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

2021 ◽  
pp. 096372142110469
Author(s):  
Mel Slater ◽  
Domna Banakou
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Implicit Attitudes ◽  
Golden Rule ◽  
Helping Behavior ◽  
Ethical Principle ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Positive Form ◽  
Negative Form ◽  
Virtual Body

The Golden Rule of ethics in its negative form states that you should not do to others what you would not want others to do to you, and in its positive form states that you should do to others as you would want them to do to you. The Golden Rule is an ethical principle, but in virtual reality (VR), it can also be thought of as a paradigm for the promotion of prosocial behavior. This is because in VR, you can directly experience harm that you inflicted or were complicit in inflicting from the embodied perspective of the victim. This use of what we refer to as the Golden Rule Embodiment Paradigm (GREP) relies on participants in VR having the illusion of body ownership over a virtual body. In this article, we introduce virtual embodiment and the consequent illusion of ownership over the virtual body, and describe how this phenomenon has been utilized to influence implicit attitudes. We then introduce the GREP and give examples of studies in which it enhanced helping behavior.

scholarly journals The “embreathment” illusion highlights the role of breathing in corporeal awareness

2020 ◽  
Vol 123 (1) ◽  
pp. 420-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Monti ◽  
Giuseppina Porciello ◽  
Gaetano Tieri ◽  
Salvatore M. Aglioti
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Immersive Virtual Reality ◽  
Visual Appearance ◽  
Body Location ◽  
Specific Position ◽  
Embodied Agent ◽  
Corporeal Awareness ◽  
Virtual Body

Recent theories posit that physiological signals contribute to corporeal awareness, the basic feeling that one has a body (body ownership) that acts according to one’s will (body agency) and occupies a specific position (body location). Combining physiological recordings with immersive virtual reality, we found that an ecological mapping of real respiratory patterns onto a virtual body illusorily changes corporeal awareness. This new way of inducing a respiratory bodily illusion, called “embreathment,” revealed that breathing is almost as important as visual appearance for inducing body ownership and more important than any other cue for body agency. These effects were moderated by individual levels of interoception, as assessed through a standard heartbeat-counting task and a new “pneumoception” task. By showing that respiratory, visual, and spatial signals exert a specific and weighted influence on the fundamental feeling that one is an embodied agent, we pave the way for a comprehensive hierarchical model of corporeal awareness. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Our body is the only object we sense from the inside; however, it is unclear how much inner physiology contributes to the global sensation of having a body and controlling it. We combine respiration recordings with immersive virtual reality and find that making a virtual body breathe like the real body gives an illusory sense of ownership and agency over the avatar, elucidating the role of a key physiological process like breathing in corporeal awareness.

scholarly journals Virtual body ownership and its consequences for implicit racial bias are dependent on social context

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 201848
Author(s):  
Domna Banakou ◽  
Alejandro Beacco ◽  
Solène Neyret ◽  
Marta Blasco-Oliver ◽  
Sofia Seinfeld ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Black People ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Short Exposure ◽  
White Female ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Implicit Racial Bias ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Virtual Body

When people hold implicit biases against a group they typically engage in discriminatory behaviour against group members. In the context of the implicit racial bias of ‘White' against ‘Black' people, it has been shown several times that implicit bias is reduced after a short exposure of embodiment in a dark-skinned body in virtual reality. Embodiment usually leads to the illusion of ownership over the virtual body, irrespective of its skin colour. Previous studies have been carried out in virtual scenarios that are affectively neutral or positive. Here, we show that when the scenario is affectively negative the illusion of body ownership of White participants over a White body is lessened, and implicit bias is higher for White participants in a Black virtual body. The study was carried out with 92 White female participants, in a between-groups design with two factors: BodyType (their virtual body was White or Black) and a surrounding Crowd was Negative, Neutral or Positive towards the participant. We argue that negative affect prevents the formation of new positive associations with Black and distress leads to disownership of the virtual body. Although virtual reality is often thought of as an ‘empathy machine' our results suggest caution, that this may not be universally the case.

