The virtual cure for real-world prejudice? Secondary transfer effects of intergroup contact in virtual reality

The secondary transfer effect (STE) of intergroup contact posits that contact with one social group may reduce prejudice not only towards contacted but also non-contacted groups. Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to facilitate intergroup contact on a large scale, but its effectiveness in generating the STE of intergroup contact has not been studied before. In two pre-registered studies conducted in Finland and Italy, we examined whether cooperative (positive) contact in VR between participants' White avatar and an avatar representing a person with African ethnic background had an extended effect on more positive attitudes towards other non-contacted minority groups. Study 1 (N = 53) revealed that positive contact with a Black avatar in VR decreased explicit prejudice towards secondary non-contacted outgroups (Middle Eastern people, Muslims, homosexual people, individuals with intellectual disabilities, and immigrants) via attitude generalization but not via intergroup anxiety. Study 2 (N = 132) expanded the design of Study 1 by including a competitive (negative) contact situation to test the STE of both positive and negative contact in VR. The findings of Study 2 showed a trend towards improvement in explicit attitudes towards one secondary outgroup (East Asian people) for positive contact as compared to negative contact. Overall, our findings show the potential of VR contact to alleviate generalized prejudice through the STE of positive intergroup contact. However, caution must be exercised, as competitive activities in VR are common and may have detrimental effects on intergroup attitudes. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.