“Our Imaginary, Hotter Selves”: o que são os avatares (ITA 2011)

Our Imaginary, Hotter Selves
Avatars might serve therapeutic purposes, helping those with social phobia become more confident.
by Sharon Begley
1 Anyone who has ever had a bad hair day, when looking like a latter-day Medusa makes you feel cranky and antisocial and plodding, can sympathize with the Oakland Raiders - and not because the players get helmet hair. The Raiders alternated between mostly black and mostly white uniforms, depending on whether they were playing at home or away. Knowing that appearance affects people's mood and outlook, psychologists wondered whether uniform color influenced the Raiders' aggressiveness. Using
5 data from the 1970s and 1980s, they found that the team racked up way more penalty yards - a measure of aggression - when they wore black than when they wore white, for infractions both minor (encroachment) and major (roughing the kicker). The pattern held even when the scientists took into account different conditions and styles of play at home and away. But while the 1988 finding has become a classic in psychology, the explanation remains controversial. Do referees, because of black's cultural baggage, see black-clad players as meaner and badder than those in, say, baby blue? Or does wearing black make players see themselves as
10 tougher and meaner - and therefore cause them to play that way? Jeremy Bailenson and Nick Yee of Stanford University had this and other classic studies in mind when they started wondering about the effect of being able to alter one's appearance. They weren't going to study wardrobe choices, however. Their quarry is avatars, digital representations of players in such games as Second Life. "Your physical appearance changes how people treat you," says Bailenson. "But independent of that, when you perceive yourself in a certain way, you act differently." He and Yee call it
15 "the Proteus effect," after the shape-changing Greek god. The effect of appearance on behavior, they find, carries over from the virtual world to the real one, with intriguing consequences. (…)
http://www.newsweek.com. Acesso em 5/6/2010.

Fonte: Newsweek, acesso em 05/06/2010.

De acordo com o título e o subtítulo do texto, avatares

A) proporcionam efeitos terapêuticos e ajudam a prevenir doenças como a fobia social.
B) são versões imaginárias e mais atraentes de nós mesmos.
C) são mais confiáveis e, por isso, não despertam fobias.
D) têm uma proposta de entretenimento, que torna as pessoas mais sociáveis.
E) são mais confiáveis do que algumas propostas terapêuticas disponíveis em nossa sociedade.

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Resposta correta: B

O enunciado limita a leitura ao título e ao subtítulo, e o título “Our Imaginary, Hotter Selves” já entrega a resposta B: “selves” são versões de nós mesmos, “imaginary” as torna imaginárias e “hotter”, no registro coloquial, significa mais atraente. A alternativa A é o distrator forte porque reaproveita as palavras do subtítulo, mas distorce duas coisas: “might serve therapeutic purposes” indica possibilidade, não efeito garantido, e “helping those with social phobia become more confident” fala em ajudar quem já tem fobia social, não em prevenir a doença. C e E dependem de traduzir “confident” como confiável, quando o sentido é autoconfiante, seguro de si — outro falso amigo clássico.

“Our Imaginary, Hotter Selves”: o que são os avatares (ITA 2011)

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