雙語閱讀：網絡頭像判斷你的性格

以下是小編整理的英語文章：網絡頭像判斷你的性格， 希望能對大家的英語學習有幫助。

Online avatars — visual representations of human beings — are everywhere these days. From mainstream examples, like the photos or other images Gmail users use to represent themselves, to extravagant armor-clad monsters in role-playing games, it’sbecoming increasingly common for people to go through the process of deciding how they want to be represented in an online space.

網絡頭像——人們在網上的視覺形象——如今隨處可見。從Gmail郵箱用戶用來象徵自己的照片或圖像等主流風格的網絡頭像，到網絡遊戲裏身披鎧甲的怪獸等非主流風格的網絡頭像，人們越來越普遍地傾向於要經過一番思考，爲自己在網絡空間裏扮演怎樣的形象做出選擇。

But what goes into that decision? What can a given avatar tell us about the person who created it? It’s a hot area of study given the proliferation of interesting online worlds, and a new study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin by Katrina Fong and Raymond Mar of York University seeks to shed some light on it.

頭像的選擇裏包含了哪些因素呢?我們能從人們選擇的網絡頭像裏看出挑選它的人有何特質?隨着網絡世界越來越趣味橫生，欣欣向榮，上述問題已經成爲一個熱門研究領域。《個性與社會心理學通報》的撰稿人，紐約大學的卡翠娜·方和雷蒙德·瑪爾試圖對這一問題進行探索。

As the researchers explain, to a certain extent people seem to react to encountering a new avatar online in similar ways to how they react to encountering a new person in real life. For example, “Tattooed avatars … are perceived as being sensation-seeking and risk-taking,” and these sorts of judgements “extend to the credibility of the avatar’s user.”

研究者稱，某種意義上說，對於自己所面對的陌生網絡頭像，人們的態度類似於他們在實際生活中面對陌生人的態度。舉例說，“帶紋身的網絡頭像會讓人覺得使用者愛造亂子，尋求刺激”，這類判斷常常“發展爲對使用者人品的判斷”。

These findings suggesting that people have a natural tendency to make their online avatars reflect who they are as a person, led the researchers to ask a simple question: “Do these cues accurately reflect and communicate an individual’s real-world traits?” To test this, they ran a study on a group of Canadian college students.

研究顯示，人們有一種自然的傾向，他們所挑選的網絡頭像和自身的個性很像。正由於此，研究者們發出了一個簡單的問題：“這些網絡圖像真的能如實反映並傳達人們在現實生活中的人格特徵嗎?”爲了驗證這一點，他們對一組加拿大大學生進行了研究調查。

In Phase 1, some of the students came into a computer lab, where they first took personality inventory tests that measure the so-called “Big Five” characteristics (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), and then created online avatars using the site . (Half the group was explicitly told that their avatars should represent who they are in real life, but the researchers found no significant differences between the avatars created by participants who did or didn’t hear this message.)

在第一個研究階段，一些學生來到計算機實驗室裏，在這裏他們接受了人格量表測評，以瞭解他們的“五大項”人格特徵(開放性、盡責性、外向性 、隨和性和情緒不穩定性)，然後這些學生在網站上設置了自己的網絡頭像(研究者對位數一半的學生明確表示他們的頭像必須與他們在現世生活中的人格相符，不過，研究者發現，聽到這一指令的學生在設置頭像時與未聽到這一直令的學生並沒有明顯的區別)。

In Phase 2, a separate group of students took an online survey in which they “were shown a subset of 15 to 16 of the avatars created in Phase 1,” asked to rate the personality of the avatar’s creator, and asked if they’d want to be friends with him or her. Then the researchers compared the observer-ratings to the results of the personality tests taken by the avatar creators.

在第二個研究階段，另一組學生在網上接受調查，研究者“將第一階段中產生的網絡頭像中挑選出15-16個組成一個子集並將之展示給這些學生，並要求他們對頭像使用者的人格特徵打分，評判他們是否會願意與之結交朋友等等。然後研究者們將第二組觀看頭像的人對頭像設置者進行的人格評分與第一組設置頭像的人對自己的人格評分進行比對。

What they found was that the avatars provided accurate information about “extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism but not conscientiousness or openness.” In other words, those cues we use to give people hints as to who we are in real life — various subtle decisions pertaining to clothes and hair, for example — seem to translate to the online world, at least when it comes to communicating certain information.

他們發現的結果是，網絡頭像在“外向性”、“隨和性”和“情緒不穩定性”上提供的信息是準確的，但是在開放性和盡責性兩個方面提供的信息則並不準確。換句話說，我們通過網絡頭像傳達給人們的，關於我們在現實生活中人格特徵的暗示信息——這其中包括對頭像的服飾和髮型的選擇等許多微妙的決策活動)——是能夠被網絡世界中的人們譯解的，至少在某些信息方面。

In a way, this points to the limitations of online environments. It would be nice if these environments really took us out of ourselves, if they expanded our horizons, perhaps making us more open to new experiences and more empathetic toward others as a result. But they don’t necessarily do that — a lot of the time, all they do is replicate andreinforce existing offline social dynamics and prejudices. Even when in unfamiliar online settings, we have a tendency to seek out the familiar and the comforting.

另一個方面看，研究結果也指出了網絡環境中存在的種種限制因素。網絡環境擴展了我們的視野，或許還會讓我們以更開放的心態經歷新的事物，對其他人更有同情心，如果網絡環境也能讓我們完全展示真我就好了。可是結果似乎並不盡然——在很多情況下，網絡環境只是複製並強化了現實社會中的交際規則，人際關係偏見。甚至當我們置身於陌生的網絡空間時，我們也傾向於尋找自己熟悉的和令人愉悅的東西。