The Shadow Knows - Shadow Archetype Behavoirs with Avatars

wolfgrimdark

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Since I am an avid gamer, especially MMORPG games, I figured I would take a stab at posting here and my apologies if it annoys anyone or is in the wrong place. It is not really research - just trying to gather some informal feedback from other gamers. I currently play WoW and AoC and wanted to some how work that into a study I was doing in a class.

So I am working on a project right now in personal psychology and after an agonizing two weeks of intense research I have my topic! So I wanted to see what some other gamers thought about the proposal and the questions it asks. My actual project won't involve any survey, experiments or the like - it is well beyond the scope of the project. Instead it is more a theoretical idea I will be writing about that just pulls from existing research. However I am curious about what some answers might be to a few of the questions I am examining.

Carl Jung was big on archetypes, the collective unconscious and the idea of individuation - which is roughly the goal of fully integrating ones conscious self with the unconscious self; a way of becoming fully aware of who you are as a person. It is a process of learning about oneself and accepting all those various aspects of oneself into a whole person. Okay it is a lot more than that but I think that gives the idea.

The one I am looking at is the SHADOW ARCHETYPE. This is that dark side of our personality (but not necessarily evil). To much to write about here but basically it covers things that might repulse or disgust us, behavior that can cause guilt or make us uncomfortable. Most often people are not aware of it in themselves - instead they project those behaviors and feelings onto others. For example you might say "That person is so stubborn" or "That person disgusts me the way they are always complaining" when in fact those are traits you have yourself that you do not want to admit. To get any more into this would require pages so hope it gives an idea.

So to the meat of the idea - the idea that people could role play characters with shadow personality traits in an online game (I will be focused on World of Warcraft for a large variety of reasons) is a "safe" way to explore aspects of themselves they may not be able (or wish) to explore in real life. Possibly even be playing their character (without conscious role playing) in ways that are more negative than they might in real life (do to the anonymity factor). By using an external extension of themselves they could then learn more about their own "actual self" in the hopes of achieving a better sense of who they are as a person (individuation).

As a side note some studies have already shown that people tend to consider their online characters as being closer to their IDEAL SELF then their ACTUAL SELF by a significant percentage.

Anyhow if anyone made it this far I am looking for some feedback on the following questions - feel free to post here or email me with them at wolfgrimdark@comcast.net. Thanks in advance!

QUESTIONS (Note this applies even if you never role play - it just relates to how you behave with your character in a game)

Has your character ever acted in a negative manner that you were not happy with (for example losing your temper and stealing a kill or telling someone off)?

Do you ever play, on purpose, in a negative way? If so any reasons why?

Do you ever learned anything about yourself based on how you have acted with a character in an online game? Good? Bad? Did it change any real behavior?

Lastly would you think you would ever explore the shadow side of your psyche using your gaming avatar (or even a temporary alt)?
 
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