Do People Matter? Presence and Prosocial Decision-making in Virtual Reality

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) simulations with virtual characters have been increasingly deployed to understand context-based human behaviour. The current study investigated the effects of perceived agency of the other players, who were either (human-controlled) avatars or (computer-controlled) agents, on the player's overall presence levels (with 3 subscales of spatial presence, involvement, and realism). We also tested the relationship between the player's perception of the agency of the other players, in-game prosocial behaviour (voluntary behaviour to help other players) and their own real-life prosocial traits. 32 university students played a VR game with agents, but half the participants were told they were playing with avatars (an experimental deception). The group who were told they were playing with other humans had higher overall presence than the group who knew they were playing with agents, due to increased spatial presence and involvement. While there was no direct link between the player's perceived agency of the other players and their own in-game behaviours, higher prosocial scores increased their chance of helping the other players in the agent group. Overall, this study suggests that multi-player VR experiences (or those purported to be multiplayer) lead to greater influence on people's psychological and behavioural reactions over singleplayer experiences.

Advancing prosociality in extended reality: systematic review of the use of embodied virtual agents to trigger prosocial behaviour in extended reality

“…Participants who embodied the ability to fly showed better helping behaviour, which facilitated subsequent helping behaviours in the real world (Rosenberg et al, 2013). On the other hand (Wei and Bramwell-Dicks, 2022), demonstrated that people's virtual behaviours are influenced by their personality traits and the perceived agency of the other players. Given the different embodiment of the VCs used, as discussed above, it is difficult to compare the results observed.…”

“…While the observed context-sensitivity of prosocial behaviours poses challenges for the creation of a unified theoretical framework, this also opens new questions for future research as it highlights the dynamic interplay between situational factors and prosocial actions. Recognising the influence of individual traits and environmental factors, as research suggests (Davis et al, 1999;Wei and Bramwell-Dicks, 2022), we can now envision interactive environments and EVAs tailored to guide and nudge individuals toward prosocial choices. This aligns with findings that spontaneous cooperation is more likely in individuals with a prosocial orientation (Mischkowski and Glöckner, 2016), suggesting that by shaping the interactive environment, prosocial inclinations can be encouraged (Brian, 1999).…”

“…For instance, research has shown that taking the perspective of EVAs can influence human behaviour, with participants behaving more altruistically towards robots when they adopt the help-receiver view (Hang et al, 2022) and can enhance closeness and empathy experiences in VR games (Ho and Ng, 2022;Kambe and Nakajima, 2022). Notably, the perceived agency of other players in immersive environments, whether human-controlled avatars or computer-controlled EVAs, can also influence prosocial decision-making (Wei and Bramwell-Dicks, 2022).…”

“…Frontiers in Virtual Reality frontiersin.org perspective-taking in VR influences prosocial behaviour towards VCs through an altruistic VR task that allows participants to experience the task from the help-receiver and help-provider perspective. However, a study by (Parra Vargas et al, 2022) revealed that while avatars enhance empathy in certain contexts, their effectiveness varies across different scenarios, such as collaborative decision-making (Felnhofer et al, 2018;Wei and Bramwell-Dicks, 2022). examined how dynamics of interaction between the agent and the avatar conditions within VR influence prosocial actions (Kothgassner et al, 2017).…”

“…Eight studies analysed situations in which the aim was to induce prosocial actions toward EVAs. The type of help provided to EVAs included helping an avatar (Wei and Bramwell-Dicks, 2022;Lopez-Faican and Jaen, 2023), social interaction (Felnhofer et al, 2018), helping pick up pencils (Kothgassner et al, 2017), and presence (Litvinova et al, 2023). Interaction with a virtual robot includes volunteering to complete a task for a robot (moving cubes) (Chenlin et al, 2023) and saving a robot (Ho and Ng, 2022).…”