Avatar Exposure and Strategic Coordination in Virtual Reality: Evidence from a Threshold Public Goods Experiment

TL;DR

This study shows that brief avatar exposure in VR enhances perceived co-presence and strategic coordination in threshold public goods games, leading to more efficient collective action without increasing individual contributions.

Contribution

It provides causal evidence linking avatar-based social representation to presence and coordination outcomes in VR, advancing design insights for collaborative digital platforms.

Findings

Avatar exposure increases perceived co-presence.

Avatar exposure improves strategic coordination and social welfare.

VR presence predicts task performance more strongly than co-presence.

Abstract

Digital platforms increasingly support collective action initiatives, yet coordinating geographically dispersed users through digital interfaces remains challenging, particularly in threshold settings where success requires critical mass participation. This study investigates how avatar-based social representation in Virtual Reality (VR) influences coordination in threshold collective action problems. Through a randomized controlled experiment with 188 participants organized in 94 pairs, we examine whether brief avatar exposure affects perceived co-presence and coordination outcomes in a two-player threshold public goods game implemented as a real-effort recycling task. We manipulate a single design feature: participants either briefly interact through avatars before the main task (Pre-Task Avatar treatment) or complete an equivalent activity individually without peer visibility (No Pre-Task Avatar treatment). Our findings reveal that minimal avatar exposure significantly increases perceived co-presence and improves strategic coordination, though not through increased contribution quantity. Participants exposed to peer avatars achieve higher social welfare by coordinating to avoid wasteful over-contribution beyond the threshold. Additionally, we identify VR presence-the sense of 'being there' in the virtual environment-as a stronger predictor of task performance than co-presence itself. This research contributes to Information Systems theory by establishing causal pathways from specific design features to presence to coordination outcomes, demonstrates VR as a rigorous experimental methodology for IS research, and provides actionable insights for designing collaborative platforms supporting sustainability initiatives and threshold collective action problems.