"Which I is I?"

Trawling the web for interesting stuff on cyberspace deception, I hit what appears to be a bit of a goldmine :) This site: http://deception.crimepsychblog.com/?p=242

which is run by a group of people who collate information on psychological studies of deception (per se) has a wealth of links to research on cyber-crimes and personal deception on the internet.

Of particular interest, I thought, (given that last week we were dsicussing whether 'online personae' that differ, often quite radically, from our offline self were always fraudulent or were, sometimes, valid representations of aspects of 'true' self) was the article on the front page. It seems that when we're wearing an avatar, deception is less 'painful' i.e. induces less guilt.

Makes you think about the extent of deception in the 3D graphical wrolds, like SL, eh?

It also makes you think, though, about the nature of (menchanisms of effect or psychological process involved in) online persona creation; the results of the 'avatar and guilt over deception' study seem, to me, to suggest that whether the virtual you represents facets of 'actual' / 'true' / 'aspirational' self ...or whatever!....there is an element of dissociation associated with 'being' online. A superficial fragmentation of 'self' and dissociation into 'me' (here) and 'that online person' (there). It certainly helps explain the more toxic behaviours that our online selves commit...fairly guilt-free.