Breaking Bias With Virtual Reality: A Game-Changing Experiment

Using avatars and immersive experiences to tackle explicit and implicit prejudice.

Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

Key points

• Virtual reality (VR) creates a unique space for meaningful intergroup interactions, helping to reduce biases.
• Cooperative tasks in VR are more effective than competitive ones in improving attitudes toward minorities.
• VR impacts implicit and explicit biases alike, highlighting its versatility.

Prejudice and discrimination touch every corner of society, shaping the daily lives of marginalized groups worldwide. Whether it’s racial bias, cultural divides, or gender inequalities, these issues often stem from fear of the unknown and a lack of meaningful interactions with people who are different from us. Researchers have found that positive intergroup contact is one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice. But how do we study these interactions in a world where social fragmentation seems to be on the rise? Enter virtual reality (VR).

In a recent study, we explored how VR’s immersive technology could help foster understanding between groups. By creating virtual environments where people could interact, we investigated how these experiences might change attitudes—both explicitly (what we consciously believe and express) and implicitly (the automatic biases we carry).

Studying Intergroup Contact in Virtual Reality

VR offers a unique chance to create controlled, meaningful interactions between groups. Unlike in-person setups, where variables can be hard to manage, VR lets researchers design custom environments and scenarios. In this study, conducted in Finland and Italy, we tested two scenarios: In one, participants cooperated with avatars representing members of a racial minority; in the other, participants competed against these avatars.

The participants, all members of the ethnic majority, embodied avatars that resembled themselves. They were paired with either a Black avatar (intergroup contact) or a white avatar (intragroup contact) during the virtual activities. These interactions played out in team-based games, either fostering collaboration or competition. Afterward, we assessed their attitudes toward Black individuals using two tools: surveys for explicit attitudes and tests for implicit biases—subtle, automatic associations we might not even be aware of.

What Did We Discover?

The results were fascinating and underscored the complexity of tackling prejudice:

1. Explicit Attitudes: In Finland, participants who cooperated with an avatar representing a Black person reported warmer feelings toward Black people in general. However, this shift in explicit attitudes wasn’t observed in the Italian sample.
2. Implicit Bias: In Italy, cooperation with an avatar representing a Black person had a significant effect on reducing implicit biases. This change was particularly noteworthy because it occurred without any notable shift in participants’ explicit attitudes, emphasizing the ability of VR to influence subconscious biases.
3. The Effect of Competition: Competitive interactions did not have the opposite effect, but attitudes remained unaffected.

Why This Matters for Fighting Prejudice

This study demonstrates that VR isn’t just for futuristic entertainment—it’s a powerful tool for social change. But like any tool, its effectiveness depends on how it’s used.

• Cooperation Is Key: When participants worked toward shared goals with avatars from different groups, it broke down barriers. Cooperation encouraged people to see each other as equals, promoting teamwork and reducing biases.
• Implicit vs. Explicit Bias: One of the most intriguing findings was how implicit and explicit biases responded differently. Explicit attitudes—what people openly express—are easier to shift, but subconscious biases require deeper, repeated positive interactions. VR is uniquely suited to deliver immersive experiences with the ability to tackle both.

Looking Ahead: The Role of VR in Reducing Prejudice

The potential for VR in schools, workplaces, and community programs is enormous. Imagine students teaming up with avatars representing people from different backgrounds to solve virtual challenges or employees using VR to collaborate in scenarios that break down cultural barriers. These experiences could help foster empathy and reduce biases in ways that traditional methods often fail to achieve.

But there’s a catch: Simply putting people in VR isn’t enough. The type of interaction, the goals of the activity, and even the design of the avatars all play critical roles in determining whether the experience succeeds or backfires. Careful planning and a commitment to fostering positive, cooperative experiences are essential. By creating spaces where people can connect and collaborate without the pressures of real-world prejudices, VR holds the potential to reshape how we think and feel about others.

Whether in classrooms, boardrooms, or social programs, VR is a reminder that understanding and connection—real or virtual—are the keys to breaking down prejudice. This technology could help us rewrite the narrative of bias, one immersive experience at a time.