Effect of imagine-self and imagine-other virtual reality perspective taking tasks on affective empathy and prosocial behaviors
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The present investigation examined whether there are differential effects on empathic concern, personal distress, and prosocial behaviors based on the type of virtual reality perspective taking (VRPT) task employed, and explored the underlying mechanism mediating the effect of VRPT tasks on prosocial behaviors. Participants performed either an imagine-self VRPT task (i.e., imagined how they would think and feel if they were in the target's situation as they virtually experienced the target's situation), an imagine-other VRPT task (i.e., imagined what the target thought and felt as they virtually experience the target's situation), remained objective during a VRPT experience, or did not complete a VRPT task at all. Results from three planned contrasts revealed any type of VRPT is more effective at eliciting empathic concern, personal distress, and prosocial behaviors than not completing a VRPT task at all. Results also showed that participants who remained objective during a VRPT experience reported lower levels of personal distress but similar levels of empathic concern compared to the VRPT conditions. Additionally, participants who remained objective performed a similar proportion of prosocial behaviors, but only when the effort required to perform the prosocial behavior was low. Moreover, the final contrast revealed that participants who performed an imagine-self VRPT reported higher levels of personal distress, believed the world to be less just, and performed more prosocial behaviors requiring more effort than participants in the imagine-other condition. Mediation and moderation analyses revealed that personal distress mediated the relationship between type of VRPT task and prosocial behaviors while empathy moderated the relationship between personal distress and prosocial behaviors. However, this was only true when the prosocial behavior required high empathic effort. These results suggest that a combination of both subcomponents of affective empathy are necessary to motivate participants to perform effortful prosocial behaviors
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2020; ©2020 |
| Publication date | 2020; 2020 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Herrera, Maria Fernanda |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Bailenson, Jeremy |
| Thesis advisor | Bailenson, Jeremy |
| Thesis advisor | Hancock, Jeff |
| Thesis advisor | Reeves, Byron, 1949- |
| Thesis advisor | Zaki, Jamil, 1980- |
| Degree committee member | Hancock, Jeff |
| Degree committee member | Reeves, Byron, 1949- |
| Degree committee member | Zaki, Jamil, 1980- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Communication. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Maria Fernanda Herrera Carlos |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Communication |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2020 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2020 by Maria Fernanda Herrera
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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