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Avatar Appearance and Behavior of Potential Harassers Affect Users' Perceptions and Response Strategies in Social Virtual Reality (VR): A Mixed-Methods Study

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: Sexual harassment has been recognized as a significant social issue. In recent years, the emergence of harassment in social virtual reality (VR) has become an important and urgent research topic. We employed a mixed-methods approach by conducting online surveys with VR users ( N = 166) and semi-structured interviews with social VR users ( N = 18) to investigate how users perceive sexual harassment in social VR, focusing on the influence of avatar appearance. Moreover, we derived users' response strategies to sexual harassment and gained insights on platform regulation. This study contributes to the research on sexual harassment in social VR by examining the moderating effect of avatar appearance on user perception of sexual harassment and uncovering the underlying reasons behind response strategies. Moreover, it presents novel prospects and challenges in platform design and regulation domains.

Source: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

DOI: 10.1145/3686934

Authors: Xuetong Wang, Ziyan Wang, Mingmin Zhang, Kangyou Yu, Pan Hui, Mingming Fan

Institutions: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Southwest University, University of California, Santa Barbara, University of Helsinki

Language: English

Topic: Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies

Subfield: Gender Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Gender equality, Peace, justice, and strong institutions, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W4404172588

FWCI: 6.662

Cites: 53

Cited by: 9

Related to: 10