Perspective-Taking in Virtual Reality and Reduction of Biases against Minorities

Abstract

This study examines the effect of perspective-taking via embodiment in virtual reality (VR) in improving biases against minorities. It tests theoretical arguments about the affective and cognitive routes underlying perspective-taking and examines the moderating role of self-presence in VR through experiments. In Study 1, participants embodied an ethnic minority avatar and experienced workplace microaggression from a first-person perspective in VR. They were randomly assigned to affective (focus on emotions) vs. cognitive (focus on thoughts) perspective-taking conditions. Results showed that ingroup bias improved comparably across both conditions and that this effect was driven by more negative perceptions of the majority instead of more positive perceptions of minorities. In Study 2, participants experienced the same VR scenario from the third-person perspective. Results replicated those from Study 1 and extended them by showing that the effect of condition on ingroup bias was moderated by self-presence. At high self-presence, participants in the affective condition reported higher ingroup bias than those in the cognitive condition. The study showed that in VR, the embodiment of an ethnic minority is somewhat effective in improving perceptions towards minority groups. It is difficult to clearly distinguish between the effect of affective and cognitive routes underlying the process of perspective-taking.

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

“…Banakou et al [ 73 ] also show that experiencing the world from the minority outgroup’s (i.e. Black people) perspective improves attitudes towards that group, and so do Peck et al [ 74 ], Salmanowitz [ 75 ], Christofi et al [ 76 ], Chen et al [ 77 , 78 ], Chowdhury et al [ 79 ], Tong et al [ 53 , 80 ], and Zhang et al [ 81 ]. However, other studies contest these findings by showing that intergroup contact experienced from the minority perspective does not necessarily have any effect on intergroup attitudes.…”

“…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.…”

“…When it comes to prejudice-reducing interventions, evidence emerges that the positive effect of VR contact is due to emotional mediators, such as feeling more closeness to the prejudiced target [ 76 ] and perceiving them as warmer [ 58 ]. Empathy has also been found to be a mediator of VR contact when it comes to embodying an outgroup member [ 77 ]. Furthermore, Hasler et al [ 102 ] interestingly show that feelings of presence in VR had a mediating effect on the negative affect toward the majority ingroup, when experiencing a conflict scenario from the outgroup’s (minority) perspective.…”

“…Additionally, two studies investigated social identification as a moderating variable on the effects of embodying an outgroup avatar. Chen et al [ 77 ] show that participants generally placing greater importance on their various group memberships show stronger intervention effects, namely greater increase in self-other overlap with the embodied ethnic outgroup. Starr et al [ 54 ] suggest that higher identifiers with the embodied avatar experience greater decrease in intergroup bias.…”

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

“…By contrast, sixteen studies enacting bias-reducing interventions exclusively used explicit measures. A considerable number of them found a decrease in prejudice following embodiment in an outgroup member [52,53,[76][77][78]80,92]. Two studies by Peña et al [71] and Steltzmann et al [70] conversely found increased levels of prejudice after engaging in virtual intergroup contact with an outgroup member, and Hadjipanayi and Michel-Grigoriou [83] and Kalyanaraman et al [84] obtain similar results through embodiment of an outgroup member.…”