A Virtual Reality Embodiment Technique to Enhance Helping Behavior of Police Toward a Victim of Police Racial Aggression

Abstract

There is an alarming level of violence by police in the US towards African Americans. Although this may be rooted in explicit racial bias, the more intractable problem is overcoming implicit bias, bias that is non-conscious but demonstrated in actual behavior. If bias is implicit it is difficult to change through explicit methods that attempt to change attitudes. We carried out a study using virtual reality (VR) with 38 officers in a US police department, who took part in an interrogation of an African American suspect alongside an officer who was racially abusive towards the suspect. Seventeen of the participants witnessed the interview again from a third person perspective (Observer) and 21 from the embodied perspective of the suspect, now a victim of the interrogation (Victim condition), having been assigned randomly to these two groups. Some weeks later all witnessed aggression by an officer towards an African American man in a virtual cafe scenario. The results show that the actions of those who had been in the Victim condition were coded as being more helpful towards the victim than those in the Observer condition. We argue that such VR exposures operate at the experiential and implicit level rather than the explicit, and hence are more likely to be effective in combating aggression rooted in implicit bias.

The use of virtual reality in studying prejudice and its reduction: A systematic review

“…The negative affect condition in this methodologically sound study was implemented as virtual passers-by displaying negative facial expressions, staring right at the participant, and changing direction to avoid participants. Whereas Kishore et al [ 72 ] reach opposite conclusions, it is worth pointing out that their trial had a significantly smaller sample size, which makes those findings less reliable. We will next examine potential target-specific effects of VR contact more thoroughly, and then move to mediators and moderators of the effect of VR contact on prejudice in section 4.2.4.…”

“…The results of the studies that adopt a minority perspective as a strategy to reduce prejudice (k = 36) are similarly mixed. For example, a randomised controlled trial exclusively targeting police officers [ 72 ] analysed participants’ behavioural responses after being embodied in a Black suspect that was abused by another police officer, and eventually found greater helping behaviour up to one month after the VR experience. Banakou et al [ 73 ] also show that experiencing the world from the minority outgroup’s (i.e.…”

“…However, there is also evidence that both intergroup contact [ 56 , 72 ] and embodiment in an outgroup avatar [ 74 , 77 , 78 ] in VR can successfully be used to decrease racial bias. Furthermore, evidence by Hasler et al [ 56 ] and Hasson et al [ 48 ] suggests that the effect of VR contact is not specific for interracial attitudes, but can also improve in other, critical intergroup conflict situations: both studies showed that Jewish Israelis’ attitude towards Palestinians could be improved using VR.…”

“…The previously mentioned study by Banakou et al [ 82 ] shows that negative contact conditions when embodying a Black avatar and the associated affective reaction can be one explanatory factor for this effect. On the other hand, Kishore et al [ 72 ] find that being embodied in a Black avatar targeted by discriminating behaviour leads to greater helping behaviour. Finally, two trials using either embodiment in an outgroup avatar [ 90 ] or 3D videos of an interaction with a Middle Eastern man [ 59 ], fail to find any improvement in intergroup attitudes compared to the control group.…”

The Golden Rule as a Paradigm for Fostering Prosocial Behavior With Virtual Reality

“…Another study that used the same paradigm was concerned with aggression of police against a Black suspect during an interrogation (Kishore et al, 2021). The participants in this experiment were police officers in an inner-city police department in the United States.…”