Empathy and Virtual Reality

  • Fealy, S. (Other)
  • Donovan Jones (Other)
  • Michael Hazelton (Other)
  • Justin Leiby (Other)
  • Jamie Nelson (Other)

Activity: Engagement and professional development › External research and teaching › Academic

Description

The purpose of this project is to develop, implement, and test a virtual reality (VR) tool that immerses users in a first-person experience as a member of another race. The tool is utilising a virtual reality program called "conflict resolution, Angry Stan" built by researchers and technical innovators at the University of Newcastle Australia. This immersive experience is likely to improve users’ awareness of their own implicit racial biases which, in turn, increases users’ empathy and inclusive practices in organizations and society. Moreover, the project will illuminate for users the social construction of race goal by creating multiple immersive experiences (e.g., Black, recent immigrant) and randomly assigning users to an experience. Importantly, users will not know the race to which they’ve been assigned and must instead infer it from the treatment they receive. We believe that this work will contribute to the ongoing institutional and societal efforts to address issues of systemic racism and social injustice.
Period2020 → 2023