@presentation {17937, title = {DO FEMALE AVATARS ENCOURAGE MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT IN GAMIFIED PEER TO PEER (P2P) COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY (CBT)?}, year = {2019}, abstract = {

The Proteus Effect explains that players adopt traits of their in-game visual representations, known as avatars. Previous studies have shown improvement in self-confidence, such as increasing perceived attractiveness, openness, and negotiation skills after playing confident avatars, yet little has been studied for supportive traits, such as helpfulness, friendliness, and willingness to collaborate. Avatar gender has been suggested to influence helpfulness, where men playing as women are more likely to seek and offer help to teammates. We wish to study whether this phenomenon can increase mental health support behaviours from males in game.

Objective:\ To understand if the Proteus Effect can persuade helpfulness in a gamified peer to peer (P2P) cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) platform when female avatars with stereotypical supportive qualities are used by men.

Methods:\ We test the Proteus Effect strength for encouraging engagement in P2P support platforms, by designing and developing a novel P2P CBT game using existing guidelines from games research and asking men to either control a {\textquotedblleft}helpful{\textquotedblright} female wizard avatar or an {\textquotedblleft}unhelpful{\textquotedblright} male monster avatar. Usage metrics determine engagement level, differences in pre-test and post-test Helping Attitudes Scale scores determine attitude change, and avatar identification is measured using questionnaire supported by semi-structured interviews. It is hypothesized that those in the {\textquotedblleft}helpful{\textquotedblright} avatar group will exhibit greater engagement and attitude change than the {\textquotedblleft}unhelpful{\textquotedblright} avatar group, mediated by avatar identification.

Expected contributions:\ 1) Evaluation of the Proteus Effect for motivating attitude change towards helping others; 2) identification of opportunities provided by avatars to encourage engagement in P2P CBT; and 3) a preliminary design on improving engagement in P2P platforms with gamification.

The research can benefit from feedback from non-male audience for future steps, in discussing implications of female stereotypes of helpfulness, and also identify implications of the research outside of the mental health space.

}, url = {https://uwaterloo.ca/w3-represents/do-female-avatars-encourage-mental-health-support-gamified}, author = {Tina Chan} }