In recent years, an increased demand for improving mental health and well-being led to developing procedures capable of enhancing positive experiences. One highly attractive candidate for evoking positive experiences is Virtual Reality (VR), as VR enables users to experience various situations in controlled and safe environments. This overview first investigates how positive emotions, well-being and VR are interconnected. Then, an overview about how and why to induce positive emotions in adult users is provided. Methodological and ethical considerations about VR technology, measurements of VR’s efficacy and user characteristics are reviewed. It emerges that VR is efficient in inducing positive emotions across the adult lifespan and in various settings. Levels of immersion, interactivity, Virtual environment contents, sensory modalities involved and users’ characteristics emerged as key determinants for successfully inducing positive emotions with VR. The main applications of positive VR experiences consist in using VR for relaxation, stress and pain management, motivation for physical activities, and gives promising results for apathy treatment in elderly users. Although VR is efficient in eliciting positive emotions and experiences, the underlying operating mechanisms remain unclear and are yet to be further investigated. Finally, the need for a user-centered approach when designing positive VR experiences, clear guidelines for the use of VR, and a better documentation of its potential adverse effects are addressed.

Immersive technologies, such as Virtual Reality (VR), have great potential for enhancing users' emotions and wellbeing. However, how immersion, Virtual Environment contents, and sense of presence (SoP) influence emotional responses remains to be clarified to efficiently foster positive emotions. Consequently, a total of 26 participants (16 women, 10 men, 22.73 ± 2.69 years old) were exposed to 360-degree videos of natural and social contents on both a highly immersive Head-Mounted Display and a low immersive computer screen. Subjective emotional responses and SoP were assessed after each video using self-reports, while a wearable wristband collected continuously electrodermal activity and heart rate to record physiological emotional responses. Findings supported the added value of immersion, as more positive emotions and greater subjective arousal were reported after viewing the videos in the highly immersive setting, regardless of the video contents. In addition to usually employed natural contents, the findings also provide initial evidence for the effectiveness of social contents in eliciting positive emotions. Finally, structural equation models shed light on the indirect effect of immersion, through spatial and spatial SoP on subjective arousal. Overall, these are encouraging results about the effectiveness of VR for fostering positive emotions. Future studies should further investigate the influence of user characteristics on VR experiences to foster efficiently positive emotions among a broad range of potential users.