Extended Abstract—The Role of Avatar Appearance in Shaping EFL Learners’ Willingness to Communicate
Year: 2026
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: This study examined how avatar appearance influences Japanese EFL learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC) and state communicative self-confidence, including anxiety and self-perceived communicative competence, drawing on the Proteus effect—the tendency for individuals to align their behaviors and attitudes with their avatars’ characteristics. Thirty-one Japanese university students participated in English communication tasks in VR using three avatar ethnicity conditions: baseline, Asian, and White. The baseline avatar was a neutral silhouette used for comparison. The Asian avatar was designed to represent a Japanese speaker, while the White avatar was intended to reflect a commonly idealized image of a native English speaker based on representations found in language education contexts. Results showed that avatar appearance did not significantly affect WTC or self-perceived communicative competence. However, participants reported significantly lower state anxiety and higher state communicative self-confidence when embodying the White avatar compared to the baseline condition. Linear mixed-effects analyses further indicated that communicative outcomes were largely influenced by stable individual differences, while embodiment components were differentially associated with anxiety and learners’ self-confidence and perceived competence depending on avatar condition. These findings highlight conditional avatar influences on EFL learners’ affective experiences and communicative self-evaluations in immersive VR contexts.
DOI: 10.56198/s7usi8pmx
Institutions: Reitaku University, Boston College, Yokohama City University
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7166012791