Using a virtual reality role-playing game to enhance interaction dynamics and improve social attitudes toward transgender people

Abstract

Abstract While virtual reality (VR) interventions have demonstrated efficacy in reducing intergroup prejudice, they have yet to be applied to transprejudice. Accordingly, we developed a VR role-playing game (RPG) that integrates perspective-taking and intergroup-contact for transgender identities. We evaluated the RPG’s impact on cisgender individuals’ movement dynamics and social attitudes toward transgender people using a mixed experimental design, in which 162 participants embodied a self-customised transgender avatar and interacted with a cisgender or transgender virtual colleague. Empathy increased throughout the interaction, consistent with mediating the relationship between virtual embodiment and post-session gender essentialism, but only those partnered with a transgender colleague reported increased within-session interpersonal affiliation. Aligning with shifts in empathy, participants’ postural dynamics became less constrained and more complex over time, although women adapted more readily to the RPG than men. Taken together, our findings highlight the potential value of simulated interactions that promote rapport-building between cisgender and transgender individuals.