Relationships With a Byte? Attraction, Interaction and Intention For Avatar Use on a Retail Website

Little information exists on the relationship between avatar attractiveness and other evaluations over repeated interactions with the avatar. We report on a two-year longitudinal study of avatar attractiveness effects on ratings of friendliness, social competence, parasocial interaction, trust and intentions. The results indicate a persistent advantage of attractiveness for ratings of sociability, similarity and relationship quality over time but this is not reflected in the influence of attractiveness on trust or usage intentions. Higher perceived attractiveness may offset the effects of negative evaluations of behavior on decisions to discontinue use.