A private versus a public space: Anonymity and buying decorative symbolic goods for avatars in a virtual world

Abstract

The virtual world has become a new channel in which people can contact with others, and organizations can provide service to their customers. Selling symbolic virtual goods has also emerged as a new economy in the virtual world. Such symbolic goods cannot facilitate people to accomplish any specific tasks; people buy them simply to decorate their avatars. This study is based on the theories of symbolic consumption, self-presentation, and computer-mediated environment, to investigate why people buy decorative symbolic goods in the virtual world. The results show that people buy symbolic virtual goods for both emotional and social values. While user perceived social presence and telepresence affect both social and emotional value of symbolic goods, individual self-presentation motivation affects only social value. Besides, anonymous users in the virtual world show behaviors that differ with non-anonymous ones.