Harm, Consent, and Virtual Selves in Full-Body Ownership Illusions: Real Concerns for Immersive Virtual Reality Therapies

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 585-591
Author(s):  
MARIA BOTERO ◽  
ELISE WHATLEY
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Domestic Abuse ◽  
Violent Offenders ◽  
Innovative Technology ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Immersive Virtual Reality ◽  
Ethical Research ◽  
Harmful Effects ◽  
Full Body ◽  
Virtual Body

AbstractThis paper analyzes in the use of virtual reality when used to induce full-body ownership in violent offenders in order to elicit empathetic feelings by allowing them to embody the virtual body of a victim of domestic abuse. The authors explore potentially harmful effects to individuals participating in this kind of therapy and question whether consent is fully informed. The paper concludes with guidelines for ethical research and rehabilitation using this innovative technology.

scholarly journals Visuo-tactile Congruency influences the Body Schema during Full Body Ownership Illusion

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Rubo ◽  
Matthias Gamer
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
The Body ◽  
Movement Behavior ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Tactile Information ◽  
Explicit Measures ◽  
Full Body ◽  
Virtual Body

Previous research showed that full body ownership illusions in virtual reality(VR) can be robustly induced by providing congruent visual stimulation, andthat congruent tactile experiences provide a dispensable extension to an alreadyestablished phenomenon. Here we show that visuo-tactile congruency indeed doesnot add to already high measures for body ownership on explicit measures, butdoes modulate movement behavior when walking in the laboratory. Specifically,participants who took ownership over a more corpulent virtual body with intactvisuo-tactile congruency increased safety distances towards the laboratory’s wallscompared to participants who experienced the same illusion with deterioratedvisuo-tactile congruency. This effect is in line with the body schema morereadily adapting to a more corpulent body after receiving congruent tactileinformation. We conclude that the action-oriented, unconscious body schemarelies more heavily on tactile information compared to more explicit aspects ofbody ownership.

scholarly journals Virtual Body Ownership Illusions for Mental Health: A Narrative Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 139
Author(s):  
Marta Matamala-Gomez ◽  
Antonella Maselli ◽  
Clelia Malighetti ◽  
Olivia Realdon ◽  
Fabrizia Mantovani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Clinical Care ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Narrative Review ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Body Ownership ◽  
Surrounding Environment ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Clinical Conditions ◽  
Virtual Body

Over the last 20 years, virtual reality (VR) has been widely used to promote mental health in populations presenting different clinical conditions. Mental health does not refer only to the absence of psychiatric disorders but to the absence of a wide range of clinical conditions that influence people’s general and social well-being such as chronic pain, neurological disorders that lead to motor o perceptual impairments, psychological disorders that alter behaviour and social cognition, or physical conditions like eating disorders or present in amputees. It is known that an accurate perception of oneself and of the surrounding environment are both key elements to enjoy mental health and well-being, and that both can be distorted in patients suffering from the clinical conditions mentioned above. In the past few years, multiple studies have shown the effectiveness of VR to modulate such perceptual distortions of oneself and of the surrounding environment through virtual body ownership illusions. This narrative review aims to review clinical studies that have explored the manipulation of embodied virtual bodies in VR for improving mental health, and to discuss the current state of the art and the challenges for future research in the context of clinical care.

Lacking status hinders prosocial behavior among the powerful

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (9) ◽  
pp. 1547-1560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yeri Cho ◽  
Nathanael J. Fast
Keyword(s):  
Low Power ◽  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
High Power ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Helping Behavior ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Full Time ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Interpersonal Helping ◽  
Power Hierarchy

We conducted 2 studies to examine if status has varying effects on prosocial behavior for those at different levels of the power hierarchy. In Study 1 (N = 78), adults employed full-time in the USA responded to an online survey and the results showed that self-perceived power and status interacted to predict prosocial behavior. That is, lacking status led high-power, but not low-power, individuals to engage less in prosocial behavior. In Study 2 (N = 142), we orthogonally manipulated status and power and measured prosocial behavior. Once again, lacking status led to less helping behavior among high-power, but not low-power, participants. These findings show how power and status interact to influence interpersonal helping behavior. Implications for future research on social hierarchy and prosocial behavior are discussed.

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