The assistant professor of marketing explains in a Computers in Human Behavior article how the use of avatars in a social virtual world can help individuals alleviate the anxiety of contracting the coronavirus.
Smaraki Mohanty, assistant professor of marketing in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, identifies a novel coping strategy for strengthening individuals’ psychological resilience against the pandemic in the latest issue of Computers in Human Behavior.
In the article “,” Mohanty, along with co-authors Iman Paul of Clarkson University and Rumela Sengupta of University of Illinois at Chicago, explain their research studies show a significant beneficial effect of representing oneself via an avatar in a social virtual world (SVW) on the psychological resilience towards contracting COVID-19.
“This effect is explained by the disembodied (i.e., out-of-body) experience one encounters in the SVW by digitally representing oneself via an avatar, which enables SVW users to project themselves onto a character in a parallel world that is immune to the COVID-19 virus,” the authors write, “thus alleviating the anxiety of contracting the virus themselves in the real world.”
The authors’ findings make a strong case for marketing computer-simulated games like SVWs as virtual therapy tools.
Prior to joining Ƶ in August 2021, Mohanty taught at Binghamton University, where she earned her doctorate. Her scholarly interests include human-machine interaction, consumer behavior, social media marketing and digital analytics.
Computers in Human Behavior is dedicated to examining the use of computers from a psychological perspective. The journal addresses both the use of computers in psychology, psychiatry and related disciplines, as well as the psychological impact of computer use on individuals, groups and society.