title: Putting yourself in the skin of a black avatar reduces implicit racial bias.
abstract: Although it has been shown that immersive virtual reality (IVR) can be used to induce illusions of ownership over a virtual body (VB), information on whether this changes implicit interpersonal attitudes is meager. Here we demonstrate that embodiment of light-skinned participants in a dark-skinned VB significantly reduced implicit racial bias against dark-skinned people, in contrast to embodiment in light-skinned, purple-skinned or with no VB. 60 females participated in this between-groups experiment, with a VB substituting their own, with full-body visuomotor synchrony, reflected also in a virtual mirror. A racial Implicit Association Test (IAT) was administered at least three days prior to the experiment, and immediately after the IVR exposure. The change from pre- to post-experience IAT scores suggests that the dark-skinned embodied condition decreased implicit racial bias more than the other conditions. Thus, embodiment may change negative interpersonal attitudes and thus represent a powerful tool for exploring such fundamental psychological and societal phenomena.
authors.affiliation: Universitat de Barcelona, Event Lab, Facultat de Psicologia, Campus de Mundet - Edifici Teatre, Passeig de la Vall d'Hebron 171, 08035 Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: tpeck@cs.duke.edu.
authors.forename: Tabitha C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Peck
authors.forename: Sofia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Seinfeld
authors.forename: Salvatore M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Aglioti
authors.forename: Mel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Slater
mesh_terms: D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D063505:Racism / Q000523:psychology*; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: Body ownership; Embodiment; IAT; Implicit Association Test; Racial bias; Virtual environment; Virtual reality