Hasler Béatrice S, Spanlang Bernhard, Slater Mel
Sammy Ofer School of Communications, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Israel.
Experimental Virtual Environments (EVENT) Lab for Neuroscience and Technology, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
PLoS One. 2017 Apr 24;12(4):e0174965. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0174965. eCollection 2017.
People generally show greater preference for members of their own racial group compared to racial out-group members. This type of 'in-group bias' is evident in mimicry behaviors. We tend to automatically mimic the behaviors of in-group members, and this behavior is associated with interpersonal sensitivity and empathy. However, mimicry is reduced when interacting with out-group members. Although race is considered an unchangeable trait, it is possible using embodiment in immersive virtual reality to engender the illusion in people of having a body of a different race. Previous research has used this technique to show that after a short period of embodiment of White people in a Black virtual body their implicit racial bias against Black people diminishes. Here we show that this technique powerfully enhances mimicry. We carried out an experiment with 32 White (Caucasian) female participants. Half were embodied in a White virtual body and the remainder in a Black virtual body. Each interacted in two different sessions with a White and a Black virtual character, in counterbalanced order. The results show that dyads with the same virtual body skin color expressed greater mimicry than those of different color. Importantly, this effect occurred depending on the virtual body's race, not participants' actual racial group. When embodied in a Black virtual body, White participants treat Black as their novel in-group and Whites become their novel out-group. This reversed in-group bias effect was obtained regardless of participants' level of implicit racial bias. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this surprising psychological phenomenon.
与种族外群体成员相比，人们通常对自己种族群体的成员表现出更大的偏好。这种“内群体偏见”在模仿行为中很明显。我们倾向于自动模仿内群体成员的行为，而这种行为与人际敏感性和同理心有关。然而，与外群体成员互动时，模仿行为会减少。尽管种族被认为是一种不可改变的特征，但利用沉浸式虚拟现实中的身体体验，可以让人们产生拥有不同种族身体的错觉。先前的研究使用这种技术表明，白人在黑人虚拟身体中进行短时间的身体体验后，他们对黑人的隐性种族偏见会减少。在此，我们表明这种技术能有力地增强模仿行为。我们对32名白人（高加索人）女性参与者进行了一项实验。一半参与者被赋予白人虚拟身体，其余参与者被赋予黑人虚拟身体。每个人都以平衡的顺序在两个不同的环节中与一个白人和一个黑人虚拟角色进行互动。结果表明，虚拟身体肤色相同的二元组比肤色不同的二元组表现出更大的模仿行为。重要的是，这种效应取决于虚拟身体的种族，而不是参与者的实际种族群体。当白人参与者被赋予黑人虚拟身体时，他们会将黑人视为新的内群体，而白人则成为新的外群体。无论参与者的隐性种族偏见程度如何，都能获得这种内群体偏见的反转效应。我们讨论了这种惊人的心理现象的理论和实际意义。
