It's bad enough that women are often forced to live up to stereotypes of perceived beauty in the real world — it also happens in virtual worlds.

According to a new study, researchers at Penn State examined the perceived attractiveness of avatars, and found that female gamers operating unattractive or male avatars received far less attention and help from other players than those operating attractive avatars. They also received less attention overall than male gamers — regardless of the gender or attractiveness of the avatars operated by men.

"It doesn't matter if you have an ugly avatar or not, if you're a man, you'll still receive about the same amount of help," said T. Franklin Waddell, a Penn State doctoral candidate in mass communications. "However, if you are a woman and operate an unattractive avatar, you will receive significantly less help."

In their study, researchers worked with over 2,000 World of Warcraft players, both male and female. They chose six different avatars from the game from various in-game races and genders. The volunteers rated the avatars  as being high, medium and low levels of attractiveness.

The researchers then used all six avatars for an online gaming session, approaching other players and asking for help within the game. They based the kind of required assistance on whether it resulted in asking a small favor (perhaps finding directions to the nearest in-game city) or a large favor (asking for another player for guidance to that city).

They dropped hints about the gender behind the avatar by saying something like "can you help a guy out?" or "can you help a girl out?"

Their results showed that if they told players they were female with a less attractive or male avatar, they were less likely to get help than other players, including male players with either an attractive or unattractive male or female avatar.

"Although woman are typically less penalized for engaging in cross-sex behavior than men in offline settings, we found an opposite pattern in the online setting, such that men were allowed to control either a male or female avatar without penalty, whereas women were penalized for controlling an opposite-sex avatar," said Waddell.

"In other words, when the stereotype would typically benefit women, the pattern was flipped in the virtual world, allowing men to engage in 'gender bending' with their avatar, whereas women were not encouraged to. So it truly is a lose-lose for women in online settings, according to our study."

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