ABSTRACT Avatars are known to influence behaviour through their individual identity cues (Proteus effect) and through their shared identity cues (Social identity effect). The aim of this study was to investigate these two processes in a crossed design, in order to examine their interaction in the context of a brainstorming task. To activate the Proteus effect, we used creative avatars resembling inventors, and to make social identity salient, we made the avatars wear the traditional clothing of the participants’ school. The resulting factorial design included four conditions: creative avatars with or without social identity cues, and non-creative avatars with or without social identity cues. The results show that creative performance was higher with creative than non-creative avatars, but only in the absence of social identity cues. Furthermore, the presence of social identity cues increased social identification to the group, but this unexpectedly decreased creative performance. This result is discussed together with an analysis of the meaning of the social identity cues we used, which appeared to be unrelated to creativity. This discussion highlights that the effects of social identity cues on performance are complex and may be moderated by their meaning and the particular facet of social identity they make salient.

中文翻译：

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Proteus 与社会认同对虚拟头脑风暴的影响

摘要 众所周知，虚拟形象通过他们的个人身份线索（变形虫效应）和他们共享的身份线索（社会身份效应）影响行为。本研究的目的是在交叉设计中研究这两个过程，以便在头脑风暴任务的背景下检查它们的相互作用。为了激活 Proteus 效应，我们使用了类似于发明家的创意化身，为了突出社会身份，我们让化身穿着参与者学校的传统服装。由此产生的因子设计包括四个条件：有或没有社会身份线索的创意化身，以及有或没有社会身份线索的非创意化身。结果表明，具有创造性的化身比非创造性化身的创造性表现更高，但仅在缺乏社会身份线索的情况下。此外，社会认同线索的存在增加了群体的社会认同，但这出乎意料地降低了创造性表现。这一结果与我们使用的社会身份线索的含义分析一起讨论，这些线索似乎与创造力无关。这个讨论强调了社会认同线索对表现的影响是复杂的，可能会受到它们的意义和它们突出的社会认同的特定方面的影响。