Projecting Yourself Onto Others

Projection. A couple of times I've encountered this concept in passing. I guess the idea is that when you interract with someone in SL, you project yourself onto them intellectually and emotionally, and they "become" what you want them to be. To you. Or perhaps they become an aspect of you. Even though they are driven by a real person at the other end, you can never really know that person in detail, so you fill in the blanks with aspects of your own personality.

Then interesting things can happen. You can form a relationship with them (with yourself?). Fall in love with, or submit to, as examples.

Is this an accurate description of the idea? Can anyone clarify or talk about it deeper? Do you think it really happens? Is it healthy? Can we help it?

And as a related thought which I ran into: if our interactions in SL are at least partially with "ourselves", are we really being social? Or are these environments actually isolating?

Even if you're aware of the effect, can you avoid it? Yes, I did a search and found a similar topic, and noted that one person claimed that they don't project. Obviously they aren't objective (though they could still be right about themselves). Can one avoid it? How? I mean, besides avoiding people altogether.

This is what I do 85% of my online time.

Hey Love,

Very interesting topic. I'm not sure if I have any answers for you, but I suspect that I most likely do project some of myself onto others.

At least that would explain why I only seem to meet the nicest people in SL.

I have never heard of this for SL, but I have in RL. I would love to explain more about my views on the subject, but I'm at work and can not get too deep on the topic. I don't think that everyone naturally projects themselves onto people and I do not look at it as a form of social activity. Projecting yourself onto someone generally, IMHO, creates a negative response not a positive one.

The brain fills in the missing information. There is a TON of missing information regarding the RL person behind the avatar. So yes, I project constantly, both here and inworld.

Isn't that filling in the blanks? I don't really look at that as the same thing as projecting....interesting.

It's filling in the blanks, but you have to find something with which to fill in the blanks.
Your own being is a rich source.
Your own fears are another source.

True

Yes! Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I've brought this up many times, when people try and tell me they 'know' someone online. Someone they've never met, and know nothing about other than what they've been told. We inescapably project our own mental attributes and vision of these people--it's the same way we do with reading a character in a book. Even though the writer explains in detail about the character, in the end, we the reader create the character.

Same goes for SL. This is why online relationships, a lot of the time, can never work the same they do in a virtual world. Crossing over can be a harsh kick in the face.

I have to agree with stormy on this one, filling in the gaps is not necessarily the same as projection.....filling in the gaps is something that exists solely in your own mind, where as true projection has an actual affect on the other person in the way they act and/or talk.

for example......projection is one of the abilities attributed by some (not necessarily myself) to vampyres, it is supposed to be one of the ways in which they can control their victims, making them not fight back against an attack.

Hmmm. Well, that's completely different than what I thought.

So that raises another question then. Did I ask about something legitimate, but used the wrong terminology? Or am I full of crap?

My philosophy is to take avatars at face value. We can't really know the truth about RLs behind them. Published RL identities and even photos might be fake.

That doesn't stop me wondering about the RLs, but I try to avoid doing so.

/me gets a running start and projects himself onto Love with a giant tacklehug!

Is that what you meant? No? Like when Fred Flintstone comes home and Dino projects himself onto him?

Seriously, I think we do this a lot more than we think. I'm guilty. It's how our minds work. We take our past experiences and our own views and outlooks and assign them to other people based on how they act or look or whatever little information we can glean from them. We do it in RL as much as we do in SL, though. The variables are different because we can see them and make projections on our own personal biases and prejudices, but we still project.

One of the problems with the human mind is that it doesn't work well in a void. The ability to make accurate decisions on partial information is rare. We fill in the blanks and project our own personality onto people because our minds need that information to work right. Sometimes we're wrong. Maybe it's intuition. Maybe when you hear that someone is a "good judge of character" they're just good at filling in those blanks.

Hell, I don't know. It makes sense, I guess.

I do believe the terminology is wrong.......what you are describing isn't what I consider projecting. But hey, who would know unless they asked right?

