Avatar creation in virtual worlds: Behaviors and motivations

• We developed an 18-item scale on avatar creation motivation.
• We identified behavior patterns as well as four motivational dimensions that users create avatars in virtual worlds.
• This study provides invaluable insight on the use of avatars for behavioral research and interface design.

Avatar creation has become common for people to participate and interact in virtual worlds. Using an online survey (N = 244), we investigated both the behavioral characteristics and major motivations for avatar creation in virtual worlds. Our results suggest that a majority of the participants had multiple avatars; these avatars’ appearance did not merely resemble the human players; and their personality did not necessarily mirror the player’s real personality. Furthermore, participants on average spent over 20 h per week and often interacting with others in the virtual worlds. Our exploratory factor analysis yielded four major motivations: virtual exploration, social navigation, contextual adaptation, and identity representation.