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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Stanford experiment shows that virtual superpowers encourage real-world empathy

Giving test subjects Superman-like flight in a virtual reality simulator makes them more likely to exhibit altruistic behavior in real life, Stanford researchers find.

By Bjorn Carey
The Stanford Report
Originally published January 31, 2013

If you give people superpowers, will they use those abilities for good?

Researchers at Stanford recently investigated the subject by giving people the ability of Superman-like flight in the university's Virtual Human Interaction Laboratory (VHIL). While several studies have shown that playing violent videogames can encourage aggressive behavior, the new research suggests that games could be designed to train people to be more empathetic in the real world.

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"It's very clear that if you design games that are violent, peoples' aggressive behavior increases," Bailenson said. "If we can identify the mechanism that encourages empathy, then perhaps we can design technology and video games that people will enjoy and that will successfully promote altruistic behavior in the real world."

The entire article is here.

Thanks to Ed Zuckerman for a lead on this article.