The flip side of this coin is how we may modify our own reactions and behaviors to suit the company we are in..

Some do this more, some less...but we all do it to one degree or another.

SL may amplify this behavior, especially considering the limitless variety of AV's one can choose to portray...an animal, a robot, a god/goddess, a bum...

If one projects onto an avatar, and the person behind the avatar acquiesces to play their part, isn't this the essence of role play?

It is completely different than I thought too, because I usually "project" positive attributes onto others, not negative. So I guess I am filling in the gaps with my own fanciful thinking and not projecting onto others.

I don't think so. People are who they are and nothing you try to become will change them.
You may meet someone who is similar to you and you happen to hit it off. But it's not going to happen with everyone. No matter how you try to come across it doesn't mean others will respond as you want them to.

As I go back and read some of the responses here all I can say is I'm seeing a lot of over-optimistic views. Do you really think you can change others just by projecting your "mental attributes and vision" on them? By projecting how nice you are? Maybe in a fantasy world you may. Oh, wait. Sl is a fantasy world is it not? And does it work here? No it doesn't, does it? Not even in a virtual world does it work and you believe it also works in rl? Talk about over-optimism.

Some of you kill me with your way of being. I wish it was really as you believe but unfortunately it's not, not in the real world. Here you have to deal with reality and reality stings, hurts and is nothing as you believe. But keep on believing as you do.

A fascinating question.

Disregarding the question of terminology for the moment.

The use of text as a communication tool, while having obvious strengths and merits, may also have some interesting side-issues.

Many people when reading, may sub-vocalise.

In other words............when you are writing to me..... I am reading your words "aloud" in my mind.

After, a good amount of time doing this, I may start to get the feeling...." Wow.......this person knows me as well as I know myself........... It is like I have known this person forever........they seem so utterly familiar to me." etc , etc

Your words........my voice.....it is not surprising that the "tone" of your voice sounds familiar, when I am hearing my own voice read the words.

I am not saying using voice inworld or skype, does not carry its own layers of projections..........but this text based route to feelings of intimacy, is certainly an interesting phenomonon.

Well, I'm going to speak to the question Love posed, and talk about projection afterwards.

I think a lot of folks, perhaps the majority of us, are in SL for wish fulfillment. A place where you don't have to age, where you're goodlooking by default, where the baggage from your life doesn't exist? Wonderful!

And I think Raymond and others on this thread are astute in noting that we know SO little about the avatars we meet. It's tough to overestimate the amount of information we fill in just by seeing a person.

So, yes, I think we constantly "make up" huge parts of the persons we meet in SL. For me, that difficult and delicate game of discovering the real personality behind the veils of SL visuals and what I've made up is a big part of the fun of SL. And, once one discovers the personality, we still don't truly know them ... after all, we still probably know little about the context in which they live RL, the limitations imposed on their expression of their personality ...

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Projection: A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, whereby that which is emotionally unacceptable in the self is rejected and attributed (projected) to others. (Medical Glossary online)

This is what I always understood projection to be, and it is inline with the Wikipedia article cited. It's less interesting than what Love brought up, tho I'm sure it happens as constantly in SL as it does in RL.

Ray, you could have directed that towards me. I'm not taking offense. Projecting positive.......generally isn't projecting onto another person. I really think you guys are talking more along the lines of assumptions and perhaps even suggestion rather than projection.

I was not projecting anything but good intentions onto you so I didn't bother.

Then I misunderstood.........cause your comment was quite related to one of my statements..........

I apologize for misunderstanding.........

I think we're bound to make assumptions about other people based on our knowledge of ourselves. "If she's looking at the sky she must be seeing the same blue I am" or "He must like chocolate because it tastes so good." "If she says this, she must be feeling that."

Yes, this is also how I understand and use the word so the question and some comments have me a little confused. I'm sure I fill in the blanks in RL and SL, but project (as how it has been explained in the OP's question), I don't know that I do.