Social Psychology

Immersive virtual environment technology can greatly aid our understanding of social influence, social interaction and other areas of research in social psychology. This technology allows researchers to test theoretically-based hypotheses and maintain complete control over a variety of factors in the social situation, from the physical appearance of the virtual world to the behavior of virtual others in the world.
This degree of experimental control is not accompanied by the usual decrease in the realism of experimental settings that are associated with traditional research methods. By allowing researchers to increase the realism of social situations, this technology also promises to enhance the generalizability of results obtained in experiments to the real world. Furthermore, virtual environments can also be used to implement "impossible" experimental manipulations such as changing the physical (i.e., skin color) and social (i.e., gender) identity of research participants. Finally, what we learn about social interaction by using this technology may be used to enhance the realism and utility of immersive environment technology.

Current Projects

Persuasiveness of Computer Agents

Rosanna Guadagno, James Blascovich, and Jeremy Bailenson are conducting research to determine the conditions under which individuals can be persuaded by virtual human computer agents. The first study examined the impact of gender of the computer agent and the degree of behavioral realism exhibited by the computer agent. The results indicated that people show an in-group favoritism effect. That is, both male and female participants were more persuaded when the computer agent was the same sex. Further research on this topic is currently being conducted.

Risk-Taking and Conformity

In a another line of research, Kim Swinth and James Blascovich are examining Risk Taking and Conformity using a virtual blackjack casino. In a current experiment, participants play blackjack in a virtual casino - alone and then with other players who are described as being either real (represented by an avatar) or virtual. The purposes of this research are to: 1) assess the value of using virtual environments as a methodological tool in social psychology by attempting to replicate common social psychological effects (e.g., conformity and choice shifts); and 2) determine the elements that are necessary to produce a state of social presence (i.e., the belief that one is in the presence of other, sentient beings while in the virtual environment).

Collaborative Virtual Environments

James Blascovich, Jack Loomis, Andrew Beall, Jeremy Bailenson, Alex Dimov, Rosanna Guadagno, and Matthew Turk are interested in the experience of social presence as well as task performance within shared virtual environments. They are developing a series of paradigms in which several individuals can interact in real-time within a shared, collaborative virtual environment. Specifically, these researchers seek to to: 1) learn more about the nonverbal behaviors that occur during collaboration, and 2) selectively augment and decrement these nonverbal behaviors in order to provide the interactants with novel tools during interaction. In other words, by selectively rendering behaviors that were not actually performed, or alternatively by not rendering  behaviors that were in fact performed, immersive virtual environments allow for conversational strategies that are not possible in face-to-face interactions or videoconferencing. We are examining the effect of implementing these novel strategies.

Immersive Virtual Violent Video Games

Susan Persky and James Blascovich are exploring the impact of violent video game play experience in IVET. In these studies, participants play a gun-based violent video game either on a desktop platform or using IVET. Aggressive outcomes are assessed via self-report, behavioral, and cardiovascular physiological measures. Studies explore the mechanisms, particularly presence in the game environment, that mediate the relationship between playing platform and presence. Also under investigation are other factors that should influence this relationship, such as player characteristics and game content. This line of research attempts to uncover and examine any increasingly negative outcomes stemming from the rise of IVE game play technology.

Social Responses to Non-Social Interaction

Investigations by Eyal Aharoni, Andrew Beall Jeremy Bailenson, Alex Dimov, and Rosanna Guadagno measure the influence of interactive media modalities on social attribution in non-social interaction.  The current experiment targets whether people will demonstrate social etiquette behavior toward a computer tutorial and a book tutorial.  Secondly, it gauges whether these behaviors will carry over to other modalities -- specifically, will people regulate the personal space of their tutor if it embodies a new form such as a virtual agent?