Small Survey: Game Avatars and Social Psychology

[reys]

Hi Everyone!

I am writing a short academic paper about game avatars and social psychology. Since I myself enjoy FFXIV and know that it's a popular MMORPG at the moment, I decided to create a small survey that is focusing on players of this game. I would very much appreciate it if you gave me a couple minutes of your time to answer these 10 questions.

Edit: The survey is now closed.

Everything is of course anonymous and the IP address will not be recorded with your answers.

Thank you!

Edit: To explain why it is such a low scale survey: I do this in a preparation course for my bachelor's thesis. This way I'll learn what I can do better for the bigger paper. I am very grateful for all feedback that you have given me.

I have also transferred the survey to another site because the other one filled up to the point where the host site wanted large amounts of money from me for me to go on taking answers. I didn't expect the response to be on such a scale. Thank you so much!

The layout and questions are as identical as possible to reduce any discrepancies that can occur.


Edit: Here are the results from the survey, based on the results of 372 answers.

The results have been made into different diagrams in order to give a quick overview.

The answers in the bar charts are numbered where 1 = Completely Disagree and scales up to 5 = Completely Agree.

Whoever did not know or were not sure of what to answer were told to place themselves on 3.

[HakuroDK]

Took the survey. For SCIENCE!!

[Alexander_Dragonfang]

Me: Living with my dad forever till the end of time, barely have any money, in debt to college, btw im an asshole in real life.

Alexander: Has a house, a mansion, more money than i could reasonably spend in this game with 10 accounts for 10 years, and i put gods to their knees, and all of that being a goodie who doesn`t kill Minfilia for calling me at every fucking turn of the road which is speaks high of my psychology and extra-personal relationships where it has many motives to bring death to the whole freaking world and turn into the next hitler or something but, it doesnt happen because he is an outstanding guy.

Do you see your character as superior to you?

Hmmm...

[Kurogaea]

Awkward survey. Figured it'd be fun but its more focused on RL than your actual avatar. Goodluck with your studies :/

[Granyala]

I am writing a short academic paper about game avatars and social psychology.

Some amateurish questions ... you need to step up your game if you want that paper to be any good.

Is Ifalna superior to me?
Yes of course she is. Every monster slaying magic wielder would be as I am only a plain boring Human.

[Lexia]

Some amateurish questions ... you need to step up your game if you want that paper to be any good.

Well that was kind of rude, but I guess that on par for the forums.

[RyuRoots]

I can appreciate the intention, but I do have to say that it seems pretty...lightweight? Usually these polls have a "somewhat agree" option between completely and neutral responses. It seemed like there weren't very many questions, too. And as others have pointed out, the odds of most players seeing their characters as beneath them is rather unlikely. In my case, Rhuna is a clothier, armorer, and has mastered nearly every way of fighting that exists. She can cook fairly well, has many friends, and has accomplished more in a few years than I could in a lifetime. Of course, that's the fun of RPGs at work. I don't think it's a bad idea to use a playerbase you can relate to for your data points, but I do think that the survey itself could perhaps be more comprehensive.

[Kumori_Kumo]

For all the people who're confused, I'm one of the 'impossibles' you've assumed away. My avatars are never superior to me. I intentionally make extremely flawed characters with problematic personality types because that's the kind of character I like to play. =)

[Niqote]

Quick and easy. Done.

[stanrir]

TOOK IT! goodluck with your thingy!