Could your AVATAR …shape what you are?

Proteus is the Prophetic God of the sea who lived in Pharos Island North to The Nile Delta and can morph into multiple sea creatures… according to Homer’s Greek Odyssey…

Ok…!

let’s go back a little bit…

What if I asked you to fill in the blank…SO_P ?

So If we’ve been talking about food …you’ll fill in the blank SO_P with a U but…

if we’ve been talking about cleanliness …you’ll fill in the blank SO_P with an A.

Our brains hate uncertainty

And will take shortcuts to remove it from any situation.

If there is nothing else to use or understand, your brain will use what’s available or even ….create one if not available!

Conscious OR subconscious exposure to an idea ‘prime’ us to think about an associated Idea

Every interaction with an experience or physical object and every perception sets a chain of ideas in your head. It doesn’t matter if you notice them consciously or not

The PRIMING effect can be used to exploit how people think in order to have them buy more company products. This process is called a ‘Behavioral pump’ and can dramatically influence consumer decision-making. Without an awareness of how the priming effect impacts their purchasing habits, consumers can fall victim to the marketing techniques.

In a world guided by Digital Space and cluttered with Virtual communication, The Priming effect can extrapolate its attributes to what is known as…

“The Proteus effect”

The Proteus effect proposes that the visual characteristics, digital representations, Social Media personas, and traits of an ‘Avatar’ are associated with specific behavioral stereotypes and expectations. When an individual believes that others will expect certain behaviors from him because of his avatar’s appearance, he will engage in those expected behaviors, he will conform to such perceptions….

People who were virtually immersed in Superhero Reality Games tended to adopt the same behavior in reality ‘Meta-Analysis’

Moreover, individuals determine their attitudes and emotions by making observations about both their own behavior and the circumstances that led to those behaviors

Undoubtedly…Our subconscious is so scary!

*** Reflections on ‘Heuristics and Biases’ & ‘(Yee & Bailenson, 2007)’

*** Proteus Origin: Like the adjective protean (versatile or mutable), the concept’s name is an allusion to the shape-changing abilities of the Greek Myth of ‘Proteus’