The Golden Rule as a Paradigm for Fostering Prosocial Behavior With Virtual Reality
Abstract
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.
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Action Editor: Robert L. Goldstone
Editor: Robert L. Goldstone
Editor: Robert L. Goldstone
References
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Banakou D., Slater M. (2014). Body ownership causes illusory self-attribution of speaking and influences subsequent real speaking. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 111(49), 17678–17683. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1414936111
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
Botvinick M., Cohen J. (1998). Rubber hands ‘feel’ touch that eyes see. Nature, 391(6669), 756. https://doi.org/10.1038/35784
Google Scholar
Chartrand T. L., Bargh J. A. (1999). The chameleon effect: The perception–behavior link and social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(6), 893–910. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.6.893
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de Vignemont F. (2011). Embodiment, ownership and disownership. Consciousness and Cognition, 20(1), 82–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2010.09.004
Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
Hasler B., Spanlang B., Slater M. (2017). Virtual race transformation reverses racial in-group bias. PLOS ONE, 12(4), Article e0174965. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174965
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Kishore S., Spanlang B., Iruretagoyena G., Szostak D., Slater M. (2021). A virtual reality embodiment technique to enhance helping behavior of police toward a victim of police racial aggression. PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality, 28, 5–27. https://doi.org/10.1162/pres_a_00339
Google Scholar
Kross E., Ayduk O. (2017). Self-distancing: Theory, research, and current directions. In Olson J. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 55, pp. 81–136). Elsevier.
Crossref
Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
Milgram S. (2009). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. Harper Perennial Modern Thought. (Original work published 1974)
Google Scholar
Mischkowski D., Kross E., Bushman B. J. (2012). Flies on the wall are less aggressive: Self-distancing “in the heat of the moment” reduces aggressive thoughts, angry feelings and aggressive behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(5), 1187–1191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.03.012
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
Pan X., Hamilton A. F. de C. (2018). Why and how to use virtual reality to study human social interaction: The challenges of exploring a new research landscape. British Journal of Psychology, 109(3), 395–417. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12290
Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
Singer M. G. (1963). The Golden Rule. Philosophy, 38(146), 293–314. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031819100058290
Google Scholar
Slater M. (2009). Place illusion and plausibility can lead to realistic behaviour in immersive virtual environments. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1535), 3549–3557. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0138
Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
Sutherland I. E. (1965). The ultimate display. In Kalenich W. A. (Ed.), Information processing 1965: Proceedings of IFIP Congress 65 (Vol. 2, pp. 506–508). Spartan Books.
Google Scholar
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Google Scholar