Embodied virtual reality training: a new pathway to reduce racial implicit bias and enhance empathy

Diversity training functions as a key initiative for HR departments aiming
to successfully manage ethnic diversity. It intends to facilitate positive
intergroup interactions, reduce prejudice and discrimination, and provide
the competencies needed for employees to interact with diverse others.
However, its inability to reduce biases towards racialised groups and
facilitate empathic abilities has impacted its effectiveness. Technological
innovations in embodiment virtual reality can provide a cost-effective
and efficient alternative to diversity training. By embodying the
experiences of an ethnic minority worker in an immersive VR setting, it
has the potential to increase empathy and reduce implicit racial bias
towards diverse groups (Banakou et al., 2016). The proposed research
aims to design and evaluate the effectiveness of an embodied virtual
reality diversity intervention on empathy and implicit racial bias among
healthcare practitioners using a mixed method approach i.e., focus
groups and a randomised control trial. For the intervention, participants
are randomised into an 'embodied-White' or 'embodied-Black' condition
to assess, using multivariate ANOVA, SEM and path analyses, whether
scores on the Cognitive and Affective Empathy scale and Racial Implicit
Association Test change from pre- to post- intervention and at 1-week
follow up. With support from KCL's TIDES study, the VR and CSI Lab, this
project will pioneer approaches to global diversity management.