The effects of positive and negative intergroup contact in virtual reality on outgroup attitudes: Testing the contact hypothesis and its mediators

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) expands the opportunities for meaningful intergroup contact, surpassing the perceived naturalism and emotional salience of other online contact experiences. By embodying an avatar of ingroup characteristics, one can interact with outgroup members in a shared virtual space while maintaining a high sense of body ownership and copresence. Two studies conducted in Finland ( N = 53) and Italy ( N = 134) assessed the impact of intergroup contact in VR on implicit and explicit attitudes towards Black people. Utilizing the VR app AltspaceVR, participants were immersed in a virtual environment as White avatars to play an interactive game with another player represented as a Black (intergroup contact) or White avatar (intragroup contact). In Study 1, the avatars played the game as a team to win against other teams. The participants’ attitudes were assessed both pre- and postcontact using questionnaires and the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to either cooperate (play as a team) or compete (play against each other) in the game. The IAT and explicit attitudes were measured postcontact. The findings from both studies revealed that cooperative contact with a Black avatar led to improved attitudes towards Black people. While Study 1 demonstrated an improvement in explicit attitudes, Study 2 demonstrated positive effects of contact at the implicit level exclusively. Additionally, the positive impact of contact on implicit attitudes was observed following cooperative, rather than competitive, intergroup interactions.