23 2.81 1.28 29.07 0.24 0.81 0.08

Skin color 2.13 1.02 2.31 1.06 1.81 0.54 45.93 2.16 0.04* 0.54

M, mean; SD, standard deviation.

6 DEVEAUX ET AL.

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research took place. The authors would also like to thank Ilan

Ladabaum for his contributions to the study design and data

analysis. Finally, the authors would like to thank Zoom

Video Communications, Inc. and Stanford Wearable Elec-

tronics Initiative (eWEAR).

Author Disclosure Statement

No competing ﬁnancial interests exist.

Funding Information

This research was supported by a Zoom Video Commu-

nications, Inc., Stanford Wearable Electronics Initiative

(eWEAR), and a National Science Foundation grant (Award

1800922).

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Address correspondence to:

Cyan DeVeaux

Department of Communication

Stanford University

450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 120

Stanford, CA 94305

USA

E-mail: [email protected]

8 DEVEAUX ET AL.

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